Comment by cdoxsey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cdoxsey | Hacker News Reader

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From a Christian perspective self criticism is important because its a recognition of reality, that we fall short every day, even of our own standards. We call it confession.

Confession is possible because of the Gospel: God saves sinners not perfect people. " But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." We can admit to our failure because we stand not on our own righteousness but on Christ's.

In it we can find acceptance just as we are and hope for change in the future: "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion"

Directed self talk can be very helpful. You arr the person you listen to most in life and what you tell yourself can radically alter your perceptions.

That said, self talk is very hard. We are easily deceived, and you can get trapped in your own thoughts: anxiety, depression, neurosis.

We're not meant to go it alone. Seek help. "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed."

In Buddhism, compassion is practiced more because, every person you deal with is someone you either have been, or someone you will eventually see in yourself. So there's no point to criticize because you always work towards mutual understanding and compassion.

You don't have to practice the inward neurotic obsession of identifying flaws or the external compulsion of alleviating the burden of knowing yourself - because you'll focus on them when you do. Every person you meet knows you and every person you know is you.

I don't consider myself a Buddhist but I've always aligned myself behind that way of thinking. Even in a non-spiritual context, most people have similar struggles in common: nobody asked to be put on this planet, everyone was torn from the safety and comfort of the womb to be thrown into a chaotic world, we're all just trying to get by providing for ourselves and our loved ones, and we're all trying to enjoy life while we have it.

It would seem obvious that when you hurt someone, you are merely hurting a different version of yourself, a version simply displaced in time and space and sitting in another man's shoes.

I think some people at some points in their life think that it's okay to judge others, because they think they will never be what they judge.

But we always are that, generally, we experience those emotions eventually, in some shape or form. We judge we get judged. Til the end of time, eventually we die, we are alone, with only our thoughts, and a question of what we will become next. And all we have is everything we have ever known and thought, on a deathbed. And all we have ever known and thought are, how we know ourselves and how we know others.

And all of that is in the mind, at the moment of death.

So I think while living, it's important to let go of whatever causes the cycle of wanting to judge and wanting to hurt, people hurt when they feel hurt.

When we feel judged, we judge. But generally, we can never really know if we are being judged or hurt. Because life is an experience, of coming and going, of interacting with a self we think we are not, but we are.

Zen koans can be good to think about (to me), when one dwells too much on what a self means, when one has to interact with other selves in real life. People need a sense of self, because sometimes we are with other selves, sometimes we are with our self.

https://www.ibiblio.org/zen/cgi-bin/koan-index.pl

Thank you for this perspective. I think it's very important to seek outside help.

I've recently started therapy (four sessions so far), and I really struggle with self-criticism and self-worth in that I question if I should take up the therapist's time when there are people out there with bigger problems than me. People lose their spouses to suicide and their kids in car accidents, and I make enough money to spend it on complaining about not being happy enough for 45 minutes a week.

I also question my therapist's motives, since they obviously want to sell this service and would probably put up with any of my nonsense for a quick buck, while shaking their head at how minor my issues are compared to their other clients. But it feels nice to be able to talk uninterrupted for a whole session, without a regular conversation's context switching back and forth, so there's that.

I suspect it’s better with most Christian religions, but when I left Mormonism, I felt a huge burden lifted.

It is difficult to be obedient to every last commandment in Mormonism. I would feel guilty for a multitude of small things, like forgetting to read religious texts one day, forgetting to visit my assigned home teaching family one month, simply thinking of a swear word, drinking soda with caffeine, and many other insignificant foibles. I also felt tormented by the fact that my conscience did not align with what I was told God thought was right, particularly regarding the treatment of LGBT people in Mormonism.

I became an agnostic secular humanist. My mind no longer considers my prior thought patterns healthy, and I practice mindfulness meditation to stop unnecessarily negative self-talk.

Now that I don’t have to be perfect, I can be good.

It's what we ty and help with at at https://issuesiface.com. Not just for Christians either, although we feel the spiritual is an important part of a holistic approach to life.

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