Are you Anti-compassion, Anti-Praise, or Anti-Encouragement?
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Georgie: [00:00:00] This is the breaking up with binge eating podcast, where every listen moves you one step closer to complete food freedom hosted by me, Georgie fear and my team at confident eaters. Earlier this week, I was helping a client come up with ways she could practice utilizing positive reinforcement to boost her behavior change process. We talked about giving herself a pat on the back, or just thinking, go me, when she does something that's in line with her goals. And she said, Georgie, it's just, encouraging myself feels weird.

I wouldn't be surprised if many of you listeners feel exactly the same. But hear me out. The weirder it feels to give yourself praise and encouragement, the more you probably need to do it. [00:01:00] And I want to take a second, To send some love your way along with this message, because if this feels weird, it's probably because you haven't received a lot of kind words or encouragement, especially when you were little.

When people start working with us at Confident Eaters, they often say things to themselves like, Yeah, you did one workout, but you're still out of shape. Or, one healthy meal, great, but next you'll probably blow it and eat candy all day tomorrow. And that's not a very healthy way to think. Cutting yourself down every time you do something positive is certainly not going to make you want to repeat it.

And the same goes for telling you that the thing you've just done is merely a drop in the bucket, inconsequential, not gonna do any good. When you focus on how many miles there are to go, it's disheartening. These tactics also are not going to help you improve. Rather, these lines of thinking keep you stuck in limited runs of healthy behaviors, [00:02:00] punctuated by long periods of quitting on them, because it all feels fruitless.

I've noticed many people express what I'd call anti compassion, anti praise, and anti encouragement. They aren't just low on expressing compassion, praise, and encouragement, they're actively against it. As professional coaches. Mary, Claire, Christina, and I get to watch people morph out of these unhelpful thinking patterns with a bit of work.

And it is a great front row seat to have. As people learn to be nicer to themselves, and they try to encourage themselves rather than put themselves down, they begin to use positive reinforcement like a powerful tool which keeps them going. They become more confident and feel more positive emotions around the healthy behaviors.

Those feelings, in turn, cause those behaviors to naturally become more frequent and consistent. This isn't a matter of [00:03:00] willpower. Things that feel good get done with very little resistance. In fact, we will overcome external resistance in various forms so that we can do a behavior that we think feels good.

Creating positive emotional ripples during and immediately after your desired behavior can be as simple as go me or nice job or simply noticing My body feels so relaxed after doing that. You could also bring to mind that each repetition of a healthy behavior makes it easier and makes you more skilled at doing it in the future.

Doing this may not feel weird at all, in which case, you are probably already fairly good at giving yourself encouragement, compassion, and support. But if it feels kinda weird, I'm gonna encourage you to try it anyway. And if self encouragement feels so bizarre and strange that it's almost unfathomable, this may be the thing you need to do more than anything else.

[00:04:00] If your gut reaction to what I'm saying is resistance, Let's notice that. You learned somewhere that the way you're supposed to speak about yourself, or think about yourself, was not to be proud. You learned to always point out something you could be, or should be, doing better. In my experience, that never good enough, don't you dare be proud of yourself theme started when my clients were small kids.

And once that style of thinking was put in place, much of the encouragement and praise that they receive as adults just falls on deaf ears. I hear my clients discount compliments, ignore recognition, and double down on bathing themselves in the self criticism and warnings against pride that they were raised on.

If your inner dialogue comes from an anti encouragement, Anti praise foundation. You're vulnerable to low self esteem and imposter syndrome. Even as [00:05:00] awards and appreciation flow your way. One woman told me recently that her father was captured by the Nazis during World War II. While he survived and eventually had a family, his ordeal became a benchmark which he used for the rest of his life to compare and invalidate the suffering of others.

When either of his daughters lamented over a lost job, broken heart, or failed test, he would ask, Well, were you captured by the Nazis? This may have been intended to give them some perspective. But in reality, it was profoundly harmful to his family. His daughters, now grown women, struggle with an inner critic who invalidates their feelings at every opportunity.

My client said, she doesn't feel like she deserves to eat, or to take breaks. After all, she may be hungry, but she wasn't captured by the Nazis. Why this woman developed a habit of binge eating candy everyday becomes [00:06:00] crystal clear with this insight into her upbringing. There was no room in her family for voicing emotions or expressing suffering, let alone processing these emotions.

Since she had not in fact been captured by the Nazis, she learned that she should always keep her mouth shut and be tough. Of course, invalidating or suppressing her anguish doesn't heal it, so she developed a habit of binging on candy to get through the day. Candy intermittently blocked out the pain.

The anti compassion that she learned growing up was now her internal primary language. Her inner critic, in other words, had been taught to speak by her parents, just as she had. Here's how to know if you are anti compassion. You believe that complaining is an unattractive and undesirable behavior. No matter how infrequently it happens, and regardless of the causative situation.

When you hear anybody complain, you have the [00:07:00] urge to roll your eyes before anything else. When something bothers you, you don't mention it because what's the point? You simply try to work harder, solve your own problems, and not show any emotion. You also are more reluctant than the average person to accept pain medication, even if you have a really nasty headache or toothache.

You can't explain why, you just feel like you really should manage the pain without medicine. Sometimes, you don't want to give other people assistance, because you think they could probably do whatever it is themselves. So why are they asking you? You function at your normal high level, even when you are tired, sick, or grieving.

And you're proud of that. You fear that asking for help would mean you are weak. When you're feeling pain or suffering, you feel disgusted with yourself if you make any accommodations or adjustments. Here's how to know if you are anti praise when it comes to [00:08:00] yourself. When someone tells you that you did an excellent job, or that they admire your skill, you brush it off.

You may say something like, oh no, it wasn't that good. Or you might just think that. You worry that compliments from other people are generated out of politeness or manipulation. The idea of being proud of yourself seems very foreign. If I gave you ten seconds to name three things you're good at, you have a hard time doing it.

Go.

How'd you do? Was it hard? You remember corrections from your parents, much more frequently than receiving recognition or appreciation from them. It seemed like they always pointed out what you could have done better. You may see many desirable things in other people's work or character, but you rarely or never see strengths in your [00:09:00] own.

You fear that if you feel proud of something you accomplished, you might stop trying so hard or get lazy. You worry that saying something positive about yourself or your work could lead to an overgrown ego or being perceived as conceited and you would hate that. Here's how to know if you are anti encouragement.

You think that other people, in general, People aren't cautious enough and you are often warning your loved ones about what they should be careful of or what could go wrong. You worry that you might make a fool of yourself if you try a new activity, a fun new style of clothes or a different haircut. You try not to get your hopes up.

You have said to other people, don't get your hopes up. You have relatively low confidence in your ability to handle new challenges or unfamiliar situations, so you're hesitant to try new things. Especially if there's going to be a witness or audience. Of the three traits that I just went through [00:10:00] describing, you may find one really resonates with you, or all three sound like you.

And you might have noticed that all of these have fear in common. The anti compassionate inner voice is actually afraid of being a wimp, a crybaby, or a pansy. The anti praise inner critic is afraid of being haughty, conceited, or overly prideful. The anti encouragement voice is afraid of being disappointed or failing, so they exaggerate and focus on the risks of any potential venture.

All of these are defense mechanisms. These are things we do to protect ourselves from things we're afraid of. You've probably heard from many experts, B. J. Fogg, Kristen Neff, and James Clear to start, that being self compassionate is a wise idea, and that it helps cement new habits to give yourself ample praise and encouragement.

But if that repeated [00:11:00] advice feels like it just keeps bouncing off of you, I hope this helps you understand why. Your defense mechanisms may help you feel safe from these specific things, but in reality, it keeps you small. They don't leave room for growth. Putting down your defenses means facing your fears, and I wouldn't be encouraging you to do that unless I thought it was safe and knew you would be better off. Allowing yourself to be more compassionate and encouraging.

Or sprinkling a few words of praise on your own efforts is safe. You will not become an egomaniac. You will not become lazy. You won't decrease your worthiness or toughness. Rather, you will be giving yourself more of the conditions in which you can thrive and grow into your best self. I'm Georgie Fear. If you need help unraveling any of your barriers against health, fitness, or weight loss, Drop me a line, [00:12:00] georgiefear at gmail. com.