The Inner Critic (Episode 4)

Brent and Janis Sharpe, licensed therapists, give insights on talking back to negative thinking that keeps us from flourishing in life

This podcast should not be considered or used for counseling but for educational purposes only.

Transcript:

[Brent]: Hello, welcome to Life & Love Nuggets. We're glad that you're here. We enjoy being with you each time we do this. We are talking today a little bit, about kind of a little bit of a reoriented perspective on what we talked about last week. Last time we talked about what we call the 90:10 lie, which affects all of us in our attitude that we have towards really anything in our life. We've started talking about this, how we focus on our spouses and we still appreciate it and love them and, in the very beginning, we thought we found everything that we were ever looking for, which again, is impossible when you're marrying a human. But over time, it's easy to focus on the small part of what they don't have or that part of the strengths that they have that, you know, there's a little bit of extreme of their strengths that kind of drives us crazy and so, we talked about how do we not let ourselves get focused on the 10%, that part that they don't have or that we don't like and lose sight of the 90% and how this can affect us in how we see our children, how we see our jobs, how we see even our churches and all relationships and so, today we're taking a little bit of a spin on that and how do we think about ourselves.

[Janis]: You know, as humans we all have that negativity bias, but we do tend to turn that on ourselves; we can become more critical of ourselves than anyone else. You know, I say if we talk to other people the way we talk to ourselves, nobody would be around us.

[Janis]: Because we are really hard on ourselves and very critical and so, we want to talk about that some today and it's-- In this time, in early January, everybody is setting their New Year's resolutions. So, a lot of people are like “oh, if I could just lose that 10 pounds” or “maybe this is the year I’ll finally get my act together with my finances” or “I gotta get my house more organized”. All of those can be good goals, but if we're not careful, we can use those as negative things against us and then shame starts to creep in. So, it's not just “I need to get more organized”, it's “I’m a bad person because I am not organized”.

[Brent]: Which is the definition of shame, right?

[Janis]: Exactly

[Brent]: It's that something's bad about me, instead of I do some things that are not so good or not so healthy. It's something is bad about me and there's something deeply wrong about me.

[Janis]: Uh huh, and just like we talked about 90:10 lie, you know, our spouses have a small percentage that we may not like.

[Brent]: Small, very, very small.

[Janis]: Well, in your case it's like minuscule, it's hard for me to even come up with anything, but even though they may have a small thing that we don't like, we have to be careful we don't focus on that. But we have to do that with ourselves, because we don't often give ourselves credit for the good things we do, we pick on ourselves for the things that we're not happy with and again, that's where shame comes in and that's where we start to get this “I’m a bad person”. I'm good or bad, I can't tell you how many clients I’ve had over the years that have said-- They'll tell me something and then they'll go “does that make me bad? Do you think I’m bad?”. I think we've all got that child within us that it's like “am I a bad kid or a good kid?”.

[Brent]: Yeah, it's very much the difference between what I call the two C's, which is the difference between Conviction and Condemnation. They come from two totally different sources, they have two totally different purposes and we have to recognize the difference. Now, both of these are going to come at us. One of these is condemnation, which we would-- That's similar to the description of shame, which is “you call yourself a Christian and you did that? You had those thoughts? Or there's something just wrong with you or bad about you?”. We believe that that comes from the opposite of the source of life in the world, the opposite of God's influence in the world and that really kill-- Comes to kill, steal and destroy. It really paralyzes us; it says there's something wrong with you. I mean, one of the challenges that we have with shame is that-- In condemnation, is we've had well-meaning people in our life use this to try to manipulate us, to try to get us to be good boys or girls and--

[Janis]: And we've probably used it too.

[Brent]: Yeah, and so, because we've had well many people do this, whether it's parents or pastors or teachers or coaches or whoever it is, we think “well, maybe that's what God thinks about us”.

[Brent]: But conviction is a totally different thing, it comes from a place of God's love for us, which is fixed. It's “there's nothing that you could ever do that would make me not love you”. I mean, this is what would come from the heart of God and that's fixed, that's absolutely-- You couldn't earn more of my favor and/or more of my grace, you couldn't do anything bad that would cause me to not love you, but this that you're doing is not productive for you, it's not helpful for you, it's not the way I’ve designed you've so that you would thrive and so, let's not do that. Let's turn, which conviction, the purpose for conviction is just owning it and acknowledging it, confession and then repentance, which is “I’m changing my mind. Instead of going this direction, I’m going to turn a corner and go this direction”. That's the whole purpose of the heart of God, is that we actually just become healthier and that we change and that we-- And that we live more into who we've been designed to be.

[Brent]: And so, both of those come at us. One of those is paralyzing, which is shame, which is “there's something bad about you and you're never going to be good enough and you're not right” and the other is “yes, you're doing some things that aren't best for you, aren't healthy, let's work on those”. We want to welcome that voice in because that is healthy, it's productive, it's life-giving. We want to listen to that voice, it's the David prayer “Lord search my heart. If there's something that's not quite right, help me to see this and help me to do something different”.

[Brent]: We certainly want to welcome that voice in, but that's different than “I’m bad” and it's so easy for us to think towards ourselves in shameful ways.

[Brent]: That we think that we're not good enough or we've messed up and somehow, we're never going to be good enough and that's what we want to talk about going into this new year, is how do we make sure that we don't listen to that voice and that lock us down and paralyze us?

[Janis]: And some of it is voices from our past, a lot of it is cultural. I mean. we have this pressure to be perfect in our culture, there's so much stress on us to do everything well. A lot of times when I’m working with clients, I will talk about good lists, that we have good lists in our brain of what good people do, you know? “Good people exercise this much, good people give this much to a cause” and then, you add good women, good men. “Good wives always make sure they do this and this and this and this. Good Mothers do this and this and this”. We have these all of these lists of wives, mothers, sisters, brothers, everything. Parents of school-aged children, you know, “how were your Christmas gifts to the teachers this year?”. You know, there's all of these things and the problem is, it is literally impossible to meet everything on every list and sometimes it's impossible within the same list.

[Janis]: So, I always use the story or the example of, when the kids were little, I always wanted to have like, warm cookies, warm chocolate chip cookies when they came home from school. Didn't get it done that much, but I always wanted that, that was what good mothers did and so, I would make them chocolate chip cookies and then while they were eating them, I felt so guilty because good mothers didn't give their kids that much sugar and fat.

[Brent]: Nutritious.

[Janis]: And so, then I’d go “okay. Well, I’ll have apples for them”. Well, then when they ate apples, it would be like “well, who wants to come home to apples after school? You want cookies when you come home”. So, there's all of these expectations that we have and we end up beating ourselves up and saying we're bad, when we've really put impossible standards before ourselves.

[Brent]: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so these come from all kind of places and I think one of them is that, we deal with some fears in our life that are-- That really kind of come out of core beliefs or core values, you know? Two of the ones that I see people struggling with so often, is that my value is based on how I perform. That if I perform at a certain level, then that means I’m valuable. If I don't perform at that level, then there's something wrong with me and the other is what people think about me, you know? “Do people like me and do they think that I’m good?” and so, we're striving to try to meet these expectations and if that is our core belief, that my value is based on those things, I can tell you this is going to be a rough ride as a life, because there's no way first of all, that you can please everybody.

[Brent]: You're going to try to make this person happy, and then they're going to change on you the next day and decide they want something different and performance, if we perform at this level and we think we've got to just go to the next level and the next level and the next level and if that's what we're basing our sense of self on, then we're never going to be fully satisfied in that and so, the-- Not surprised that we base our sense of value on those things, because this is how our culture is designed. I mean, we've all gone to schools where you get A's and B's and C's and you get red ribbons and blue ribbons and yellow ribbons and we all know that the blue ribbon is the best, and if I got A's or if I got the blue ribbons and my name would get in the program at the end of school, my parents would be happy with me, my teachers would like me and so, we've-- We're in this world or we live kind of chasing those things and then, that creates some fears in us that if I’m not accepted, then there's something again wrong with me or if I don't perform at a certain level, then there's something wrong.

[Brent]: And so, I think we have to look at those core values and where those come from and “is that true?” and recognize “wait a second, that's not true, that's not how God designed us to get a sense of value in our life” and that I’m valuable because I’ve been made in His image. I’ve been made to be a reflection and each of us, each person, our value in life does not come from what people think of us or how well we perform, it comes from the fact that I’ve been made in the image of God. This is always such a wonder to me, that every single human that's ever been has a unique thumbprint, a unique eye impression. Therefore, you are the only you that's ever been, you're the only you that will ever be and so, you reflect a part of God, the potential is for you to reflect a part of God that's never been reflected before, that's never really been seen in the world. That's why it's so important that we are fully alive in who we are.

[Brent]: And so, if we get hung up on trying to please people or trying to perform at certain levels, it's going to be paralyzing to us and so, we have this-- Again, we have this core sense of beliefs, out of our beliefs we think, out of our thinking we feel, out of our feelings we act and so, if my core belief is my value is based on what other people think of me or how well I’m performing, so I’m gonna-- I’m in a staff meeting with co-workers and my boss asked me if I got a report done and I didn't get it done and I should have got it gotten it done, but I didn't get it done and-- But I’m afraid of what he's going to think, I’m afraid of what these people are going to think and so, I don't quite tell the truth. I “yeah, I gotta finish, but I hadn't quite sent it to you yet or something” or “I didn't-- You know, I went ahead and got it finished--”.

[Brent]: But our value in life does not come from how we perform or how we please people, it just-- Is never going to be satisfying. Our value comes from the fact that we've been made as a unique image bearer of the nature of God and that's so fascinating to me, that we all have a unique thumbprint, an eye impression and every single person that's ever been, you're unique in that way. So, you're the only you that's ever been or ever will be and so, your potential is to reflect a part of the nature of God that's never been seen in the world and so, if we get hung up with these core beliefs based on lies, then it's going to be paralyzing, we're not going to really express God in his full nature. But that's where we get our sense of value from, because he's imprinted that in us and so, we can't work to please him better, we can't-- If we mess up, it's not gonna-- He's not gonna stop caring for us, we don't lose our sense of identity.

[Brent]: So, if a guy is in a staff meeting and his boss asked him if he got a report done and I know I didn't get the report done, but what's the boss going to think of me? What are these people going to think of me? And I think I won't quite tell the truth, yeah.

[Janis]: If my worth is based on what they think of me.

[Brent]: Absolutely, I’m gonna say “yeah, I got that done” and then I’m gonna race back to my office right after the meeting, get it all done real fast and get it sent off and maybe even send a little email that says “oh gosh, it got stuck in my outbox” or you know, make some kind of silly, you know, statement.

[Brent]: I’m gonna lie, because the way this works is we have a core set of beliefs. Out of our beliefs, we think, out of our thinking, we feel and, on our feelings, we act. So, if my core value is based on what other people think of me, if that's my core belief. Then my boss asked me in the meeting did I get the report done, my thinking is going to be “I’ve got to make them happy”. My feelings are going to be I’m going to be stressed, I’m going to feel anxious and be fearful and I’m going to act in an unhealthy way. I’m gonna lie.

[Brent]: If my value is based on the fact that I have this intrinsic value outside of what people think of me and outside of my performance, my boss could ask me the same question and I didn't get the report done and my thinking is going to be “oh, didn't get it done”. I’ll wonder “I’m going to have to work on that and get, you know, the report sent on time or why didn't I get that done?”. I’m going to be much healthier thinking my feelings are going to be less stress, less fearful and I’m going to tell the truth regardless of the consequences, because I’m not based on the fact of whether my boss is happy with me on whether I tell the truth or not.

[Brent]: And so, some of this sense of self comes out of we're believing lies, we're believing things that are not true, because we're trying to live our life based on things that are not true and so, a huge part of us getting a better sense of self, a better focus on self, is reminding ourselves of the truth of who we have been created to be.

[Janis]: Uh huh, and it's really looking at what are our core beliefs and the culture that we're in and probably all cultures, it's really easy to base our worth on what's acceptable in our culture and a lot of it has to do with this-- At this time in our culture, is doing things that are big or doing things that are special. You know, we can't just do something for it being normal, it has to be over the top. It's-- You know, influencers are so important right now, which is great, we're getting so much out of it, but we've done so much remodeling over the last like five or six years in different buildings and it’s amazing how many people go “oh, you should have had it recorded so you could have a TV show”.

[Janis]: So, the fact that we did it wasn't enough, it's-- It was for us, but it's that idea of “it should be bigger than that” or even “you should be making money off of it”.

[Brent]: Off of it, yeah.

[Janis]: Yes, absolutely. I mean, we had the same thing with-- This summer we wrote a book, we were in Scotland and we wrote a book about puffins. I give our friends--

[Brent]: A children's book, yeah?

[Janis]: A children’s book about puffins, “Puffy, the unusual little puffin” and puffy jumped in our backpack and came home with us to meet our grandchildren. So, we wrote this book for our grandchildren and we had it printed for them. I wrote it, and he did all of the pictures the photography in it. But it's amazing how many people will see it, pretty much everybody I’ve seen or I’ve shown it to, we'll see it and they'll go “oh, you need to get this printed and sell it somewhere!”. Like, it's not enough to do it for our grandchildren, it's got to become something big and I think we put pressure on ourselves that we have to do something large, where oftentimes it's small things that have an impact that we're not even aware of.

[Janis]: So, I think about when-- You've heard this story over and over again, but probably some of you guys have too, but when I was in high-- When I was in Middle School, there was a high school boy and he would come to the skating rink every Friday night and I would go there and he would sit in a snack bar and he would read his bible out loud, for anybody that wanted to come and listen. Well, I was too cool to go and listen and so, I would stand around the corner and I would listen to what he was saying and if any friends would come by, I’d act like I was fixing my skate, but I was fascinated by him doing this and that began my journey of faith. That began to get me interested in God and in the bible and I thought about that man that, you know, probably is in his 70s now and I’ve thought about him and I thought “does he ever look back now and go ‘boy, that was stupid I did that when I was in high school’" or does he think “gosh, have I done anything significant in my life because I’m just this?” and he has no idea the impact that it had on my life and--

[Brent]: My life, yes.

[Janis]: Your life and our kids’ lives and probably other people's lives, because I came to faith through that. So, we have to be careful to not assume that we only do big things and those things are what make us worthwhile.

[Brent]: And so, all of these filters on how we criticize ourselves and think in not healthy ways about ourselves, come from all different sources. Again, some of you did not have parents that really spoke life over you and encourage you and let you know that you were valuable regardless of how well you performed at school or how your grades were or this that or the other, or you didn't have coaches or teachers or principals that spoke that into you and so, we get trapped in kind of the human way that we get our values and get our sense of self. You know, one of the things I came across several years ago, some of you are interested in the Enneagram, it's kind of become a new thing in our culture. It's actually an old thing, but people are a lot more aware of it now.

[Janis]: it’s come around again.

[Brent]: Come around again. It's a kind of a personality profile and we don't know exactly how all this works, how much of this is nature versus nurture, how much of the this is embedded in us at birth, how much of this is kind of formed. We all think it's both to a certain extent and I know that I was kind of naturally orderly and structured as a child, when I was born and created; I think that's in my DNA. My dad was Colonel in the Army, a wonderful man that did everything precisely and everything orderly and so, it kind of nurtured my natural orderliness into hyperdrive and so, become-- You know, challenged in my life that things don't have to be perfect all the time, but I identify the story I live into is, if you're familiar with the Enneagram as a 1, with a kind of a 9 wing, but a mainly a 1 and it's a reformer, it's I like things to become new, I like to hope things become better and it's why I like remodeling. I like to take an older house and remodel it into new, I like to-- That's why I’m a counselor, it's why I’m kind of even doing this process probably, is hopefully some people are going to catch some things and it's going to help them.

[Brent]: But one of my challenges, one of the shadow sides that we would call, because all of us have strengths and weaknesses, and one of the things the Enneagram is good at is it helps us identify our shadow, those things that are not as healthy for us. Maybe things that we developed in childhood that were helpful to us, but now as adults aren't so helpful for us and so, one of the challenges I face is not being able to relax, not being able to stop and smell the roses and just really experience the joy of life and I’m always thinking I need to do something better, I need to do things exactly right and if I don't have things completely finished, I need to finish it and so, that's one of the ways that I am not very graceful towards myself. So, we did a complete house overhaul, it was kind of a post empty nest where we kind of going to make it like the way we like it.

[Janis]: Yes, for just us.

[Brent]: Got everybody launched and through college and married and on their way and because I like to do it a lot myself, it took a long time. Bless your heart, it took about a year--

[Janis]: It was just done incredibly well. I used to joke that Brent would never let me paint, because I just kind of did like an impression of painting.

[Brent]: She's an impressionist.

[Janis]: I wanted the colors. Where he did everything perfectly well after a number of years, I’m like “I don't want my painting, I want it painted his way, because his way is always going to be good”.

[Brent]: Yeah. So, anyway, it's really nice, we like it, we love it and there's certain things that it's nice to have, some perfectionists put into.

[Janis]: Yes, absolutely.

[Brent]: I always say that, you know, I’ll love my heart surgeon to be a perfectionist, you know?

[Janis]: And our accountant.

[Brent]: And our accountant to be a perfectionist and so-- But I found myself at the-- I was just almost finished and I just didn't have the time to complete it, I was like 95% finished and-- But I found myself every night coming home going “Brent, just get this done. You know, why haven't you gotten this finished?” and “you could really enjoy it then” and I really felt just this tug, internal tug and it felt like it was the Holy Spirit going “wait a second here, let's put this in proper perspective, okay?” and I felt led to just “just don't finish it right now, just-- You're too busy, just relax and enjoy what you've done already”. Well, at first I thought this was coming from the dark side of course, okay? “Don't finish this”.

[Janis]: For me, which could be the dark side.

[Brent]: Yeah, yeah, and so, I took some time, I think maybe 30 days and I just felt impressed to come home every night and go into one of the different spaces and just sit there for a few minutes, five or ten minutes and just think about what we had done and look out and look at the whole bank of doors that we put on the back of the house and we just-- I love how that looks and how it's all coming together and the light that it lets in and this is such an enjoyable space now and just until you can feel the joy in it and, at first, it was a little hard, it took a little while to shake off the “but over there in the corner I need to finish that”, you know? But I was able to do that and eventually be able to just enjoy this.

[Brent]: And fortunately, I felt led at the end of that to go ahead and finish it; that would have been cruel and unusual.

[Janis]: That's true.

[Brent]: That's true, not let me finish it. But one of the things that my personality has to do is, I have to say “it's okay, it doesn't have to be perfect”. Because even if we get something what we think is perfect, then something else is going to mess up, you know? Enough life is just not perfect and so, I have to learn how to stop and not be hard on myself and “why haven't you finished this, Brent?” and “come on, get this done” and be able to just slow down and think of the good and appreciate and focus on those things, to be able to enjoy the journey of this process and so, one of the things that can help us as we step into this new year is “what's the good?”, you know? And “what are those things about me that are good?”. Sometimes it's really hard for us to do that, we feel like that's kind of being selfish or whatever. But if we've been made in the image of God, then there's good in us.

[Brent]: It's a gift, it's not anything that I do. It's a gift and the more I value that, the more I will be able to express that gift into the world. If I’m always feeling like I’m not doing enough and I’m not good enough and I failed yesterday and I should have done this better, I’m not actually able to be everything that I’m supposed to be in the world and so, one of the things-- Just an action step as we go into this new year is, maybe just what are the things good about you? We talked about the thing-- Writing down the things that are good about your spouse and your children and your work and your church and so forth, but what about you? What are the-- What's the good in you? The way that you reflect the nature of God? Well, and begin to let that soak in you and begin to undo some of the wrong message, the lie message.

[Janis]: The other thing I encourage spouses, I encourage clients to do a lot is to write down at the end of the day “what are five things that I did right?”. Because oftentimes when we're going to sleep, we start thinking about “oh, I didn't do this and I didn't do that”, but if we can write down some things we did right, it reminds us of the good. Because most of us do a lot of right all the time, but we discount those things.

[Janis]: So, really taking an inventory of that, to help you know you are doing some things that are good.

[Brent]: Yeah. One of the things I’ll have people do in regards to the false beliefs that we have, is to take several weeks and, at the end of the day, maybe take two or three minutes and look back on your day and think “where have I had some negative emotion, some negative feelings or I’ve been angry or stressed or fearful or some actions that have not been healthy?”. I yelled at my child or I didn't tell the truth at work or whatever, and begin to look back “what's behind that? What is that lie behind that? Is that I was afraid of getting in trouble? Or I was afraid of people thinking less of me? Or the reason I yelled at my kids at the mall was because I was afraid of what people were going to think about me as a parent and that I didn't discipline my kids well?” and begin to look at those core beliefs that aren't hell-- Aren't coming from a healthy place and be reminded of what the truth is there, that can lead us into a different way of moving forward.

[Janis]: All of us have good in us and it really is focusing some on the good. We're never going to become conceited because of that, there's enough of life that knocks things out of us, but it's focusing on the good that's within us. A number of years ago we came across a book by John Trent called “The Gift of the Blessing” and it talks about how everybody wants that Old Testament concept of the father's blessing and it specifically, it talks about with your children, your spouse, within your family, speaking a positive past, what are some good things about the past? What are good things they did? Or “when you were two years old, you were so darling when you did this and this and this”. A positive present, what are good things about you today? And a positive future, and all of us need that. We need to do it for ourselves, but we also need to deal with those around us and that helps people have that sense of security and value and to really know that they're appreciated.

[Brent]: That's one of the ways that we can set the next generation free.

[Brent]: Is to speak that blessing over them, so that they have a greater capacity to recognize the good in them. Again, it doesn't that we don't receive the correction, we all are going to get need to get corrected. None of us are going to get to a place where we're not making mistakes or whatever, I’m not thriving, but we are in a much better place of receiving that correction from the Holy Spirit and being able to turn our life into a different direction.

[Brent]: So, as we go into a new year, not only think towards the positive in others, but let's take some time and think towards the positive about ourselves. So, that we're graceful to ourselves, so that we can allow the god-- The grace of God that connects with us to flow through us to others. So, go in peace, blessings as you go.