We make assumptions that what we perceive is actually the way it is. However, we might be more truthfully served if we are aware that what we perceive, is only what we believe we perceive.

Watch and listen.  To double check that these guys aren’t fooling us with the video, close your eyes at different parts and just listen.

You have the power to create happiness through the expression of love and truth. You also have the power to create emotional suffering in your self, and in others depending on how you use your word. When you hurt your self or another there is a way to ease and heal that suffering in your self and in another. That way is forgiveness.

My experience is that self help suggestions rarely work. Very few people are able to change their behavior simply by adopting a suggestion like “Change your thoughts and look at the bright side” or “Try to be more optimistic.” The people who are able to make a shift that easily don’t need the suggestion.

If it were really that easy for everyone to make a sustained shift in their behavior then I think more people would have done it? People would have eliminated the emotional drama by now. This is evidence that there is something more to changing emotions than a paragraph of self help advice addresses.

Not only does some of the self help advice not help, it can backfire and lead to feeling worse. You might spiral down emotionally and conclude you are a failure when things don’t improve. The problem wasn’t you, it was in the advice you were trying to follow. I’ll share an example of what I’m talking about.

Some optimistic self help advice often sounds like,    “Don’t be so critical of your self.”

The writer usually follows this up with a few sentences about how being critical doesn’t really help anything. It is wasted energy that you could be using for something more productive. They might even give suggestions of more positive things you can do instead. On a surface level this appears sensible and good logic to follow.

However many people that attempt to follow this self help advice will usually end up feeling worse.

What your mind really does with Self Help Advice

Here’s how you can fall into more self criticism with this logic. When you adopt the suggestion to be less critical of your self the mind forms a rule. New Rule is “I will not be critical of myself. The mind is very prolific at making agreements like this.

Your mind then creates an image of your self as a person that will follow this rule. I call this the Image of Perfection based on this new rule. Creating this image in your mind can give you a momentary boost in self esteem. It might facilitate a hopeful feeling as a way out of being negative and critical. But it is a hope based in putting your faith and personal power in an imaginary image. You are putting your personal power in something out side your self. This is just one of the problems.

There is another part of the mind that we can call the Inner Judge. The Judge uses these Images of Perfection and rules as a basis for condemning judgments. You might already be familiar with this Inner Judge. It’s the voice in your head that is being critical of your self and other people.

Whenever you don’t meet the specifications of one of the Images of Perfection your Inner Judge concludes you are a failure. The result is that it criticizes you for not following the rules you made.

When you made the agreement to stop being so critical you didn’t do anything to address this Inner Judge and the Image of Perfection. The actual material and dynamics that make up self criticism are still there. The Inner Judge is still there. All the rules of how you “should be” are still there. The result is that the mind is still busy doing all those criticisms that you said you were going to stop.

Making a new rule is equivalent to saying that you are going to change a flat tire. But making the rule in your mind doesn’t get anything changed. To be effective your new rule has to be followed up with effective actions like getting the car jacked up or the lug wrench out of the trunk.

By agreeing to the self help suggestion and building an Image of Perfection the Inner Judge has another rule to criticize your self with. Even though your new rule is to not criticize your self, the Inner Judge doesn’t follow the rule.

Your mind will continue to be critical just like it always did because nothing changed in the mind when you added a new rule. Except now when you notice your self criticizing something, the Inner Judge adds the comment, “I shouldn’t be so critical. The Inner Judge criticizes you for criticizing things. This is an added layer of self judgment that can make you feel worse.

It can even get more complicated with more layers of criticism for criticizing your self for being too critical. (The Inner Judge has the capacity for this ridiculous logic. It would be pretty funny if there wasn’t such an emotional price to pay.)
The Inner Judge might also conclude that you are a failure for not being able to make any real progress or change. If this really gets going it can lead to feelings of hopelessness and despair. This is the kind of downward spiral that can happen when following superficial self help attempts.

You did try to make an effort to stop being self critical. It’s just that you didn’t have good tools to do it effectively. You tried to do it just by making a new rule. That’s like trying to change a flat tire without tools. You are not going to jack up the car with brute strength and you are not going to loosen the lug nuts with your fingers.

If all you have is your self help advice and good intentions you are going to create more Images of Perfection. This just gives the Inner Judge more expectations to criticize you against. It is all those good intentions and self help rules that pave the road to a personal hell of self judgment.

To make real changes in your mind and how you feel emotionally begin by not following bad self help advice. In the matters of changing your mind and emotions learning what paths to avoid is as important as learning what will help.

My experience is that the mind is a complex organism of thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. There are multiple elements at work attempting to maintain the status quo of unhappiness and emotional reactions. Each person’s belief structure is different and what worked for one person won’t necessarily work for someone else.

Making behavioral changes like refraining from being critical generally takes more than adding a fluff piece of self help advice to the internal dialogue. You have to address core beliefs, the Inner Judge, and the Image of Perfection. The criticisms of the voice in your head are part of the problem.

For exercises and techniques to understand and change the belief structure of your mind listen and practice the exercises in the Self Mastery audio program. It includes material to address the dynamics of self criticism in the mind. The first four sessions are free. The audio sessions provide practical steps to make changes in your life and your relationships.

Related Material

Self Help Doesn’t Work

In The Four Agreements don Miguel Ruiz refers to the stifling of our authentic expression as domestication. We encourage our children to dream big and follow their passion. At the same time we train them to follow the rules and reprimand them when they don’t. Some of these mixed messages can end up creating conflicts of internal dialogue in one’s mind in later years.

This doesn’t just affect our personal happiness over time. As Sir Ken Robinson points out it might very well affect our survival in rapidly changing times.

What people are surprised to find out is that if they are taking things personally, then they are not being impeccable.

What does it mean to be impeccable with your word?

First of all we have to consider our Word to be much more than the construct of words and phrases that comes out of our mouth. Our Word is the force that we create with and includes everything we express. It includes our emotions, physical actions, thoughts and our attitude. Walking around being silent while filled with hate or self rejection doesn’t meet the meaning of impeccability.

Expressing yourself impeccably is to express your self in the direction of truth and love. This includes expressing love, respect, and acceptance for your self. The emotions of jealousy, envy, frustration, and sadness fall into the category of not being impeccable. Anger and fear usually fall into the category of not being impeccable also. However there is the exception of a real life threatening situation where natural fight or flight fear and anger are come from your emotional integrity. However in most cases people don’t face real life threatening situations very often.

Losing your job or finding out your partner is cheating on you doesn’t count as a real fight or flight situation. These may be painful situations emotionally as life is changing and the ego shattered, but the life of your physical body isn’t in any danger. Most of the time anger and fear seem to fall into the category of not being impeccable.

I’ve heard people say that they were speaking “their truth” about a situation and so they believed they were being impeccable. When people claim to be speaking “their truth”, they are often speaking their opinion that they believe is right. Because they believe their opinion doesn’t mean it is the truth. To anyone else it is just an opinion and can be filled with judgments and unpleasant emotions. When you are impeccable you don’t need to defend what you say by claiming it is impeccable.

Another aspect of being impeccable is to be with out fault or blame. That means to refrain from expressing criticisms, judgments, or find fault with your self, or someone else. Being without criticism in your expression doesn’t just mean with the words you speak, but with the thoughts you think also. Refraining from blaming people will lead you to take total responsibility for your life.

While this may seem like a pretty big shift in our consciousness it gets bigger when we expand the meaning to include not finding fault with the world. Being impeccable means seeing the world without rejecting it for the way it is. It doesn’t mean being in denial about the way people mistreat each. It just means that you don’t judge or reject people or the world for they way it is. Cleaning up the judgments in our mind can seem like quite the task when we consider how easy it is to become critical of things like politics, pollution, violence, crime, or traffic. It may take a while to empty our mind of criticisms but it can be done.

You might think of being impeccable as being compassionate and accepting of others. You recognize and are aware of what people do, but you find a way to accept them as they are. When you see they don’t know the number of ways they are hurting each other and themselves you can forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.

How are you not being impeccable when you take something personally?

When you take something personally you feel offended. Perhaps you are offended because someone said you were stupid. If you had 100% faith in your intelligence you would know that it was just their opinion and you wouldn’t believe their opinion. When you are aware and don’t believe them it doesn’t hurt emotionally.

If you feel hurt it is because you believed some part of the idea that you are stupid. When you express even a tiny bit of your faith in that opinion of stupidity you are expressing your faith in a self rejection. Your faith is a powerful part of your Word. Expressing your Word in a manner of self rejection is how we take something personally.

Being impeccable with your Word is about being truthful, honest, and kind. It is very simple, but not necessarily easy. We have learned many habits over the years that condition us to use our emotional and verbal expressions in unkind ways. Just the way that we talk to ourselves in our own mind can be so unpleasant.

To keep this one simple agreement to be impeccable with your Word will require some time and practice to master. Don’t assume that you will master it in your lifetime. At the same time, don’t assume that you won’t. Just know that every year that you become more impeccable with your Word you will have more love and happiness in your life and relationships.

A quick reference as to what the Four Agreements are:

Be Impeccable with your Word
Don’t Take Anything Personally
Don’t Make Assumptions
Always Do Your Best

Gary,
A friend of mine, Alice, broke up with her boyfriend. When I talked to another friend on the phone (she also knows Alice) I told her that Alice and her boyfriend broke up. Of course I asked myself the question: why am I sharing this info with my friend?   Would this be gossiping? So my question: where does the need to share information (without giving an opinion about it) with other people come from?  Which character does this?
Many thanks in advance,
D.

Gossip and Impeccability

Dear D.
There are many possible dynamics when it comes to impeccability and gossip.  Some can be very subtle.  Most of the time we talk out of automatic habit learned over years of unconscious practice.  Sometimes we say things to people to make them feel comfortable.  We don’t want them to be uncomfortable in the silence so we respond with something to fill the gaps. This really means we don’t want to feel uncomfortable ourselves about their situation.  So for us to not feel our emotional discomfort our mouth moves and we share information.  This can often be unnecessary gossip about other people.

Breaking this habit of false assumptions of responsibility for other’s emotion is covered in session 12 of the audio program in self mastery. To explore this more and gain greater self awareness and insight about impeccability experiment with the following.  As an exercise refrain from speaking into those silent gaps for a while and see what happens.  Let the whole conversation sit in silence for certain moments and notice what emotions you feel.  These might be the emotions you avoid feeling by speaking unnecessarily.  It may not be so much a reason or need to share, as to avoid silence and all the stories and discomfort we have in the silence.  You will have to consciously choose what conversations you do this practice in so that it is appropriate for the situation.

In the big picture it is the accepted social norm to gossip about other people.  This is a big habit for many people. In an effort to be more impeccable we refrain, but in doing so we appear to be out of place from the “normal” with some people.   We don’t fit other people’s criteria of what is “normal”  and therefore acceptable.  Their initial reactions might seem judgmental or rejecting of our new behavior.  But that doesn’t mean that we are doing anything wrong by being silent.

Their judgments try to make us conform to their “normal” gossip behavior so that they don’t feel uncomfortable with our change in habits.

There are also ways to distract people from the silence without engaging in gossip at the same time.  It is not manipulation, but rather impeccable ways to shift the conversation. I touch on these somewhat in session 4 of the audio program.

Refraining from gossip is worth exploring if only for the reason that we waste an enormous amount of personal power talking unnecessarily.

Hope that helps,

Gary van Warmerdam