Embracing Your Critical Voice The Gateway To SelfLove

[Applause]

hey

[Music]

we’re living in extremely challenging

times

i feel raw my patience is shot

and i’m ready to bite people’s heads off

for the slightest things and i can

feel my critical voice waiting to pounce

every time

i lose my patience and i’m guessing you

might have a critical voice that attacks

you too

am i right i’m picturing a big cat

it’s like a mountain lion stalking its

prey

you waiting then pounce

it’s got you in its claws sharp words

coming in for the kill

i’m an idiot will i never learn

yep instead of fangs our critical voices

use harsh words to attack us i can tell

you in the 25 years since i founded my

non-profit the body positive with

elizabeth scott

i haven’t met a single person who

doesn’t have a critical voice

and that’s out of the thousands of

people that have gone through our

training programs

i don’t teach people how to get rid of

their critical voices

because that’s impossible i teach people

how to practice self-love

i won’t say that your critical voice

will disappear forever

even if you’re the most self-loving

person on the planet

okay maybe maybe if you’re as

enlightened as the dalai lama

but if you’re anything like me i don’t

think you’re there yet

so how do we practice self-love how can

we be kinder to

ourselves before we know self-love we

have to understand the critical voice

our brains are like sponges they soak up

all of the mean

things people say and do to us and they

turn

other people’s messages into our own

listen to me they say if you just

exercise every day and get fit

then you’d be attractive

or they even worse they do things like

whisper to us in our low moments

you’re an utter failure

why do we listen why do we listen

negative bias it’s what scientists call

our tendency to cling to the memories

of our perceived mistakes and the

hurtful things that happen to us

and forget all of the wonderful things

that make us

good and caring people

the good news is that our brains have

plasticity

so it is possible to train ourselves to

hold on to the good stuff

and focus less on the negative

i’ll tell you from personal experience

though it takes a lot of practice

so let’s start with a baby step by

taking a deep breath together

as you inhale imagine that your breath

is filling up

all of your trillions and trillions of

cells with kindness

and as you exhale see if you can let go

even just for this moment of any

self-critical thoughts you might be

holding

inhaling kindness

exhaling self-criticism

i didn’t always have a self-love

practice i remember

a hot chico california afternoon and i’m

standing in front of my metal

dingy gray 10th grade locker

you know that sick feeling of fear you

get in your stomach before something

awful is about to happen

that’s how i feel as i lift the latch

and swing open my locker door

a piece of binder paper flutters out and

lands face down at my feet

my heart is racing i pick up the paper

and turn it over

yep it’s happened again for the third

time in two months i’m looking at a

graphic

drawing of me badly drawn i might add

performing sexual acts on the overly

enhanced boy in the picture

i feel sick this time i have to tell

someone so i

find my best friend and i show her the

picture but it doesn’t do any good

because neither of us know what to do me

too hasn’t happened yet

it’s the 1970s and no one’s teaching

high school students that sexual

harassment is wrong

at least not in my rural town so i blame

myself

of course i do right there must be

something

horribly wrong with me for these boys

boys i thought were my friends

to torture me like this my critical

voice says to me

you’re fat and ugly and that’s why this

happened

so i do what i always do to fix myself

i start another diet but this time

my desperation to lose weight is so

extreme that i develop bulimia

and i struggle with it for the next six

years of my life

but i am one of the lucky ones i

survived

my sister stephanie wasn’t so lucky as a

nearly

six foot tall girl who wore size 12

shoes and never really fit in at school

she blamed her body for all of her

problems

the shame she felt about her body size

led to binge eating and weight gain

and my dad who was a very loving father

but who had his own food and body image

issues

hassled my sister about her weight

dinner table comments included things

like

are you sure you want to have seconds

tonight stephanie or

do you know how many calories are in

that piece of cheesecake

like me stephanie developed bulimia but

unlike me she struggled with it for the

rest of her life

and it didn’t help that after she lost

weight

she got the most dangerous compliment of

all

from my dad you look great stephanie

how much weight have you lost now in her

early 20s stephanie got breast implants

one of them was faulty and poisoned her

body with silicone

it led to lupus cerebritis an autoimmune

disease that killed her

15 years later at the age of 36.

the moment i found out stephanie died is

imprinted

in my brain forever it’s a warm

october afternoon and my husband and i

are just back from taking

our one-year-old daughter carmen to the

little farm in the berkeley hills

i can still see carmen toddling around

with a very determined look on her face

and hear her squeal and delight as she

feeds a piece of lettuce

to a big brown cow when we get home i go

in the kitchen and i see the red light

flashing on our answering machine

i push the play button it’s my sister

marsha

her voice is choked with shock as she

says

connie dad just called to tell me

stephanie died

i don’t hear the rest of marsha’s

message i’m falling to the floor

i can’t breathe jim puts his arms around

me and my breath

finally comes and it’s followed by a

sound

i’ve never heard come out of me before

[Music]

later that evening marcia and i are at

the mortuary

to say goodbye to our beloved stephanie

she’s lying on a cold metal table

and tubes are coming out of her nose and

mouth

from the paramedics who tried

unsuccessfully to save her

we tell stephanie how much we love her

and i stroke her arm and

kiss her on the forehead before we leave

stephanie’s death is my call to action

i can’t stop thinking about why my

sister died

it comes down to this body hatred

killed my sister i’m so afraid now that

carmen will grow up to hate her precious

body

or turn on herself like i did if she

gets tortured at school

why will she be any different from

stephanie or me

or every other girl in this world

my rage and my fear are the catalysts

for one of the most

important decisions of my life

i will change the world for my baby girl

and that’s how the body positive was

born

and i did change carmen’s world she grew

up in the body positive community

surrounded by diverse people

all doing the work to love themselves

carmen’s world is different because she

developed self-love

actually what happened is she never lost

it

so what exactly is this elusive

self-love

you might not think self-love is

something you’re born with

especially if you have a persistent

critical voice

when i was writing my book and body the

dictionary definitions for self-love

that i found

only listed things like conceit

narcissism selfishness competition

if that’s self-love i don’t want it but

the fact is self-love has nothing to do

with ego

it’s something we all need for our

self-preservation

for our protection and it leads to

deeper

connections with others with self-love

we don’t have to compete with people or

compare ourselves to them

we can be vulnerable and show people

who we truly are flaws in all

in the early days of the body positive i

was told not to use the phrase self-love

everyone had their reasons but my

favorite comment of all was

you shouldn’t say self-love connie

people might think you’re talking about

masturbation

i still crack up every time i think

about that

i disagree with those who say we should

replace all

critical thoughts immediately with

positive ones

since the job of our critical voices

strange as it may sound

is to protect us by trying to perfect us

they only get bigger and louder the more

we push them away

that’s my experience anyway and it’s the

same for people i’ve worked with

all across the united states from

nigeria

chile italy and more than 20 other

countries

and it doesn’t matter if i’m speaking at

a company a university

high school middle or elementary school

the critical voice pops up everywhere

so what do we do how do we quiet these

critical voices if they’re here to stay

first we dig deep for our courage

and we face them straight on

and then we learn to love them i took a

big leap forward in loving my critical

voice when i realized it sounded a lot

like my daughter carmen did

when she was four years old and had

tantrums

i’ll be honest with you i didn’t want to

deal with carmen’s tantrums

trying to get her out of the toy store

when she didn’t want to go

was not my idea of fun but i didn’t push

her away

i didn’t run i turned to her

because i loved her i held her in my

arms until the storm passed

and then we talked about what was

upsetting her

like how leaving the toy store when

you’re four years old feels like the

world is

ending we talked about her feelings and

i validated them

and she got that it was okay to have

strong emotions

the understanding i gave to carmen was

something i

also needed for myself with a lot of

practice

i learned to be loving with myself when

i make mistakes

or when i struggle with my own emotions

so now when my critical voice speaks i

see her as the little scared child

inside of me who needs attention

i don’t run or push her away i turn and

i pick her up

and hold her and say oh hi you’re having

a hard time today aren’t you

i show up for my scared self just as i

did for my little carmen

with love here’s how it works

a few years ago i’m standing on a

berkeley street corner waiting to cross

it’s a warm sunny california day so i’m

wearing shorts and a t-shirt

a woman in a green minivan rolls up to

the stoplight with her window open

she looks me up and down and says you

shouldn’t wear

shorts like that with legs like yours

did she really just say that to me

when i get home i look in the mirror at

my 55 year old size

and i hear myself say you’re old and

ugly

the next week i want to go for a run but

i realize i’m afraid to put on shorts

because i’m repeating

the awful words of the minivan woman to

myself

shouldn’t wear shorts like that with

legs like yours

but this time i’m aware that it’s me

doing the talking

my critical voice is like a mindfulness

bell it rings

loud and clear to let me know i need to

give myself some

love thank you thighs for all the

amazing places you’ve taken me in life

and then i go for my run in my shorts

a comment i hear a lot is sure you can

have self-love connie but i can’t

there’s just too many things about

myself that i don’t like

so here’s the most important message i

hope you’ll take away from my talk today

self-love the self-protection kind

is here for us even when we don’t like

ourselves

and what i find so powerful is that it

also can protect us

from the harsh judgments that come at us

from other people

i’m not at all saying it’s easy for me

to love myself or for you to love

yourself

there are definitely obstacles and it’s

especially hard for people

who suffer from body related trauma that

results

from oppression or abuse

we all need support to love ourselves

just as we

are but sometimes a trauma specialist is

what’s needed

to help heal the wounds that block our

self-love

and sometimes we’re on our own but we

don’t have to be enlightened people

to have self-love one of my purposes

here on earth is to role model

imperfection and i can tell you i’m

doing a fantastic job

and that’s myself love talking loving

our flawed selves even when we blow it

that’s how we learn and it’s not

always easy being human that’s for sure

but what i learned from my sister’s

death and everything that’s happened

since is that life is a precious gift

even on the hard days so

what are you gonna do the next time you

tell yourself you’re not good enough

smart enough attractive enough are you

gonna believe that critical voice

try and push it away or are you with me

in turning towards that scared little

part of yourself

with love thank you

thank you