Dear ginn,

you are welcome.

I know my dad shouldn’t do that, but it’s the way he talks because it runs in family blood (my grandpa).

Our parents often repeat their parents’ mistakes. My mother brought me up similarly to how her mother brought her up… with lots of criticism and very little empathy. Your father and grandfather sound the same…

Even though I’m grown-up now, he still criticises me when I make mistakes. I believe his behaviour has had a big impact on me, slowly accumulating from a young age, and subconsciously has taken a toll on me.

It’s good you’re realizing that your father’s behavior affected you, and still affects you badly. It is what caused your low self-esteem, i.e. the sense that you aren’t good enough.

You say your parents support you in everything (My parents are always supportive for everything I want to do in my life). However, it seems your father has only been supportive if you are winning, if you are strong and fearless, if you are not afraid. But he hasn’t been supportive if you are losing, if you feel weak and afraid, if you feel confused and are lacking direction. In those situations, from an early age, he had no empathy and understanding for you. Although such situations are an important part of life. We are all vulnerable, and the worst thing we can do is to try to suppress or “defeat” our vulnerability.

Brene Brown gave an amazing TED talk on vulnerability (The Power of Vulnerability), please check it out. She explains why vulnerability is so important. She goes as far as to say that “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change”.

Feeling weak and vulnerable is really sucks.

It sucks because you were made to feel weak and useless, and by extension, unworthy of love, whenever you felt vulnerable. You received a wrong message…

Actually I’m learning to stop thinking negative thoughts and allow myself to be weak and vulnerable.

It’s great that you have started doing that!

But when I tell myself that it’s okay to fail or make mistakes, my inner self denies it and tells myself that if you do this way, you can do better because you’re weak and that’s why it happens.

Your inner self is your inner critic, which is the internalized voice of your father. This voice pushes you to be strong, so you would be loved by your father. I think this is its main motivation.

If you start telling yourself a different story – that vulnerability is not a weakness, but in fact an asset and a precondition for a healthy personality – you might notice that this inner critic isn’t so loud any more…

I was overwhelmed by my own emotions and had panic attacks. I couldn’t even control my thoughts and forgot to tell myself I should stop. I guess I need more practice and can’t hope that I will change my mind in a short time, right?

Yes, it takes time and practice to tame our inner critic. You would need to develop a positive inner voice too, as a counter-part to the inner critic. It would be like an inner cheer-leader, or an inner compassionate parent, who has a lot of empathy and understanding for you, specially when you feel weak and useless. Have you perhaps gotten in touch with that voice too?