abasements and rewards .

*this post is just a personal view , nothing here is scientific or 100% applicable*

Self criticism and self praising are two important practices you should adopt in order to improve or fix things within yourself for your own sake, and for the sake of keeping healthy interactions and relationships with others around you .

Both should be balanced!

starting with self criticism because it sounds harsh but guess what ? Those who flaunt and try to show others that they don’t have flaws or at least they try to get the “24/7 happy achievers” aura , are the most susceptible to be damaged by the slightest inconvenience or even criticism from others, “i’m good why am i didn’t succeed!?”.. “life is so difficult and hard for a kind hardworking person like me” .

Self criticism is a good habit when you try to see defects in your personality and in your life in general “job, social life, lifestyle … etc” , acknowledgement helps you correct those things to make things easier and kinda perfect and flowing .

A therapist once told me ( self improvement books and shows are the worst, imagine telling a depressed person or a poor man to cheer up and “change his mindset” , that’s bullshit, making the life out there look perfect and they should close their eyes and continue screaming these lies will make them feel worse, because they know it’s a lie , or they will think they are too damaged to see the bright side )

Don’t expect to be praised all the time , nobody did.. it’s crucial, some criticism from others will be of no use and maybe it was made in order to bring you down, you will notice that immediately, so you will know whether to take it or toss it .

Here’s another advantage of criticizing yourself, when a person criticizes you about something you already acknowledge , and you are already taking the steps to get your shit together and fix it “which is the whole point of self criticism, we ain’t making our selves suffer more here k?” , it won’t hurt and it won’t be shocking like for those who have only a positive view of themselves, i already know this is one of my flaws so guess what ? Nobody cares.. it won’t bring me down , i saw that before you and i’m gonna fix it for myself not for you .

Also it helps you in getting advices from those who dealt with the same issue and know about their ways of dealing with it, that might help too! We are in contact with others to benefit each other , no one will expect nothing from another, you might help someone too, when they tell you about something they want to fix, you can give them advices from your experience!

( this doesn’t mean you should be that person who is obsessed with expressing his bad traits and use it as an excuse for his toxicity , keep telling others the same apology without any effort to fix it, and you will end up alone )

Self praising, gurl I didn’t know her until 2015.. since then it became a habit balanced with my hobby “self criticism”.

I was doing it secretly by buying myself a meal , taking myself on a date, or taking a rest and chill for a day or 2, but it wasn’t enough, i was one of those who feel “not that good” when people compliment me, hated compliments because it was a burden for me.. also this habit of not telling others that i did good and it need to be appreciated.. made others think that i have a low self esteem and that I don’t know my worth, which make it easy for them to belittle my efforts when we have a conflict “as a way to defeat me”. but some self respect made me know that “yeah I deserve it” and you know what , i’m gonna give these rewards to me , In front of you , not in a nasty way , but replying to a compliment with “I KNOW RIGHT!! THANK YOU FOR NOTICING IT, I WORKED HARD FOR IT” , instead of “aww thank you but it’s not that good actually” is really rewarding. “It’s not that good and i think I should’ve worked harder” is not “humble” , that’s low self esteem & it will become a habit that makes you apathetic and feel nothing about any positive experience.

We all have good traits just like we have bad ones .. you had a good grade ? It’s not a shame to talk about how proud you are of it!

You got a good job ? I’m sure you worked for it so hard so you should celebrate that shit.

And yes , celebrate yourself publicly, nothing is wrong with some self expression here, it’s not that you are full of yourself, it’s loud messages to yourself not to others, you should know that. We are not going to praise ourselves because we want others to be like “yeah you are amazing you are better than me bla bla bla” OR hearing “nobody gives a fuck” , “why r you so happy about it” , “you sound so desperate for being happy about this small achievement” , you only know how hard it was , how it feels to get it, so you need to celebrate these feelings loudly in a very confident and steady way just as you are so apologetic in front of others for just having a bad side of ourselves , or just as telling ourselves “i’m a shit person” after a day out with friends while your smiling depression is resting in your purse .