Sorry you still don’t meet the definition of hypocrite.

You are labeling yourself a hypocrite based on your thoughts, thoughts that likely change every second, while giving no weight to your actions. Its actually a interesting question. What is the self? Are we our thoughts, are we our actions, both? Neither?

A man who has low self esteem and terrified of fire and dying rushes into a house ablaze in flames and rescues a child. The media labels the man courageous and a hero. The man does not like being called a hero, he remains afraid and “knows’ he is no hero and so continues to judge himself negatively. Is the man a coward,  is the man courageous?

A person is not a label and is more then the some of his actions and thoughts. It is the ego that likes to focus on labels to keep it simple but this simplicity creates anxiety, we ‘know’ we are not that.  I have this thought I am this thought, I did this action, I am this action. Such identification to a moment of time and space is unskillful. The moment has past… which thought which action are we now?

I suspect that as you grow you will discover that high or low self-esteem does not define you. As you have already discovered you act in either case. You are capable of helping others. Capable of creating positive experience for others even when internally you battle negativity. That meets the definition of courage.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Peter.

I don’t think you’re a hypocrite… unless your pretending that your above such struggles.

You have learned that beating yourself up and taking on too much gets in your way of archiving your goals and so its reasonable to suggest not doing that.

The follow up to that bit of advice is how to stop berating yourself or taking on too much.  What you need to do and how you might do it is not the same type of advice at all. You didn’t give a how as you’re not sure how yourself = not a hypocrite.

At this point in the conversation you could acknowledge having the same problems and together brainstorm possible methods you might try. You could even agree to check in with each other every once and encourage each other as you work the how.

Note it is a different issue that needs to be addressed if you know what you need to do but then don’t start the work required to change it. Labeling the inaction hypocrisy is just beating your self up about it and you already know that doesn’t help 🙂  In this case beating yourself up may be a symptom of a deeper issue. The question to ask is what benefit do you get by beating yourself up. Identify the “benefit” and you identify the area that you can work to change.

If your being honest with your self (without judging yourself) what is holding you back from actively working on learning how to stop beating yourself up? The reason I tend to beat myself up is that a part of me feels good about feeling bad about myself, (how messed up is that) it “excuses” me from doing better when I know better.  I’ve had/have a lot to work on 🙂

Anyway its possible you give advice because your hoping to find a solution yourself – nothing wrong with that. In fact life might keep putting people in your path with the same problem just to remind you to keep working on it

This site is a good resource for how methodology.

Stop Beating Yourself Up: 40 Ways to Silence Your Inner Critic

• This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Peter.

Everyone has internal dialog that questions motivations and such. We berate ourselves for not being as confident and self-assured as we ‘pretend’ to be. (in stories this is often symbolized by the evil step mother – instead of nurturing our selves we put ourselves down which can become a unhelpful habit even a addiction)

On my latest employment review, I was giving high scores for remaining calm in difficult situations. I could only smile as inwardly I feel I’m often in a state of panic. Begs the question what is real – the ‘negative internal dialog’ or my outer actions? Who am I?

Both are real in that I experience them however neither are me. I find Buddhist thought helpful here as the self as we tend to imagine it to be is always changing and so does not exist as a fixed ‘thing’. I am not my thoughts, I am not my memories, I am not my actions…  ‘I am’

I’m trying to express a similar idea behind fear and courage. Courage and fear are related is that we exercise courage when we overcome fear. No fear, no courage required.  If we define ourselves by our thoughts we might say we are full of fear if we measure ourselves by our actions we might say we are courageous.

Someone who practices mindfulness and meditation might say such labeling is unskillful and stop asking the question. It is enough that we can act even when afraid, and for those time we can’t forgive ourselves and work to do better.

I don’t want to go down the rabbit hole here, however I hope you can see that our inner dialog does not always match how we are in the world and that’s a good thing. So give yourself a break.

Much of the anxiety your experiencing comes from the tension your creating between labeling yourself based on a negative internal dialog and the how you act in the world – your persona.  Because the labels seem to contradict each other you label your actions fake, a facade, you’re only pretending… Faking it till you make it (which is what we all do) however you can’t acknowledge when you make it because you labeled it as a facade.

In the words of Yoda ‘there is no try only do’ You aren’t faking it your doing the best you can with what you have despite the negative self talk.  Its clear from your post that you work really hard to do better when you learn better. What more would you ask of anyone.

Work on avoiding labeling yourself base on negative self talk. Pay more attention to how you actually are relating to others. Be honest and become a master of your stories – vice letting your stories master you.

I am coping, I am ok, but I often feel very overwhelmed, especially when I am on my own. And I have unhealthy coping strategies as I mentioned above.

I have a strong sense that your on you way to learning and doing better. Your a impressive person and reading between the lines of your posts have strengths and gifts you haven’t yet realized that will surprise you. Very exciting.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Peter.

Buddhism has many schools of thought so You may find the Karen Armstrong’s book ‘Buddha’ a good introduction.

Gautama Siddhartha is ‘called’ to ‘Go Forth’ only after becoming aware of life as suffering, – unable to reconcile life with death. Being Lost it seems is the best place to be to start, some might say the only place to start such a journey!

Its seems like a paradox however in Buddhism becoming more “positive” is not about positive thinking but about seeing ‘life as it Is’ and then at a profound knowing that ‘Life as it is’ is LOVE… This ‘knowing’ opens the door to compassion and love for all Life – all of it even the parts we might label and experience as wrong. The question of being “positive” dissolves no longer needing to be asked or answered.

These awakening to Life as it is no longer attached to a false concept of self/egotism that responds to ‘Life as it is’ with a NO and demand to change what cannot be changed – the source of  much of the suffering we create for our self.

We suffer not just from the experience but the story our egotism creates by attaching the ‘I’ to the experience. The self (small s) is an illusion, you are not your ego, you are not your memories, you are not your experiences. Letting go of egotism and the unskillful stories we find we can be “happy” engaging in Life as it Is.

As an Artist it might be interesting if you can allow your art to become part of your ‘meditation’ practice. That you allow your art to inform and ‘create’ you even as you create it.  A kind of alchemy of the soul. Imagine what the journey your art might uncover as you work to free it from attachment to a ‘I’

There are some great blogs about journaling on the site (google tinybudda journaling)

4 Ways to Use Journaling to Calm Your Inner Critic

• This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Peter.

This site has a lot of good resource information on the subject – I suspect some of them might point you in the direction of a video

Try  googling  ‘tinnybuddha meditation’ and or check out the Blog section Mindfulness and Peace

8 Quick and Easy Meditation Techniques to Calm Your Anxious Mind

Everything changed for me when I realized I could meditate in many different ways, to suit my schedule, moods, and needs; and that the only goal was to show up, mindfully observe my inner life, and practice detaching from my thoughts.