![]() ![]() Another toxic situation is when parents constantly compare their children. If you grew up around someone like this, you may have even developed a harsh inner critic for yourself that mirrors their impossible standards and judgments. It may seem like nothing is ever good enough for this person and their “editor-in-chief” tendencies, and they likely display signs of toxic perfectionism. The world today isn’t designed to have us think this way.A parent who constantly criticizes everything around them is likely creating a toxic environment for the people in their life, including their children. By habit, we must daily re-affirm our own self-acceptance. She has consciously altered her thinking and the associated feelings. If our young girl now chooses to associate colouring with happy thoughts repeatedly, then the thought of colouring and the feeling of happiness can fire together in the mind. The mind is neuroplastic: it can change its neuron firing patterns and create new patterns in our Mind. The mind is not wired for self-acceptance, so it is something we must practise and develop as a fortitude, as an armour to live within the world. It gives us permission to not accept anyone else’s judgement on ourselves. It gives respect to our emotions at that moment of time. Self-acceptance also means that we accept our mistakes. If we choose to accept ourselves as we are, then there is no conflict. When we want to feel accepted, and instead feel rejected, then our mind (thoughts and feelings) is in conflict. I choose to free myself, accept that I did nothing wrong, I choose to accept myself as I am.” I must have carried all those feelings within myself for years. I must have felt lonely not having anyone else to share with. I must have also been angry with my mom, making me feel inadequate. As a four-year-old, I felt ashamed colouring out of the line. My mother shouldn’t have been so critical of my colouring. ![]() If our young girl accepted her childhood scenario, as an adult she would have reasoned like this: “Colouring out of the picture at age four is age-appropriate behavior. This is one of the destroyers of depression. Acceptance of our feelings is true self-acceptance. We feel a certain way because we feel a certain way. Every time they surface, we must accept their existence. Disappointment is a negative emotion when our expectations don’t match up to our outcome.įeelings associated with disappointment are sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness.įeelings come in waves. These negative thoughts then give rise to our negative feelings. When we tend to ruminate in similar negative thoughts, we build stronger neural connections to those thoughts. Thoughts are cognitive, and feelings are a way to express our emotions.ĭepression is an issue of thought. The thought of colouring and the feeling of disappointment became connected here. Thoughts and feelings are, however, separate. Looks of disappointment, especially from an authority figure, can lead them to believe disappointment in themselves early on. Children absorb everything from 0 – 7 years. That’s not good enough.” The mom’s intention was encouragement, but the child’s perception was “I’m not good enough.”Ī few more similar instances and the brain can set up a neural pathway to fire the neurons together in the brain, “I’m not good enough when I colour.” Every time she colours, a feeling of “not being good enough” arises. How does this affect us? When a young girl was a four-year-old and colouring her book, perhaps the mother gently admonished her, “You must colour within the lines. In order to operate efficiently, it forms neural network patterns that fire together. The brain is where the neurons are fired together, resulting in thoughts, feelings and action. We have to reassess the thoughts of the mind and quieten it when it doesn’t serve our needs. Its nature is primarily to warn and protect, not encourage and prosper. We cannot believe everything the mind thinks up. Keeping us away from pain means having the tools to become more aware of pain. Our mind is wired to alert us of negativity. Interestingly, three of these basic emotions are considered as negative emotions sadness, anger and fear. Out of over 34,000 emotions, the four basic emotions are those of happiness, sadness, anger and fear. The mind has two basic functions, to help us survive and keep us away from pain. ![]()
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