Earth Life Writer

Should we treat ourselves as we treat others?

Important note: I am not a self-help guru, a life coach, or anything like that. I’m in no position to tell you what to do or how to live your life. I wrote this chiefly to become less critical of myself. This is simply a collection of my thoughts and opinions. All I know is that writing this helped me, and so I’m sharing it with the world on the off chance it could help you, too.

I’d like to give you an imaginary scenario: I, a stranger, approach you as you’re walking down the street, and I say, “You’re a good-for-nothing loser, a scumbag, and nothing you ever do is of any value to anyone.” Now, sit with that for a moment and think about how you would respond.

People often talk about treating others as we wish to be treated. But how about the ways we treat ourselves? Many of us are reprimanded by our parents as children for being rude or unkind to someone else with lines like, “How would you feel if someone said that to you?” or, “If you were on the receiving end, how would it make you feel?”, which makes it all the more surprising that more of us haven’t turned this idea on its head and asked ourselves, “How would someone else feel if we said that to them?”.

In doing so, we’re empowered to tell that voice that constantly criticises us and drags us down what you probably thought you would say when I insulted you in the first paragraph: “Don’t you ever speak to me like that again!”

Of course, my insult to you was wholly hypothetical. I would never actually insult you like that, but would you?

Oftentimes, we are our own worst critics, and we’re usually far more likely to scold ourselves for our mistakes than anyone else; worse yet, we’re the most likely ones to notice any of our errors or imperfections.

Let me give you another scenario. Your friend comes to your house, and you pour two cups of tea, one for you and one for your friend. You pass an appetising cup of tea to your friend, and they drop it; it smashes, and milky tea spreads all over your brand-new white carpet. Your friend apologises profusely as he/she stands before you and squirms, dreading what’s to come. How would you react?

For most of us, the answer is easy. We’d laugh it off and say, “Don’t worry; it’s an accident. These things happen. No big deal” At the very worst, some of us might call our friends an idiot in jest. But now imagine you dropped it and spilt tea all over the carpet. Would your reaction be the same? For many of us, the answer is no.

Some of us would sharply castigate ourselves by saying something along the lines of, “You f***ing imbecile! For f***’s sake. How could you be so f***ing stupid and useless?”

These situations are both familiar and humdrum. We all occasionally make silly mistakes, but we needlessly berate ourselves for them. But how can we avoid this? The answer may lie in talking to ourselves like we speak to others.

Why don’t we talk to other others in such a harsh and abusive way? Simple. It’s unacceptable. Why would it be any more acceptable to do it to yourself?

Also, if you think you make far more silly mistakes than anyone else, think again. I hate to burst your bubble, but you ARE NOT the world champion of mistake-making. You must notice your mistakes more than anyone else’s because you’re a typical, self-critical human. Suppose you sat around watching someone else’s every move and waiting for them to make a mistake so you could pounce at them with a tirade of degrading and abusive language. In that case, you’d be called one of two things: a bully or a sociopath. So why would you bully yourself like this?

Telling yourself that dragging yourself down like this is simply unacceptable and putting that voice in your head in its place can create more headspace for more positive and/or constructive self-talk and free up so many opportunities for you to a good old laugh at yourself.

It’s quite a paradox. By taking yourself more seriously and keeping your inner critic in check, you simultaneously take yourself less seriously and find great amusement in your silliness.

Another paradox is that we make mistakes because we’re human. Still, we give ourselves such a hard time because we’re human. Being human means that we don’t allow ourselves to be human.

Moving on, let’s address a simple counterpoint against everything written here. Some might say that this article only applies to those of us who care about treating other people with respect and politeness, and to be honest, they’d be right. If you take pleasure in insulting and demeaning others, everything already mentioned will be useless to you.

However, there’s nothing revelatory in saying that those critical of others often have the most criticism reserved for themselves. After all, if you were genuinely at ease with yourself, you probably wouldn’t feel the need to treat people disrespectfully. There’s a saying that goes, “For every finger you point, there are three pointing right back at you.”. This is usually used to talk about people who outwardly blame others for everything. Yet, it’s equally applicable when discussing kindness and politeness.

Therefore, those of us who are rude to others because we don’t like ourselves might benefit from talking more nicely to ourselves, after all. We’d almost certainly treat other people more respectfully, too, so everyone wins.

We often criticise ourselves but don’t hold others to the same impossibly high standards. We also tend to treat others like royalty when compared to ourselves. We really don’t need to do this to ourselves. Let’s finish with one more paradox: as we lower our standards and allow more room for error in our lives, we also raise our standards regarding the respect and dignity we treat ourselves with.