What determines quality of life? Is it having all the material wealth that money can buy, a successful job, a roof over our heads, being in relationships with a partner and having a family. These no doubt are important and play a significant part in providing quality of life as they give security, connection to others, possibly purpose and meaning to life. But is this the whole picture. In our culture there is a strong value placed on these external achievements and if you manage to tick these boxes then you are considered successful. What about the internal aspects of life that contribute to quality of life such as self esteem, contentment, happiness, unconditional love or self worth. Where do they fit into the picture of quality of life?

When this question arises I tend to think about movie stars. Not because I have some crazy envy that I wish I was in their shoes. Its rather the opposite as they are great reminders about how quality of life can get misplaced in our culture. They seemingly have everything, wealth, fame and generally beauty, but their lives are invariably very messy and don’t portray lasting contentment and inner peace. In fact they are just as human as anybody else with the messiness and challenges of life. The point I’m trying to make is that we all want to be happy and feel great about ourselves, but the emphasis has been placed too much on external achievement, outer material wealth and the way we look as the means to get to that deep lasting happiness and quality of life we so desire. A close examination of ones life may show that there is some discrepancy between the constant drive for external manifestation of things and how one feels about oneself. 

Take self esteem. Why is it that someone can have everything or have all their needs generally well met yet they have low self esteem. The paradigm of our culture has values that say that the acquisition of things will make you happy and by association  provide positive self esteem. Look at adverts. The message is nearly always have this and you too will feel this good or look this good. No doubt getting a new car or new pair of shoes does feel good for a while, but then it usually stops. The new car or new shoes may even boost our self esteem for a while but it doesn’t appear to be lasting. So what’s the answer. I believe at the very least a balanced perspective where inner qualities are cultivated and valued alongside acquisition of legitimate material needs and the right to pursue a meaningful life.

Inner quality of life can be achieved through other avenues such as psychotherapy, self growth programs, spirituality and other frameworks that explore inner domains. Obviously I’m biased, but I’m also unapologetic about spruiking psychotherapy as a means to explore the inner qualities of life as its my bread and butter so to speak. Psychotherapy is not just about addressing particular issues and problems in peoples life’s, it also has the capacity and potential to explore deeper aspects of ourselves by uncovering the barriers that hinder deeper potentials which give rise to such things as self esteem and inner well being. 

May this day find you well.

The Inner Critic – not your best friend!

In Cognitive Behavioural Therapy they use a term ‘tyranny of the should’s’ to describe a thought process that is limiting in its aim to keep us fixed in a certain position. This inner critic or inner judge is that part of our mental processes that subtly or not so subtly, depending on the situation, tells us that we are doing something wrong. Or you could say it’s an inner dialogue that keeps us in our place by constantly reminding us that we should be doing or acting in a particular way. It’s these thoughts that inform us how we should behave in certain circumstances or do particular actions in other situations.

Freud called the inner critic the Super Ego and its role is to keep us in check relative to our cultural and social context, both in the family culture and within the broader cultural norms. In a way it provided us with a conscience so we act appropriately according to the social mores that are prevalent at any one time. Obviously this serves a function and can be completely appropriate in particular contexts. However, from a psychological perspective the inner critic, inner judge or super ego, what ever you want to call it, has an insidious side that denies spontaneity, access to unused potential and ways of being that are fluid according to the interactions and circumstances occurring at any one time.

The inner critic is usually formed in early childhood and is part of the natural developmental process of children becoming autonomous. Essentially, toddlers are regulated by their parents or their care givers through instructions of the do’s and don’ts of the family home. At a certain point the young child internalises these rules and regulations so is able to self regulate their behaviour and by necessity not get into trouble! To use Gestalt speak we introject these beliefs as a way to adapt to the environment that is governed by our care givers.

Now some of these introjects are very useful like telling a child that’s its not a good idea to put their hand in a fire, but there are others that are taken on board that were necessary at the time, so the child can feel safe or get approval from their parents. but may not be useful as an adult, such as “only speak when you are spoken to”. For a child it makes perfect sense to abide by this rule as the consequences could be harsh if the rule was broken such as getting punished in some way. However, this internalised belief can hang around into adulthood keeping the individual restricted, so they may for example not voice their opinion or they may believe they have spoken when they shouldn’t have. This is where the their inner critic rears it’s tyrannical head and berates them in some way with a negative thought that is self critical or a feeling that is uncomfortable. The inner critic is very black and white in its perspective, so doesn’t adapt according to the context. Instead it’s job is to keep certain behaviours, thoughts and feelings in check for core reasons such as safety, getting approval or being noticed, to name a few. The problem is that the inner critic is out of date and doesn’t serve the purpose it once had. In essence it has become fixed.   

Its fair to say that everybody has a inner critic and just by paying attention to your own thought processes its possible to become aware of this inner voice so to speak. Most people would agree that their biggest critic are themselves as we can be very harsh on ourselves when in reality it’s not really necessary. It’s not necessary because these old beliefs are invariably out of date – they were applicable when we were children but are outmoded as adults.

If you did an experiment where you pretended that an imaginary individual personified as your inner critic and this individual was following you around all day giving you a hard time via its criticism, judgements and possibly plain nasty comments you probably wouldn’t put up with it for very long and tell it to shove off in no uncertain terms! The suggestion here is that you can do that now with your own inner critic. When you notice the judge berating you for something tell it to take a hike and see how that makes you feel. Happy inner critic flogging!

May this day find you well

Counselling and Psychotherapy Team 

“Death may be the greatest of all human blessings” Socrates

“Everyone dies – not everyone really lives” William Ross Wallace

How do you feel about death? It’s one of those areas of life that is pretty much taboo. We only have to look at our society to get a glimpse into death and ageing to get a sense of it’s no no status. Our culture is generally dominated by youth and image because in our consumer driven society youth is where the energy is and therefore the money. The problem isn’t with youth it’s how we treat those that society considers past their prime. We are regularly informed that we have an ‘ageing problem’, which almost implies that older people have gone past their sell by date and are no longer useful. At it’s worst older people are being led away to be kept out of sight and shunted away into old peoples homes so they can pass away with less fuss and bother.  

Death is the most certain thing in our lives and for most people growing old is part of that process, yet we avoid this inevitability. In Eastern cultures death is embraced in a healthier and more realistic manner where older people are more venerated for their wisdom that life has cultivated and endowed. Older people in these cultures are not shunted away, but are integrated more into their communities. Old people homes are not inherently bad as they do serve a purpose but it’s the seeming belief that older people are no longer deemed valuable which is part of our beliefs that drive our individualistic culture that perpetuates a non reverence for this stage of life. This is further compounded by the fear of death that lies at the end of this continuum of ageing.    

So why the avoidance of death and ageing? Part of the problem appears to stem, as mentioned above, from our individualistic culture that focuses a fair portion of its collective energy on youth and self image that’s centred around beauty and how we look. Having a body that inevitably grows older, gets weaker, slowly shuts down, has less energy, systematically starts to not work as well, needs more repair jobs etc and this doesn't even count the fears associated with losing our mental faculties with its worst case scenario of losing your identity via the delights of dementia or Alzheimer’s.   

The aim of this blog is not to be pessimistic about the certainty of death but highlight that bringing this topic into our awareness is a way to focus on life and from there embrace what it has to offer depending on  the context in which we live. I have read a number of times about people who have been given a  terminal diagnosis and what they went through. Once they had gone through the understandable emotional  upheaval this news brings they arrived at place of acceptance reporting that they were able to embrace life in away that’s new and vibrant. The people in these stories usually cited that they wished they had done so earlier in their life. It makes you wonder, when all is considered, that we all have a terminal diagnosis so to speak. The difference being that we don’t know when. Even though we don’t know when, what is stopping us from living fully as though this was our last moment? I’m not talking about making a bucket list and then ditching all responsibility such as family life, but rather a way of being that cultivates seeing the world with fresh eyes which acknowledges both the beauty and the horror that’s part of life.

I guess what I’m advocating  is that death can be a friend who guides us rather than an a dreaded event that is avoided at all costs. Just to be clear this is not about being morose but about being truthful and there is nothing more brutally honest than death to shake one’s foundations and reassess what’s in front of us. Contemplating one’s personal demise can cultivate a life that is more honest, grateful, that has no regrets and is ultimately loving.   

May this day find you well.

Rob