What do you say to yourself when you look at the mirror?

Sep 2023., ‘A.M…. you are useless’.
‘A.M…. you’re useless’.
‘A.M…. you’re useless’.

Realization suddenly hit me. I stood there looking at the mirror flabbergasted. Is this what I’ve been telling myself when I look at my face in the mirror every morning? I stood still, shocked, with the toothbrush still in my mouth. It was a normal morning; no surprises. Just another day. In fact, when I was calling myself useless, I was actually admiring my new haircut. How the hell did I not notice all this while?

Mar 2007., “Hey, how did it go? You got done in just 10 minutes, or did you guys push the meeting?”. My colleague had taken 45 minutes to go through his performance appraisal, just before me. I was always proud of the fact that my performance reviews with my bosses went extremely well. They’ll agree to most of what I say, and sometimes tell me that I don’t have to be so hard on myself. This was in 2007. Cut to 2023, in a new organization, my most hated assignment was to write about my achievements and improvement areas before a performance appraisal; a self-assessment before my manager shares feedback. The improvement areas were easy. They would just flow out like a river when I started typing. Listing my achievements would take me ages, and I would procrastinate doing it until the last moment.

Jul 2023., I was attending a group therapy workshop. I was part of a process that was being done for another participant, and I played a key part in the process. The participant was very happy at the end of it. As the process was coming to a close, I suddenly wondered if that (the scenario that played out for the other participant) was how I was treating my wife. I suddenly felt low. I was hitting myself up. I walked up to one of the facilitators and said, “I just realized this is probably how my wife feels. What have I done? How can I fix this?”. She replied, “You just contributed to a beautiful process, and contributed to permanently changing someone else’s life. But you don’t want to pat yourself on the back for that. You’ve invented something new to hit yourself up about”. I became silent. The depth of my critical voice became very clear. It wasn’t just coming up during a situation telling me how I’d be bad at it. It was crafting new theories to make sure I can never be proud of myself, for anything.

Jan, 2024., For the first time ever, my stomach did not churn during a difficult customer meeting. I did not hit myself up for not knowing answers. I calmly told the client that I’m not an expert at the topic we are speaking about, but I can hear them out, try to understand their concerns, and circle back with answers. It was not that I felt elated after I finished the meeting. I did not even realize that a significant change had happened. The next morning, when I was having coffee with my wife, she asked how the meeting went. I was like…wow, this is the first time ever in my 18-year career, and it felt natural! Growth happens like that, I guess.

The week before this meeting, I had attended a group therapy workshop, similar to the earlier one I’ve mentioned above. Second day into the workshop, it felt that this workshop was almost made for me. We did a process around managing a person’s critical voice. We were split into groups of 3, and we had to share the language of our critical voice with each other (e.g. ‘A.M., you are useless.’, ‘A.M., you are average and it is OK. Not everyone has to be excellent’). Then each of us had to pick one of two tasks- climbing a mountain or swimming across a lake. We had to play out a scenario where we would be at the peak of physical exhaustion, and about to give up. The other two people would each play a role- the critical voice of the person climbing the mountain, and the anti-thesis of that person’s critical voice. (e.g. ‘A.M., you excel in everything you do. You always complete what you start. You can do it. You never give up’). It was beautiful process. At the end of it, I knew I was over my critical voice. It wasn’t that it was gone, but it felt like it had no control over me. The impact of this process was my first calm work meeting, with no butterflies in my stomach.

A lot of what I did earlier in my life and why I did them, just fell into place. I always used to joke with my therapist- “I came to you to handle my work stress. It’s been 3 years, and I’ve become a completely different person, but my work stress still remains”. And he would say that when you do deep work, healing will happen from the inside. Growth will happen under the ground, long before the first sign of a sapling. How true!

I affirm that I love myself when I’m looking at the mirror, and it leaves me with a warm feeling. Every day, every time I look at the mirror.