[LISA LEWIS] The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. . Welcome to today’s episode of the Am I Ok? Podcast. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. Thank you so much for tuning in. I would like to remind my listeners that I offer a free eight-week email course titled Highly Sensitive People. My email course provides weekly tools that help you feel more whole in a world isn’t exactly made for us and I show you how your sensitivity can be seen as a unique gift and how many others are just like you. To find out more about my email course, please go to my website, amiokpodcast.com. So the warmer months are ahead with spring in the air. Today I just saw outside my window in my backyard, we have a place that birds come and make nests every year. Today was the first time this year, this spring that the birds are back and claiming their spot to make a nest. So the days are getting warmer and longer days with more daylight. I always appreciate spring. It’s actually my favorite season of the year. I always feel like it’s like about new opportunities, new awakenings and it’s very exciting to me. So today I’m going to talk about how to feel less critical and judgmental of yourself as we start in a new season in spring. Spring can mean new awakening. So let’s look at how to be less critical and judgmental of ourselves as a licensed marriage and family therapist one of the most often things I hear from clients is self criticism. I often hear harsh criticism and judgements about themselves, just how they feel toward another person or how they reacted to a certain situation. They end up beating themselves up about it, leaving them feeling sad, stupid, disgusting, unlovable. These are words I hear often. It’s hard to hear that. It’s also a way of just self-sabotaging ourselves. Also if we look at it through the lens of a highly sensitive person, a highly sensitive person can be highly critical of themselves and they do not need any help from outside sources from the outside world to find flaws with themselves. Because of their sensitivity, they can spot their flaws, their mistakes, their mishaps usually all by themselves. So if you are listening to this and you’re wondering, oh, wow, that sounds like me or somebody I know that does that, let’s take a look at that and how we can help ourselves or help somebody else. So how to be less critical of yourself and how to start loving yourself. I have a couple of examples I want to give you. This is how I work with clients, whether you’re highly sensitive or not. Also I use this for myself. The first one is called making a one degree shift and it’s making a one degree shift in the way you think about yourself or situation. I’m going to give you an example. If you were on an airplane and you were flying from Los Angeles to let’s say New York city and the pilot decides to make a one degree shift in the direction where you’re headed, well, that one degree shift are not going to be landing in New York city anymore. You’re going to be landing somewhere else, let’s say it’s Boston. We can do that with our own way of thinking about certain situations. If we just make a one degree shift in the way that we see things or think about things, then we’ll have a different direction, a different outcome in life. If we are focused in one direction, that can also be like tunnel vision, where we’re so focused on this outcome and that we don’t see other things that, maybe a better decision, a better outcome, that we’re just so focused on this one thing. I’m referring to this self-criticism, self-judgment about ourselves. It gets us locked into the feeling and doesn’t allow other things, other ways of seeing the opportunity or the situation to think of it as a different way. So if we make a slight degree shift in the way we view our mistakes, our mishaps, our flaws, that can change the way we feel about the situation, and that will change the way we feel about ourselves. So give it a try and let me know your thoughts, send me an email. Second way I want to suggest just taking a step back from this situation at hand, whether that is in your mind, just mentally actually seeing yourself in this situation. Let’s say you had an argument with somebody and you’re seeing yourself and the other person having that argument. So what if you were to stop and just take a step back? Maybe it’s more than one step. Maybe you need to take five steps or ten steps back. You can either do this in your mind, or actually literally do it and just be the fly on the wall and just observe yourself in that moment; and just watching yourself. Maybe you’re watching your behaviors, your body movements, the expression on your face, the expression on the other person’s face, how they’re moving their body and just do that without any judgment. Just be that objective observer, just watching the scene at hand and just notice what you’re observing about the situation. If you’re having a lot of emotions come up be it triggers, anger or blame or there’s a lot of tears just give yourself what you need right now. That may be like just some loving kindness, and just get curious about what you notice. As you’re observing yourself, and you may be able to do this in the moment, or you may need to take time off, come back to it the next day. Is there any way in the situation that you would do it differently either now or next time? Think of the next time as an opportunity to do something different, to have a different outcome in the situation. We don’t have to keep beating our ourselves up or beating our heads against the wall to keep repeating what is no longer serving us. These can be this continual pattern. I like to think of it as we continue the pattern and the pattern keeps coming up in our lives because it’s coming up to heal, to do something different, to heal this part of ourselves that is no longer serving us. Life is just hard enough by itself. We don’t have to add to the pressure of measuring up or being critical of ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to start loving ourselves instead of criticizing ourselves. I’m going to add another example, another step that you can do for yourself after observing yourself in the situation. I like to do this for myself at the end of every day. I always look forward to it because it’s like, I’m going to be looking at myself, maybe what didn’t work, maybe there’s something I said that I would say something different. Do it a different way. Maybe I need to go back and repair a relationship or something that I said, but I know there’s going to be this part that I always look forward to, is this forgiveness for myself, this compassion, that I’m not a perfect person, that I do make mistakes and it’s o to make mistakes. So this is how I do it and this is what I’m going to recommend. At the end of each day, reflect on what worked and what didn’t work in your conversations with others, with yourself and take note of what you would do differently and then give yourself some love and compassion. We want to give ourself love and compassion just the same way we would do that for a really good friend or family member. And just as you would tell a good friend how important they are to you we want to tell that to ourselves. We need to give ourselves that same compassion and understanding just as we would a really good friend. That can be as simply as placing your hand, let’s say over your heart on your chest, if you’re having that grief or sadness in your chest, or place in your hand, over your stomach, if you have that pit, that like Ugh, feeling and just allowing your hands just to sink into your body. There’s really nothing you have to do, just grounding yourself, allowing your feet feel the floor, and just imagine energy just coming up from the heart of the earth, up into your heart, allowing that energy to fill every nook and crown in your body. You can put a color to it, whatever color feels right to you. You could put an image to it. You can have flowers, butterflies, whatever it is. So just imagine those areas in your body just filling up with the most beautiful lightning energy that you can imagine and tell yourself I’m doing my best. It’s okay to make mistakes. I’m a good person. I’m important. I matter. I love myself. I’m going to say this again because sometimes it’s really hard to hear this for ourselves and say it to ourselves. I want you to say it to yourself. I’m doing my best. It’s okay to make mistakes. I’m a good person. I’m important. I matter. I love me. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Please let me know what you thought of the episode. Send me an email to lisa@amiokpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe, rate and review wherever you get your podcast. To find out more about highly sensitive persons. Please go to my website at www.amiokpodcast.com and subscribe to my free eight-week email course to help you navigate your own sensitivities and to show you that it’s okay not to take on everyone else’s problems. This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time, be well. Thank you for listening today at Am I Ok? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want to professional, you should find one.