My psychologist talked to me on Friday about the importance of self compassion over self esteem, while also covering the dangers of self criticism. When it comes to self criticism, I often use it as a way to hurt myself because I struggle with thinking I'm worthless and deserve

it. It's also definitely a control thing, as I'm terrified of how in flux life can be. So beating myself becomes this pillar of stability and gives the impression that I know what's wrong with me. When it comes to self esteem, I've spent ages tying that to things around me. This

is especially the case when it comes to my art. My self esteem is tied to how much good art I can make. So when I don't make art, I feel awful about myself and see me as a failure. My psychologist explains that this happens when we tie our self esteem to anything. Nothing is

always stable, so of course our self esteem would be in major flux. Instead, it's about practicing self compassion. Recognizing the ups and downs, and giving kind attention to the pain. It's a form of self acceptance. It's learning to appreciate and care about ourselves despite

circumstances, and this caring mentality makes room for mistakes, and flaws, etc. As opposed to relying on self esteem which doesn't account for those things and makes our relationship with ourselves more volatile. So yeah, as someone who has historically hated himself and tied

self esteem to a lot of external things, I'm having to learn how to be compassionate towards myself so that I start accepting who I am and also feel inclined to make healthier and better decisions. It's much harder to make the right decision for yourself when all of your energy

is spent criticizing everything you do and berating yourself.

It's also worth nothing that self criticism didn't make me a better artist. Some folks will go around saying you have to beat yourself up constantly to get better. They're wrong. That self criticism constantly undermined my motivation, so that I never even tried. It was when I

wanted to make art, enjoy the process, and create what i wanted that I was actually productive. This doesn't mean you shouldn't strive to get better and recognize your mistakes. But only seeing things in the lens of "this is awful" as a way to motivate yourself just backfires.

Every time I've been vocal on here about hating my art and thinking I'm terrible, there's always at least one person who chimes in that it's the only way to get better! It's not and is super unhealthy. It's done me so much more harm than good.