voice might tell you there’s no point in working out because it won’t make a difference. Challenging that voice means working out anyway and giving yourself the opportunity to experience the benefits of exercise. That critical voice might tell you that you have to say yes to every request that comes your way. Forget the fact that your calendar is completely booked, if your friend asks for your help planning a surprise party, you feel the pressure to say yes. Challenging your inner critic means acknowledging your schedule is overbooked and sending your regrets to your friend. The more you challenge the lies your inner critic feeds you, the quieter that voice will get, the better you’ll feel (emotionally and physically), and the more you’ll believe that you are lovable and worthy just as you are.
Be Kind to Yourself
Taking better care of your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being means changing the way you treat yourself each day — beginning with the way you speak to (and about) yourself. Commit today to being as kind to yourself as you would be to anyone else. Try to be kind when thinking about yourself. Try to be kind when speaking to yourself. Try to be kind when you are feeling run-down and lousy. Try to be kind when you are struggling with a tough situation. Treat yourself with kindness.
Hang in there and don’t give up. Not only is treating yourself with kindness important and beneficial for you, it’s a road map to becoming the most authentic version of yourself. And the wonderful thing about living a full and authentic life is that it has a spillover effect. You are a better friend, parent, daughter, son, coworker, partner, etc., to the people in your life. When you radiate the knowledge that you are a unique human being worthy of being loved, it’s contagious, and others experience it and benefit from it.
Reflection Questions
1. What specific lies does your inner critic tell you?
2. Are there particular times/situations when your inner critic’s voice becomes louder?
3. How does believing your inner critic negatively affect your life? How do you neglect your self-care as a result of the inner critic’s lies?
Discussion Questions
1. What kind of impact does a person’s inner critic have on their emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being?
2. Why do we so easily accept the lies our inner critic tells us about ourselves, yet immediately see the lies when our friends speak badly of themselves? Why do we hold ourselves to a different standard?
3. Think of the people you know who radiate healthy confidence. What makes them different from those people who aren’t confident?
Chapter 3
Stressed-Out
“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”
— Benjamin Franklin, American statesman
Busy, Busy, Busy
Neglecting basic habits of self-care, like getting adequate sleep and nutrition, makes us vulnerable to stress and its potentially damaging effects, which can trap us in a cycle that’s difficult to break out of.
It doesn’t help that today’s society celebrates being busy. We equate having a packed schedule and getting little sleep with being important. A common reply to the greeting “How are you?” is, “Busy; so busy.” (I’ve definitely caught myself saying this more than a few times.) While it may be true that your calendar is booked, being “so busy” really means: “I am so busy because I am important and my time and talents are in demand. You should be appropriately impressed.” Society tells us the busier you are, the more important you must be.
In an opinion piece for The New York Times, “The ‘Busy’ Trap,” Tim Kreider observed: “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”
Many of us overbook our schedules in order to feel important, worthy, and needed, but it comes at a cost. We may feel important, but we also feel stressed, overwhelmed, sleepy, drained, irritable, even sad. Is being negatively affected physically and emotionally because of our busyness really worth it? Do we value feeling important and needed more than our physical and emotional health?
Being busy in the quest to be important perpetuates a cycle of negativity that is difficult to get out of and increases our risk for stress. Stress is such a common occurrence that the American Psychological Association (APA) conducts a survey on the effects of stress on Americans every year. In the 2014 APA survey, 42 percent of adults said they did not believe they were doing enough to manage the effects of stress in their lives. The study also found that the most common effects of stress included feeling irritable or angry, feeling nervous or anxious, having a lack of interest or motivation, fatigue, feeling overwhelmed, and being depressed or sad. So, if several of the symptoms described above have a starring role in your life, you’re not alone. Stress is a nationwide issue.
The effects of stress include:
• trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
• muscle tension
• digestive issues
• weak immune system
• difficulty concentrating during the day
• increased irritability
• headaches
• forgetfulness
• social isolation
The Slippery Slope
The effects of stress, whether related to work, relationships, or health, have a way of sneaking up on us. For example, if it’s the busy season at the office and you’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed, you might start to have trouble falling asleep at night because your mind is racing, thinking about everything you have to do tomorrow, and your body is keyed up and tense from being on the run all day. You just can’t relax. And if you are going to bed later than normal and having trouble falling asleep, you aren’t getting quality sleep. When you aren’t getting enough sleep, you won’t be as alert the next day. The effects are compounded over time, and those occasional sleepless nights become the norm until, eventually, you’re chronically sleep deprived. It’s a slippery slope.
When left unchecked, stress can become burnout (chronic stress). Typical symptoms of burnout include consistently experiencing exhaustion, difficulty concentrating, irritability, difficulty sleeping, low motivation, lack of interest in activities that you previously enjoyed and found meaning in, and feeling like you are in a mental fog. Living with burnout is like running on fumes when your gas tank is empty, and it can be difficult to recover from. That’s why it’s critical to manage the effects of stress in its early stages so that you aren’t faced with a long-term recovery from burnout.
Let’s say you’ve been under stress lately, and you are starting to notice some of the effects of stress in your life. What does this
