How often do you hear a parental voice in your head that says things like, “You’ve got to lose weight”; “You should get up earlier every morning and exercise”; “Today I should get caught up on the bills”; “I’ve got to get rid of this clutter”. What happened when you responded to this voice?

We have a very good reason for judging ourselves: the judgmental part of us believes that by judging, criticising, scolding ourselves, we will be motivated to take action and therefore protect against failure or rejection. We may have been judging ourselves to get ourselves to do things ‘right’ since we were children, hoping to keep ourselves in line. We keep on doing it over and over again because we believe it works.

A friend of mine, let’s call him Fred, is a high-powered executive in a large accounting firm. Fred has had a heart attack and is supposed to watch his diet. Right after his heart attack, he did well avoiding sugar, fats, and overeating, but after six months or so, he found himself struggling with his food plan. Over dinner, Fred told me he was upset with joining me because he had had a big dessert as well as a big meal the night before. He told me that he’d been out to dinner with one of his biggest clients. The client had asked him a question and he didn’t remember the facts, so he couldn’t answer him. As soon as this happened, a voice came into his head telling him he was stupid. He should have remembered it and there was obviously something the matter with him. He looked at me and to my horror he started to cry.

When he had recovered and was obviously embarrassed I asked him how he had felt immediately after he had judged himself? It took a bit of urging from me. But when he was sure I wasn’t ‘taking the Mickey’ he answered me.

“Well, looking back,” he said.  “I think I felt that sad, sort of dark empty hollow feeling I often get inside. And you know what – that’s when I started to eat a lot of bread with tons of butter and ordered the dessert! I didn’t realise it was in response to that empty feeling that I hate!”

“So the sad empty feeling is what you feel when you judge yourself. Judging yourself is an inner abandonment, so your inner self feels alone, sad and empty. It’s like you are telling a child that he or she is not good enough. Do you do this a lot?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he replied. “I seem to do it all the time. After I judged myself for not knowing the answer, then I judged myself for eating too much and having dessert. And then I felt even worse. Now I’m judging myself again eating out with you.”

I asked him what he hoped for by judging himself? He said he hoped he could control his eating and get himself to work harder so he wouldn’t forget things.

“It doesn’t seem to be working,” he said, almost despairingly. “No, it just makes me feel terrible. In fact, I can see that judging myself for not knowing the answer made me feel so badly I wanted to eat more. Instead of giving me more control, it gave me less!”

“So you are trying to have control over yourself through your self-judgments, but what actually happens is that you feel awful and behave in addictive ways to avoid the pain,” I surmised. “I think what also happens is that some part of you goes into resistance to being judged and told what to do, so you end up doing the opposite of what you tell yourself you should do.”

I wondered if I had gone too far with my prognosis but he nodded in agreement.

“Right,” he said. “As soon as I tell myself not to eat so much and judge myself for eating, that’s when I really want to eat. So I’m eating to not be controlled and also because in judging myself I’m abandoning myself, which makes me feel sad and empty, and I’ve always used food to fill up that emptiness. Whew! How do I stop this cycle?”

I am not a psychologist so I didn’t attempt a diagnosis but I advised him to visit one. The following week he called and thanked me. He had taken my advice and he told me what the psychologist had said.

“You can’t stop it until you are conscious of it. As long as you are doing it unconsciously – on automatic pilot – you have no choice over it. So the first thing you can do is not try to change it but just notice it. As you become very aware of this pattern, you will have the choice to change it. You will have the choice to be loving and caring toward yourself instead of judgmental once you become aware of what you are doing. You can start by noticing every time you feel that empty sad feeling, and then exploring what you were telling yourself that led to the painful feeling.”

Fred did start to notice and over time was able to stop judging himself. Not only did the sad empty feeling that he had experienced so often in his life go away, but he was able to keep to his medical nutrition plan for his heart.

I hope this has helped others with similar symptoms.