Overcome your Inner Critic with this Super Helpful Tool

Turn down the volume on your inner critic

If it feels like you can't do anything without some critical voice in your head chirping about how you’re probably gonna screw up, or embarrass yourself, or ruin everything and be doomed to a life of misery and loneliness, it’s a safe bet that you’re probably over it.

And who can blame you? If that critical voice were a real person following you around, you probably would have called the police or stuffed them in a dumpster by now, but that’s hard to do with something that lives inside your head.

Well fear not, because by the end of this post you will have levelled up your understanding of what the heck that critical voice is, where it comes from, and how you can turn down its volume so you stop feeling like shit all the time.

Why you have an inner critical voice

It’s super easy to take this for granted, but have you ever noticed how most of the conversations you have in a day actually take place in your own head? If you stop and pay attention, you’ll notice that you’re constantly chatting with someone in your mind, sometimes with yourself, sometimes with one of the thousands of people you’ve cloned and internalized, but always with someone inside. And no, you’re not crazy! This is totally normal.

A lot of those conversations may be neutral, but some of them are not so nice, and they tend to stick out like a sore thumb.

Your inner critic draws your attention to the things you’re sensitive or insecure about, particularly things that you’re scared people will judge your ass for. All of this understandably makes you feel stressed out, anxious, hopeless, or depressed.

Now, you’re probably thinking that the very existence of your inner critic is totally f’ed up and dysfunctional, like your brain wasn’t wired right in the factory. This may be an unpopular opinion, but the fact that you have an inner critic isn’t exactly a bad thing. Even though that critical voice doesn’t exactly make for a fun time, it does serve an adaptive purpose, which we’ll get into. But first, it’s story time.

So, I used to truly believe that I hated myself. Puberty hit me hard. I remember scribbling away in my diary in grade 5 boasting about how I was the most popular girl in my class (I wasn't) and was so so cool. Fast forward only one year later and it was the complete opposite. “Dear Diary, I hate myself so much. I am so ugly and fat and disgusting and no one likes me”. I wrestled with this nasty, mean voice for almost 20 years. And I tried everything - all the self help books, all the hypnosis, all the CBT, all the positive affirmations. And it would work, sort of, for a short period of time. Fake-it-til-you-make-it wind in my sails. But that nasty critical voice with all its hurtful words would always sneak back in and make me believe that I was the worst human being alive. And this voice had a lot of evidence to prove that I wasn't worthy of love - from myself or anyone else. I was single, I was broke, I was chubby, I engaged in binge eating and spending money I didn't have, I escaped with a cocktail of weed, food, wine and my favourite tv shows. Then I felt like even more of a loser for relying on those things. A lot of people might think the way I overcame this was by changing the behaviours and proving to myself that I was worthy of loving myself. But it actually wasn’t. Through helpful conversations and learning more about the human condition, I came to realize that I wasn't broken and that I didn’t need to be fixed, but that I had found very creative ways to survive and resist feelings of insecurity and fear. And that's exactly what we’re here to teach you how to do too!

Making sense of your inner critic through evolutionary psychology

Ok, so let’s get back to the crazy idea that the critical voice that lives in your head isn't actually the enemy. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but it’s actually there to protect you.

To make sense of this, we need to look back in time about 100 thousand years. Back when we used to live in caves and didn't have the security of modern day life, with running water, electricity, and grocery stores, it was imperative for us to get along and work together to get our next meal and fight off whatever animals wanted to make us their next meal. Because of this very primitive need to belong to a group, we developed an innate fear of rejection and exclusion.

Why? Because if we got kicked out of the group, we dead. And I mean real dead. And whether or not we belonged depended on how closely we lived up to the group's rules and ideas of what it means to be a decent cave person. So if the group rule is that everyone takes one serving of woolly mammoth before going back for seconds, and Fiona gets cocky and grabs two meaty mammoth ribs, you better believe it’s over for her. And those sabre tooth kitties are going to be feasting on Fiona's succulent bones with the quickness. Okay, that got a little dark. This is where the social anxiety and feelings of insecurity make total sense. Clearly our species has not lost that instinct for inclusion. This survival instinct fits hand in glove with human insecurity, which set the stage for the critical voice. If Fiona felt insecure and afraid of getting rejected, she would feel on alert and have that little voice saying “don't be bad, don't be greedy, don't go for seconds, Janet and Janice would rat you out and then you dead, girl.

The critical voice is a response to and representation of our fear and insecurity, and parrots the values and rules of the group. Today, the list of rules and expectations can seem endless. That's why it can feel like we fully hate ourselves. Because we can't actually be everything that our society expects of us. We gotta be wealthy, have just the right body, be educated, have a well respected job, own a home, have two cars, two kids, and go on vacation multiple times a year. And on top of all of that we have to be fucking confident!

All of that is to say that we are vulnerable to judgment, exclusion, and rejection, and there’s a long list of ways we can be judged, excluded, and rejected. Your critical voice is like your radar for the things you are aware of that could end with you being seen by others in a bad light.

How to silence your inner critic

I’m going to give you a strategy that’s not only helped me, but tons of my own clients in therapy over the years. Like so many problems in life, you need to start with awareness and challenge yourself to notice your critical voice when it pops into your head. I know, I know, this is likely the last thing you want to do. It can be uncomfortable to acknowledge and engage with that voice. It's in our nature to want to avoid anything that feels shitty, so you're probably pretty good at finding ways to distract yourself from really facing your critical voice.

Despite not wanting to engage, the first step in changing your relationship to your critical voice is to notice it and name it. When an unkind thought crosses your mind, acknowledge to yourself, “that bitch right there, that’s my critical voice”.

Why do this? First, it allows you to have more of an arm’s length relationship with your inner critic, rather than feeling consumed by it and responding reactively.

Secondly, it’s an acknowledgment that although it’s a thought that you’re having, you don’t have to agree with it. We’re taught all sorts of nonsense over the course of our lives, and it’s not like we just erase old, outdated perspectives and beliefs from our memories when we form new ones that we prefer. We intentionally choose to disregard them.

Take prejudice for example. A lot of people learn some sort of prejudiced or discriminatory ideas while growing up, and then hopefully arrive at the conclusion that they’re stupid and whack as they get older. You may very well still have prejudiced or discriminatory thoughts cross your mind because you've been taught to think that way, but you become able to privately respond to them like, “Nah, that’s not cool”. The same is true of your critical voice. Just because you're thinking something doesn’t mean you’re down with it.

After acknowledging the presence of your critical voice, it can also be helpful to remember the fact that as a human being, you have an evolutionary need to belong, and that even though it’s not super obvious, the fear you feel around rejection or exclusion comes from a place of care for yourself. Remember: fear of rejection and judgment, and feelings of insecurity are normal. They are there to protect us so we don't die on this crazy, dangerous planet. And while they may be normal and understandable because we're human, the messaging that can go along with them is likely not totally fair or accurate.

If you do the first step, then you’re well on your way to the second, which is all about emotional regulation. A common reason why the critical voice is often a problem for people is because they deal with it through avoidance, and that avoidant behaviour creates other problems in their life, that just gives the critical voice more ammo. Among the most effective and destructive avoidance strategies are addictions to things like alcohol and other substances, gambling, shopping, or even food. Insecurity and fear feels bad, so we do things to feel good. Unfortunately, despite your best intentions to protect yourself from hard feelings, numbing out your critical voice means you fail to deal with it, and you become dependent on things to regulate your emotions, which only compounds the problem and makes you feel even shittier about yourself.

We’re all about self-empowerment, and so even though it’s harder in most ways, we strongly encourage you to face your hard feelings, to build trust that you ain't going to die from feeling them. For example, if your critical voice is saying “You're an idiot, you can’t do anything right, and no one is ever going to like you, let alone love you”, take a deep breath and do something to bring you back to the present moment. What can you see in front of you? What can you feel? What can you hear?

Tools to silence your inner critic

When you're feeling emotionally clear enough to think, it’s time to explore why your critical voice is showing up when it is. If you’re a pen and paper kind of person, grab a journal and flesh out the who, what, where, when, and why of the situation. You’ll find a reflection exercise in the description down below, but for now, some questions worth answering are, what happened, and specifically, what the heck were you doing before your critical voice piped up? What was it about that particular situation that makes sense for your critical voice to make an appearance? Keep in mind all of the daft rules and expectations our society has for us, and how they are likely part of the equation. Like maybe you struggle with the expectation that you need to come across as über successful in order to have any worth as a person. You can ask, are there any particular insecurities or fears that tie in to the message of your critical voice? For example, if you have an insecurity around success, even small, everyday mistakes, like spilling your coffee, can have your inner critic all like, “You idiot! How are you ever going to make something of yourself if you can’t even keep from spilling a cup o’ Joe?!”. If its goal is to protect you from shame or embarrassment or rejection, what could be shameful or embarrassing about what you were doing?

This is also when empathy and emotional validation for yourself is your BFF. If it's too hard to provide this to yourself, because your critical voice doesn’t make it easy, imagine a friend experiencing something similar and how you would feel for them. Why is it understandable for you (or them) to feel insecure or fearful of rejection? Why does it make sense to be critical about this particular subject? Are there any experiences you’ve had that have taught you to be on high alert for times like this?

What we’re basically encouraging by laying out this approach to dealing with your critical voice is a radically different way of handling insecurity. Because running away from it, creating a facade to conceal it, or living life on defensive mode don’t work. In fact, they usually make your insecure feelings and the prevalence of your critical voice worse. Instead, mindfully acknowledging the presence of your critical voice and reminding yourself that it exists to help you avoid the pitfalls of social alienation can help make it feel less distressing when it shows up.

The final step is to then assert your own preferred, more fair and realistic message over the one that your critical voice carries. Let’s say, like me, your critical voice says “you look fat today” and I feel insecure and shameful hearing this message. Part of me would love to escape feeling this way because it fucking suuuuucks to have these feelings. But because I’ve trained my emotional muscles, I would then acknowledge to myself, “I feel insecure right now and it’s showing up with this old story that I should feel ashamed of my body because I’m not a size 0, and society celebrates and values this body type more than mine. And I don’t agree with society’s rule that in order to have value as a human being, a body has to be a certain size. I’m having this hard feeling, but I don’t agree with it.” And I can then focus my attention on how to nurture or care for myself while this feeling is here, and trust that it will eventually ease.

Because you don’t need a Darwin Award on your mantle, remember that fear and insecurity are there to help keep you alive! These feelings have been part of our species’ survival, so we cannot expect ourselves to think our way out of having them. Instead, we have to accept that fear and insecurity are part of our human experience, and it's all about dealing with them effectively.

Even though it may sound ass backwards, the idea that your critical voice is there to help you survive makes sense. By following the steps we laid in this video, you can expect that the intensity of your critical voice will decrease over time. By mindfully holding your critical voice at arm’s length and remembering its purpose, you can feel less distressed and discouraged when it pipes up.

Break Free From Guilt: The Surprising Secret To Letting Go

What does guilt feel like?

Ever feel like crawling out of your skin from the ick of guilt?

It’s a feeling you may know all too well. You’re out there, living your life, minding your own business, when BAM, you’re reminded of something you said or did that makes you want to just crawl into a hole and never come out.

And then the spiral begins.

“Why did I do that?” ”How will people judge me for this?” “Does this mean that I’m a bad person?”

Now, not only do you want to crawl into a hole, you feel like you could die in it too because you’re totally crippled by anxiety and guilt.

In this post, I'm here to help you learn how to get to the root of your feelings of guilt so that you can finally feel cool as a cucumber.

What does it mean to feel guilty?

What even is guilt? Guilt is that awful, icky emotion that we experience when we do things that we fear are bad or wrong. It’s kind of like when you ask your phone for directions and then think, “I know better than a daft computer!” and you start going wherever the hell you want. But then Siri’s like, “Hey dumb dumb, I said go straight! Why’d you go down this stupid street? Turn right!” because she wants you to get back on course.

Guilt is there to tell you that your actions are out of line with your morals or values and it wants to bring you back on track. Sometimes it’s for reasons that are totally valid and relatable, sometimes it’s for reasons that are kinda weird and don’t make total sense.

Now, this might sound weird, but even though guilt can feel really f*#@!ng terrible, it isn’t actually a bad feeling. Don’t get me wrong, it feels bad, but like all feelings, guilt serves a purpose. It’s there to help us remember not to make the same mistake twice…or 3 times…or maybe 6. It’s not like I would know!

You could think about it like your physical pain receptors: If you put your hand on a hot stove, it’s going to hurt, which (hopefully) discourages you from doing it again. You think, “Hmmm, that wasn’t fun. I need to rethink my relationship with hot stoves”. Guilt works in a similar way, just on an emotional level.

Because feeling f*#@!ng terrible sucks, guilt is there to teach us not to do things that threaten or hurt our relationships or our social standing. It’s like when you eat most of your kids’ Halloween candy and then see their sad little faces and lie to them and tell them that it was probably a rat that got into the house that loves candy, and it’s hiding it away in its little rat nest, and then you feel terrible, so tell yourself, “I need to do better”…that’s guilt. We care about their little fee fees and therefore we feel bad for hurting them.

Why is some guilt hard to shake?

Like a lot of feelings, the intensity of guilt tends to fade with time. In most cases, we feel really bad about something we did shortly after doing it, but we make peace with the guilt by learning from the experience. In our heads, most of the time this sounds like,

Guilt: “You did something bad!”

You: “Yeah, I did, and I’ve learned from it and am trying not to do it again”

But we’re not really here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about that guilt that just won’t quit. That guilt that hangs on like a leech that just won’t f*#@!ng let go! And you want it to let go, and frankly, we want it to let go too!

So if you want guilt to just chill for once in its miserable life, we need to go a little deeper. You need to understand your beliefs about good and bad, and how this relates to fears you have around rejection. Like literally all other emotions, guilt comes from how we see or understand things. If you believe something is wrong or bad to do, you’re likely to feel guilt when you do it. On the other hand, if you perceive something as somehow positive, you’re pretty much guaranteed not to feel guilty.

Sex and guilt: an example

Sex is the perfect example of this. If you were raised in a religious household and learned that “doing the nasty” outside of marriage makes God feel like he just had to put his dog down, there’s a good chance that you’re feeling super guilty if you happen to get lucky. This guilt is often mixed with fear because you not only did something considered bad, you know that other people believe it's bad and can judge the shit out of you for it. And that judgment is scary because we do not want to be rejected and be condemned to hell. That fear is some basic animal instinct shit, because we are pack animals at the end of the day, and our survival once depended on belonging to the group. This is why guilt can ring such strong emotional alarm bells for us.

Guilt is a matter of perspective

How you see things goes hand in hand with how you feel, so if you want to manage a feeling like guilt, you need to look at how your beliefs contribute to it. Part of the process of doing that can involve unpacking how you came to hold the perspective you have.

This is where I’ll invite you to bust out your journal, grab your favourite pen, and pick something you have felt guilty about. It could literally be anything. Now answer the question:

“How did I learn that thing is wrong or bad?”

As best you can, flesh out the people and societal rules that have contributed to the formation of this perspective.

Now, the kind of guilt that causes seemingly endless torture is usually not just about the fact that you see something you've done as wrong - it’s about the meaning we make of having done that thing. What I mean is that the clincher tends to be what your actions say about the kind of person you are. As in, “Does having done this bad thing make me a bad person?”

Let’s go back to our sex example, and not just because I have a one track mind! So let’s say you have a hot and heavy sexcapade with another person you find hot, hot, hot. You don’t have any stupid shame because of how you were raised, and so you’re overall pretty pleased with yourself. If you were to ask yourself, “What does the fact that I did this say about me as a person?”, chances are you’d say, “It says I rule.”; “It says I’m attractive, desirable”; “It says I’m down for a good time”. All good things.

Now, on the other hand, let’s say it was drilled into your head that premarital sex is demon behaviour. People who carry on like that are sinners, and sinners go to Hell, and Hell suuuuucks. It’s hot and it smells like egg farts. You are a bad person. And bad people get kicked out of the group.

If you really believe that, or if you struggle to totally discount and disbelieve that idea, it’s going to be hard to not struggle with the kind of guilt that just won’t quit.

How to stop feeling guilty all the time

This may not be a popular opinion with everybody, but we believe that the meanings and abstract consequences that we associate with stuff are totally subjective. There’s no objective truth here, it’s pretty much all a matter of subjectivity. I like to think of these perspectives in terms of societal ideals and norms. As in, the standards that our society sets to define our value and worth, and whether we belong or ought to be excluded.

For example, we have the societal story that says that consensual sex between two individuals who are DTF is a great way to spend a Tuesday afternoon, versus the story that says that those two people are naughty biscotti who ought to be dipped in the hot, stinky rivers of Hell. Neither is objectively true, but one lends itself to making people feel really bad, while the other probably has the opposite effect.

Now it’s time to pick up that journal again and do a little reflecting on how you came to see that particular consequence for the thing you feel guilty about.

Ask yourself, “What does this story say about people who do the thing I feel guilty about?”, and “How does this explain my feelings about the thing I did?”, or simply, “How does this explain my guilt?”

Once you have a solid understanding of how you came upon the perspective that informs your stubborn feelings of guilt, and you understand that the story is both arbitrary and totally subjective, it’s time to go shopping! But before you get carried away and blow your whole paycheck on a baller Amazon order, you need to know what we’re shopping for. You are in the market for a new story. One that doesn’t make you feel like crap for dumb reasons.

You need a perspective that’s a little bit fairer and more considerate of the human condition, not one that holds you to unrealistic or totally unnecessary standards. Here’s where you get to be creative. For one last time, drag out that journal and reflect on the question, “How do I want to see this issue, and what are fair consequences for having done the thing I feel guilty about?”

Here’s a personal example: I’ve done plenty of things while stumbling my way through life that I regret deeply. I have acted against my ethical beliefs and have suffered with the bitter taste of guilt as a result. However, the story that I choose to listen to says that everybody screws up, and that learning from those mistakes is what really matters.

I generally don’t believe in the idea of good or bad people, and I believe that what counts is trying my best and learning from my mistakes. I want other people to like and accept me, and see me as valuable (because I’m human after all), but I also know that I can’t control how other people judge me, and if they think I suck, then so be it (yes it stings, but I can handle that feeling without it turning into a belief about myself).

Haters don’t define me or my worth, even if I experience fear that they do. I can’t change my past, but I can choose how I behave in the future. All of these principles are part of my belief system, and they hit the sweet spot between taking responsibility for my mistakes and allowing me to sleep at night without crippling anxiety over whether or not I’m a horrible person who deserves to be marooned on an island in the middle of the ocean.

Change your relationship to guilt

You’ve got enough bullshit to deal with in life. You don’t need unfair and unnecessary guilt making your life even worse. And we want to help you with that. Now, an important reminder here is that shifting your relationship with guilt takes practice! This isn't about expecting guilt to somehow vanish from your life. It’s about shifting how you respond to it. It's normal to feel guilty and worry that you’re a bad person. Your evolutionary human survival instincts are just trying to get you to control your behaviour so that you’re not ousted by your people.

What you need to do is take a beat after feeling it and question whether or not the guilt you feel is truly fair and based on a valid perspective that you agree with. From there, question whether you’re really doing anything wrong to deserve being branded as a bad person.

To help you shift your relationship with guilt, here’s a link to a totally free exercise to help you dial back the guilt and turn up the chill vibes.

How Most Anxiety is Social Anxiety

There is one thing that almost everyone who feels anxiety can relate to. In this video, Will Bratt explains how and why most anxiety is social in nature, and why that matters when it comes to feeling more at ease in anxious moments.

Transcript

There is one common theme that almost everyone who feels anxiety can relate to. In this video I explain how and why most anxiety is social in nature, and why that matters when it comes to feeling more at ease in anxious moments. If you deal with anxiety, this video is for you. Keep watching!

Hi folks, I’m Will Bratt from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives. We’re Victoria BC therapists who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give practical ideas and tips to make your life happier and more fulfilling – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop!

 As a therapist, I have more conversations about anxiety than any other problem people experience. Because I’ve had so many of these conversations, I can’t help but ask, “What’s similar from person to person?”, “How are these experiences the same – even though they have their own unique differences?”

 I had an “Aha!” moment one day when I realized that so many people’s experiences of anxiety often tie back to relationships and social connections.

 Through helping people address their diverse experiences of anxiety, I’ve seen how realizing the specific social concerns at the heart of your anxiety can help you feel more empowered to take action in ways that make a big difference.

 So let’s dive in to how that works.

Anxiety is typically described as the emotional response to anticipated negative events or experiences. It draws our attention to what could happen, in the interest of avoiding negative outcomes. In this way, even if we don’t think it’s helpful, anxiety is primarily concerned with our safety.

 Now, we usually think of safety in terms of our physical wellbeing, but as relational creatures, our social wellbeing is also a valid need to consider. While we may not need the acceptance of others in order to survive physically, things like dignity, esteem, value, and worth, carry a lot of weight in the social world. If you’re skeptical, just ask anyone who has thought about ending their life after struggling against bullying, abuse, or social exclusion and rejection. Belonging matters and isolation can kill.

The importance of belonging is clear when we look at social anxiety. Most people who identify as having social anxiety describe it as fears and worries around rejection, exclusion, and humiliation – the other side of the coin from belonging and acceptance. But how does this common social denominator relate to other forms of anxiety? It’s really all about context and taking a deeper look at why we feel anxious about the things we do. 

It can be useful to start with a question like “What particular fears or concerns does your anxiety relate to the most?” The more specific you can be, the easier it is to really understand what it’s about. I’ve also linked a to a post from the Heart & Oak blog that goes into more detail, and includes other questions that can help you clarify the target of your anxiety with even more depth and accuracy.

Let me share a few examples to illustrate what I mean:

I had a recent session with someone who was feeling anxious and unsafe in a big new city. On the surface, it might have looked like he was experiencing agoraphobia, fearing that others might do him harm. But when we really got to the heart of his anxiety, he was ultimately afraid that some outside force would do him or his partner harm, and disrupt or undermine their relationship, which he cherished deeply.

I had another client who described feeling anxious about his health, worrying that he might get really sick with something like cancer. It would have been short sighted for me to assume that his anxiety was all about his health and mortality, as the more we talked about it, the clearer it became that he was ultimately afraid of losing the chance to get to know his family on a deeper level, and cultivate more fulfilling relationships with them.

Just to share one more example, I worked with a young woman who was terribly anxious about a lot of things, including driving, her health, and unexpected catastrophes. As we put her anxiety in context, she made it nice and clear that she had been through a lot of loss in her short life, and she was understandably afraid of losing her closest, most supportive and stable relation, which was her partner.

All three of these examples illustrate how anxieties that could have easily been misunderstood as very individual concerns were really and truly relational.

So what does all this mean? How can it be helpful and empowering being able to find the relational concerns at the heart of your anxiety? It’s all about making the context around your anxiety more tangible, and therefore easier to work with in effective ways. 

In all three of the examples I mentioned before, those people were able to directly address their relational concerns and issues behind their anxieties, and eventually feel way more at ease. Their anxieties went from being bad enough to require professional help, to way, way more manageable.

There are reasons behind everything, and anxiety is no exception to that. Recognizing the concerns that inform your own anxiety can give you something tangible to work with, which can ultimately help you feel more empowered and capable of managing your anxiety at its root.

Because anxiety is such a common human experience, it would be so helpful if you could leave a comment below about how you’ve addressed concerns that underlie your experiences of anxiety. Have you found success in reducing your anxiety by addressing troubling relationship situations? Whether you have, or if you have any questions about the social side of anxiety that the Heart & Oak community could help with, let us know in the comments below.

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life!

Body Positivity and Weight Loss Myths

Body positivity is an amazing movement that supports people in experiencing greater love and acceptance of their bodies, regardless of their size, weight, or shape. But can you be body positive and also have a desire to lose weight or pursue fitness goals?

Transcript:

Body positivity is an amazing movement that supports people in experiencing greater love and acceptance of their bodies, regardless of their size, weight, or shape. But can you be body positive and also have a desire to lose weight or pursue fitness goals? Keep watching to find out!

Hi everyone, I’m Laura Brown from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives. We’re therapists who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give practical ideas and tips to make your life happier and more fulfilling – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop!

Body positivity is all about loving and accepting your body at any size and shape. It’s an empowering movement that has offered people an alternative to the very limited and oppressive idea that only skinny equals healthy, beautiful, and loveable.

I personally love this point of view, but I know some people struggle to feel at peace with loving their bodies while also having the desire to feel different on a physical level. So, can you have the desire to look or feel fitter, healthier, or leaner, while also loving and celebrating your body for what it is? Or is that just one big contradiction? Let’s get right into that!

For starters, the body positivity movement really came about in response to mainstream western beauty standards, which tell us that for women and femme folks, thinness is god. Just think of all the magazine covers in the grocery store, and all the ads on the TV and online that tell you that you need to lose weight! We’re so inundated with these messages that they often blend in to the landscape and we don’t always realize that they’re even there!

Unlike all those ads promoting weight loss and lean physiques, the body positivity movement tells people of all genders that you’re a-ok just the way you are! It’s about appreciating bodies for qualities other than those that get celebrated by the mainstream culture, and saying “you’re good enough” no matter what package you come in. In fact, from a body-positive perspective, the package you come in is GREAT!

But things get complicated when we start wondering, “Can I want to lose weight or strive to achieve fitness goals AND be body positive?”; “If I have a desire to lose weight, does that mean I’m being body-negative or hating my body?!” It’s tricky, but it’s ultimately about your reasons for wanting to make those changes.

For example, wanting to lose weight so that someone else will like you more, or to gain outside approval, or to finally be “good enough”, sounds much more like it’s about measuring up to negative mainstream beauty standards.

On the flip side, reasons like wanting to feel fitter, or to be able to do more with your body in terms of movement, or to have more energy, are about creating a more satisfying existence. They’re not coming from a place of “Your body’s not good enough so you need to make it better!” They’re coming from a place of “My body would feel better if this thing changed”. That doesn’t mean it’s inadequate the way it is, it just means there’d be some tangible benefit to releasing some fat, or gaining strength or flexibility.

If the idea of body positivity is new to you, then start by considering how you want to feel on an emotional, mental, and physical level. It’s about separating culture’s idea of what an “ideal” body looks like from how you feel in your body – what your experience of living in your body is.

When I talk about your emotional relationship to your body, I’m referring to the ways in which you want to feel about your body. Some feelings you may yearn to have are love, care, appreciation, happiness, or joy. So, ask yourself - how do you want to feel about your body, with no strings attached? You can also ask yourself how you want to express those feelings toward your body, and what makes it hard for you to feel that way all the time?

When it comes to relating to your body on a mental level, I’m talking about how you want to think about your body.  Perhaps you want to think of it highly, respecting all that it does for you on a daily basis. Again, ask yourself – how do you want to think about your body? What do you want to appreciate about it most of all? What makes it hard to do this now?

Considering the physical needs of your body requires open and honest communication between you and your body. The struggle for all of us is that the body doesn’t tend to use words to communicate. Instead, it uses physical feelings and sensations to send us messages about how it is doing. This often looks and feels like a sense of wellness or illness.

If you are struggling to communicate and hear your body’s needs and wants clearly, then please feel free to check out our video that goes into detail about how to strengthen this bond.

A great way to start is to really consider how your body feels, and how that relates to standard measures of physical wellness. Some basic physical markers of wellness to consider are:

• Energy levels

• Sleep

• Digestion

• Pain

• Hormonal balance

• Strength

• Endurance

• Comfort versus discomfort

Once you have come to realize what areas of your physical health you would like to improve, there are a ton of resources for supporting you in making these changes. I’ve linked to some good ones in the description below.

Body positivity is all about feeling good in your own skin – accepting your body in spite of mainstream ideas about what is beautiful, healthy, and ideal.

In order to improve the way you feel in your body, it could mean dropping a few pounds. It could mean gaining some. But, it is important to note that this all dependent upon you and your unique physiology.

Now I’m gonna turn it over to you, the Heart and Oak community! If you’re already family with body positivity, how have you found these ideas helpful? If body positivity is new to you, how might it help with your own relationship to your body? Make sure to let us know in the comment section!

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life!

My Body Positive Journey to Loving and Accepting my Body

My Body Positive Journey to Loving and Accepting my Body Creating a better, more positive relationship with your body can feel like a daunting, unattainable task. If you are looking for hope and evidence that it IS possible, then watch this video to the end!

Transcript:

Creating a better, more positive relationship with your body can feel like a daunting, unattainable task. If you are looking for hope and evidence that it’s anything but impossible, then watch this video to the end! You’re about to hear my story of how I have come to genuinely and authentically love and appreciate my body – beyond its appearance!

Hi everyone, I’m Laura Brown from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives. We’re therapists in Victoria BC who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give you practical ideas and tips to make your life happier and more fulfilling – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop!

I wanted to create this video for all of you who are looking for genuine success stories about people changing their relationships with their bodies for the better. Of course, as a therapist I work with lots of people around issues like these, and part of what makes me helpful in this area is my own lived experience in dealing with challenges with my body image. I thought, “Why share examples from my practice when I can share my very own story with all of you?”

Now, this video is definitely related to our last one, “3 Ways to Love Your Body for More Than How it Looks”, so if you haven’t watched that one yet, I highly recommend doing so after this.

The first thing I need to state is that, in spite of the work I do and the person I am today, I am a work in progress. As much as I would like to sit here and pretend that I have overcome every single body image obstacle and struggle, that would be a bold-faced lie. And it’s important to me that I be genuine and honest with you, as opposed to painting a picture-perfect story of change and growth.

The truth is, I have had a long and in-depth struggle with my body and food. I can honestly say that I did not experience a consistent feeling of love and appreciation for my body between the ages of 11-29. There were moments in that time when I made a very concerted effort through therapy, hypnotherapy, guided meditation, CBT, self-help, and positive affirmations, but it all felt pretty hollow. There might have been times where I felt a slightly stronger connection to my body, empathize with it, and pretend to love it, but it never felt quite “right”.

I don’t think I’m alone in this type of experience. In fact, I know that I’m not. The clients I have worked for thus far have shared similar stories – attempts to force that feeling of love without a real genuine, consistent outcome. And that can be a frustrating and hopeless place to be.

So, where am I now?

Today I am at a place with my body where I actually listen to and prioritize its needs. I genuinely feel grateful for everything that my body does for me, and I am motivated to take care of it in spite of conflicting desires, like thinness. I also feel pretty positive about my body’s appearance, and enjoy dressing it up and showing off my curves.

I still have desires and longings to be slimmer and fitter. I want my muscles that I have worked so hard for to show up. I want my face to stay youthful and wrinkle free. At the same time, these desires do not outweigh my genuine interest in supporting my body in being its happiest, most energetic, and healthy self. This is a HUGE contrast to how things used to be.

For so long, the desire to look like a runway model was at the top of my misguided priority list. I wanted to be skinny at all costs, and I blamed my body for refusing to give me what I so desperately wanted.

The shift to where I am now took time. I was not an overnight success by any stretch of the imagination. It began by recognizing where I was at, and how frustrated and exhausted I was by this way of being. It coincided with my desire to change my restrictive eating practices to be more intuitive and body-directed. This required me to trust that my body could make wise choices, and that I could learn to listen and prioritize its needs with some trial and error.

You may be wondering – how did I get here?

The short and simple answer is that I did exactly what I outlined in the video “3 Ways to love your body for more than how it looks”.

When I began asking myself why it was so important for me to look a certain way, I began to recognize how I believed that if my body were to fit in with the acceptable “norm” of beauty, then it was more likely that I would be accepted and included by my peers. I had a longing to be in a committed relationship, and I believed that by looking a certain way, I would be more attractive to a potential mate. Logically, this all makes sense.

In realizing this, I quickly recognized that I was selling myself, and others, short. This was an old, shallow story that didn’t fit with the reality of my life. There was a whole pile of evidence that I was able to pull from demonstrating how my peers and potential romantic partners did accept me, regardless of my body size and shape.

When I considered whose story it was that my body wasn’t good enough as it was, it was easy to conclude that I was not the author of this fucked up idea.

As I retraced how my body had been singled out for not fitting in, I recalled several humiliating moments when peers or loved ones decided to call attention to my body, referring to me as “fat”. My Granny “lovingly” pinching my arm fat and calling me chubby. The writing on the bathroom wall in Grade seven that said “laura is fat”. The boy who called across a school hallway and yelled “You’re too fat to be wearing that”. Heart-warming moments of my life, I tell ya.

Those types of comments helped in forming this story, but the speakers aren’t the originator of it. They aren’t unique in judging a body based on its size and appearance. They were merely spreading common, old, culturally accepted ideas that we all live in relationship to. When I was able to recognize who the author of this story was, I was able to have some distance from it – moving away from the idea that I was the author of the story, to being a resistor against it. I realized I was angry, exhausted, and fed up with this story. That it was total bull shit that I no longer wanted to buy into.

The biggest way I have been able to successfully love and appreciate my body is by shifting my relationship with it.

I have created a lot of space for my body to have a voice that I listen to. Through a lot of practice and exploration, I have come to pay attention to its needs and wants, and do my best to respect these. Below I’ve linked to a post from the Heart and Oak Blog that has a lot of questions you can ask yourself that can support you in exploring and shifting your relationship to your body.

Again, I have to reiterate that in no way am I close to having this down perfectly – nor do I ever expect to. What counts to me, is that I even consider what it is my body might want or need, above my desire to fit our cultural ideals. Getting to this place also meant truly dealing with the underlying reasons for why it made sense for me to be disconnected from my body. There is also a link to that blog post below.

My ultimate hope in sharing my own personal story is to illustrate that it is 100% possible to go from feeling at odds with your body, to loving and appreciating it for what it is. There isn’t anything special or unique about me and my experience. With awareness, curiosity, and openness, change became possible for me. The fact that you are here, taking the time to watch this video suggests to me that you’ve got something brewing. That you are at the very least curious about your relationship to your body, and potentially yearning for something to be different. This is a brave, and courageous starting point!

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life.

3 Body Positive Ways to Love Your Body (For More Than How it Looks!)Laura shares 3 body positive ways to love your body, beyond its physical appearance

3 Body Positive Ways to Love Your Body (For MORE Than How it Looks!) So many people can relate to feeling down about the size, shape, or appearance of their bodies. If focusing on everything "wrong" with your body gets in the way of you feeling positive about it, then this video is for you!

Transcript:

It’s sad but true that so many people can relate to feeling down about the size, shape, or appearance of their body. If focusing on everything “wrong” with your body gets in the way of you feeling positive about it, then this video’s for you! Keep watching to learn how you can come to really love your body in an honest and sustainable way!

Hi everyone, I’m Laura Brown from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives.

We’re therapists who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give practical ideas and tips to make your life happier and more fulfilling – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop!

In my Victoria BC therapy practice, I’m really passionate about working with people who struggle with their relationship to their body and food. If that’s something you can relate to, I want to stress that you are anything but alone in that!

In fact, it’s super common for people of all genders to deal with some form of body image issues. That could look like feeling disconnected from your body in some way, feeling disheartened by the size, shape, or appearance of your body, feeling like certain body parts or regions of your body are bigger or smaller than they are – and that they’re therefore inadequate, or that your body will never look the way you wish it did.

These are all really complex issues in and of themselves, and we’ll definitely look at them more closely in future videos. But in this video I want to address the common belief that you can “should” your way into loving your body. In other words, I’m going to be talking about the discouraging practice of straining to convince yourself that you should just love your body, despite all the things in this world that make that way easier said than done.

To star this off, I want to make one thing clear: This is not an abstract, clinical issue for me. These are issues that are near and dear to my heart because I’ve lived them too. Because I have enough personal material to make a full feature documentary on my own journey through body image and food issues, I’m going to focus more on that in our next video – because otherwise this one would be way too long!

So let’s talk about some practical ways you can cultivate more genuine love and sustainable appreciation for your body.

1.     Assess what it means to you to be disconnected from your body and/or to struggle to have your ideal body type.

The first thing I’d like to invite you to do is ask yourself a very important question: What does it mean to you to struggle to have your ideal body type? In other words, why is achieving your ideal body image so important to you? This question is all about getting down to ground zero and really checking in with those things that can be easy to take for granted.

Having an answer to this question is important because it supports you in understanding your body image more deeply, and how your body image is a response to various life experiences. This helps shift the problem from being all in your head, to fully understanding the context of how and why it exists. This can also help lessen the hold of shame.

There might not be a single, solitary answer to this question for you, and that’s ok! Life is complicated, and it’s more common for there to be a bunch of intersecting reasons than just one that stands alone.

For example, deep down, does it come from a longing to be accepted or approved of? Do you imagine that if you had the “right” body, you’d be more likely to be loved or included by important people in your life?

The answer to this question is bound to be very personal to you, so think about how this longing makes sense within the scope of your lived experience.

I’ve also written a blog post that complements this video nicely, so make sure to check that out on the Heart & Oak Therapy blog, which I’ll link in the description. In that post I provide some other guiding questions you can use to explore this for yourself.

2.     Whose story is it that your body isn’t “good enough” as is?

So, once you have your own personal understanding of why achieving your ideal body image is so important to you, it can be helpful to ask yourself the question, “whose story is it that your body isn’t ‘good enough’ as it is”?

Are you the source of this story? Or is it possible that it’s come from someplace else? Is it a story you deciphered from ways you’ve been treated by people in your life? Could it be a common story in our society – one you’ve become so accustomed to hearing that you can’t even remember when it first started showing up on your radar?

The fact is, there is no objectively “right” body type to have. The very notion of an attractive body is totally contrived by culture. Want proof? Look at the history of just about any culture from around the world. For example, many different global cultures have made round bodies out to be a sign of abundance and fortune at various points in history. The super skinny or hourglass shaped woman, and the lean, muscular man are very much inventions of modern western cultures. If we’re held to those standards and told that’s how we need to look in order to be “good enough”, it doesn’t leave us many options other than to feel inadequate.

Once you’re able to identify who the story that your body isn’t good enough the way it is really belongs to, it opens the door to a few other things worth considering. Perhaps most importantly, where do you stand on that idea? If you feel sad, discouraged, frustrated, or afraid at the idea that your body isn’t good enough the way it is, does that mean you’re for that idea, or against it? Usually people don’t feel negative emotions in response to things that feel right or good to them, so if you feel down about that idea, that’s probably telling of where you really stand on it.

3.     Strengthen or shift your relationship with your body

My third tip on how to love your body for more than how it looks has to do with strengthening or shifting your relationship with your body.

When you have a solid relationship with your body beyond its physical appearance, it becomes a lot easier to resist the story that you are unworthy unless your body looks a certain way.

Your appreciation becomes genuine when you really tune in to your physical body and recognize all that it does for you.

To get started on that, it helps to take up practices that allow you to really connect with your body, as a part of the person you are. Some guiding questions you can use include, “how does your body communicates its wants and needs to you? What sensations help get these messages across, and how does it feel when you take care of them?”, “When does your body feel best? When does it feel strongest? When does it feel most relaxed? When does it feel most well?”, “How does your body’s physical appearance represent its health and wellness, and to what extent? Like is it possible to be physically healthy and well, and to carry body fat? What feels right for your body? At what point does the amount of body fat impede or support your body’s wellness?”

I’ve included a link in the description to a post on the Heart & Oak Therapy blog that offers more questions like these to help guide you down your own path toward strengthening your relationship with your body.

One thing I really want to stress is that in a world that tells us we’re inadequate in so many ways, having a really positive relationship with your body is more likely to be a work in progress than an end game achievement. By doing this work, you’re going against the grain in a big way, and that’s a challenge! The last thing we need is to feel ashamed for not having a squeaky-clean body image on top of the struggles many of us already have. That’s just yet another layer of bullshit that our culture attempts to pile on top of us.

The fact that you are even here listening to me talk about body image tells me just how strong you really are. Your courage to honestly consider where you are at, and how you want things to be different is legit, and it’s hard but important work.

It can be hard to even admit that you’re struggling with your body image. After all, aren’t we all meant to be incredibly secure, confident, and independent people? But this work is gradual and takes time – it’s not just as simple as flicking a switch and going from night to day. By opening your eyes and ears to your own lived experience and understanding your relationship to your body in context, you can start to cultivate more and more appreciation for all the great ways it can serve you.

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life! 

Addressing the Social Roots of Your Anxiety

Most Anxiety is Social Anxiety

Everyone feel anxious.

Not everyone feels anxious in the exact same settings and circumstances, but absolutely everyone can identify with those awful feelings of dread, unrest, worry, and panic in some way, shape, or form.

With the seemingly infinite number of specific anxieties that human beings could have in today’s world, social anxiety is one that a huge number of people describe themselves as experiencing. You probably know social anxiety as the quick heart rate and sweaty palms that go along with feeling out of place in social situations. People also describe it as fearful thoughts around judgment, rejection, exclusion, and being socially incompetent in interactions with others.

As a counsellor in Victoria BC, I have more conversations about anxiety than any other concern people bring in to therapy. Through these interesting and diverse conversations, I’ve come to notice a common theme: the anxiety that people consider to be more “generalized”, or even anxieties about specific worries like health or death, almost always relate back to relationships with other people too.

In this post I explain how and why most anxiety is, at the end of the day, social in nature, and how identifying that for yourself can help you feel more at ease in anxious moments.

The Purpose Behind Anxiety

Like most aspects of human experiences, anxiety is one of those things that everyone can identify with on some level, and which everyone experiences somewhat differently from person to person. So, while taking these differences into account, anxiety is typically described as the emotional response to anticipated adverse events, experiences, or outcomes.

As a responsive emotion, anxiety draws our attention to what could happen, in the interest of avoiding or mitigating negative experiences. In this way, even if we don’t often experience it as helpful, anxiety is primarily concerned with our safety.

Anxiety as a Social Phenomenon

If anxiety is mostly about anticipating negative experiences or outcomes in the interest of safety, why do so many people experience social anxiety? I mean, it’s not like rejection, exclusion, or judgment ever really hurt anyone, right?

The reality is, belonging does matter. Despite the age-old rhetoric that celebrates the “lone wolf” and staunch individualism, we are far more interdependent than independent.

Even if you think about it on a purely evolutionary/biological level, human beings have needed each other for survival since always. Of course, humans in the 21st century are different in some very distinct ways than our predecessors from ages past, but the importance of belonging is very much alive and well in our hearts and minds today.

Belonging and Social Anxiety

The importance of belonging is key to understanding why people experience social anxiety. While we (urban adults in particular) may not need the acceptance of the group in order to survive predatory animals or weather brutal storms, cultural constructs like dignity, esteem, value, and worth, carry significant weight in the social world. If you’re skeptical, just ask anyone who has thought about ending their life after struggling against bullying, abuse, or social exclusion/rejection. Belonging is life-affirming and alienation and oppression can kill.

Anxiety’s Social Link

We know that social anxiety is defined by fears and worries around belonging and acceptance. But how does this common social denominator relate to other forms of anxiety?

I’ll illustrate this with an example:

When I first met with Paul, a 30-year-old man who grew up in a small community in BC, he described himself as struggling with anxiety, with a particular focus on his health. He explained that he recently learned through a medical exam that there was a mass in his lung, and that he was understandably afraid it might be cancer. I asked questions to draw out more of a sense of the meaning behind his fear – what it would mean to him if he was struck with a potentially fatal illness. Through his responses to my questions, he explained that because of the hard life he’s lived, he’s kept close relations at arm’s length. As many people can relate to, he felt fearful about the prospect of being vulnerable and opening up about himself and his own struggles to people who really matter to him. While more superficially, his anxiety was about getting sick and dying, at the heart of the matter was a fear of losing the opportunity to cultivate closer, more intimate relationships with his family. This realization opened the door for him to take care of those relationships in more direct and tangible ways.

Through Paul’s example you can see how what sounded at first like a very personal and private worry was actually relational in nature at its core. It’s easy to see anxieties like Paul’s through the more common individualistic lens, but when we really start getting curious and putting anxiety in context, we can see that there is a crucial social aspect more often than not.

Why It’s Helpful Identifying the Social Side of Anxieties

As is clear in Paul’s example above, recognizing the social aspects of our anxieties gives us something concrete to work with. So often the assumption is that we need skills or tools to manage anxiety, when in fact action can be taken to address the anxiety-provoking situation at its core.

In Paul’s case, by recognizing that his anxiety was really based on the fear of losing the opportunity to get closer with the important people in his life, he was able to take the action necessary to address that concern.

I think it’s also worth noting that anxiety has a way of making it difficult to facilitate the process of coming to these realizations on our own. We can get so wrapped up in worry that we think in very circular ways, making it hard to move forward. This is where talking to a therapist can really help. Counselling for anxiety can not only help you identify and practice the skills and tools to ease anxiety in anxious moments, but also to see the tangible factors that could make all the difference if they were to be addressed.

Identifying the Social Side of Your Anxiety

Whether or not you work with a counsellor to understand the context around your own anxiety, having questions to explore and make sense of the social side of your anxiety can make a big difference.

You can use questions like these to do that work yourself:

• If your anxiety could speak for itself, what fears or worries would it express?

  • What relationships in your life relate most closely to those fears or worries?

• What would it mean to you if those fears or worries were to come true? What regrets would you have?

• What fears or worries have made it hard to take action to resolve the anxiety?

  • Are there particular social responses you fear you might receive?

• Who else does this issue matter to? What is their relationship to the situation?

  • How does your anxiety relate to your relationship with them?

• If you knew you could do something that would make everything better, even if you’re afraid to do that thing right now, what would that be?

  • What has made it hard to take that action up until now?

Addressing Anxiety Through the Broader Social Context

The problems we call “social anxiety” are quite obviously social in nature, but that doesn’t mean that other kinds of anxiety are not. The process of exploring and understanding the social context around your anxiety can open new doors to addressing issues on a more real and tangible level. In this way, addressing your anxiety through the broader social context is empowering and leads to more sustainable resolution across time.

Are there certain social relationships that you notice you feel more anxious about than others?

How do you take hard but important steps toward resolving social worries?

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