November 19, 2024 • 15 mins
In this episode, Erin explores the double negative mindset—how feelings of anxiety or uncertainty often spiral into deeper self-doubt through self-criticism and shame. She shares insights from her work with clients who unknowingly judge their emotions, eroding their self-confidence and trust. Tune in and unpack how to disrupt this cycle with strategies and mindset tips to break free from self-judgment and build a healthier, more confident self-concept.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's episode walks you through how to decrease the
anxiety that comes from sneakyself-judgment.
It is so common to get in ourown way of feeling calmer and
more confident, especially whenwe're spinning in self-judgment.
So keep listening and learn myprocess for helping you dial
this way down.
Okay, so let's dive intotoday's episode.
(00:22):
I want to introduce you all toa concept I call the double
negative mindset, and the doublenegative mindset is when you
feel bad because your mind andyour body is reacting to a
circumstance.
So you're leading a teammeeting, you're feeling scared,
you're worrying that you aren'tdoing a good job, your brain's
panicked, so you're feelinganxiety.
(00:43):
This is the initial negativemindset, and then you judge
yourself for having theseanxious feelings.
This is the second negativemindset to arrive on the scene.
So you have the initial mindsetwhere you are feeling panicked.
You have all these thoughts offear, you have thoughts around
(01:04):
your capabilities, you'refeeling judged by other people,
you're feeling like you're notdoing a good job, and the double
comes in when you have a bit ofa pile on.
So all of a sudden, you'refeeling this negative mindset
and you're judging yourself forexperiencing it.
So you not only have thedifficult effects of having
(01:25):
anxiety, but you now have alittle bit of shame for even
feeling that anxiety and I seethis so often in my coaching and
it's like a sneaky shame andit's a sneaky way of piling on
to an already difficult mindsetwith a set of judgment.
(01:49):
I feel very strongly abouthelping people ease the initial
anxious mindset.
I understand that it'sexhausting.
I understand why this leads toburnout for people.
I know how much energy it takesto be in a state where you're
feeling a lot of anxiety, a lotof self-doubt, a lot of second
guessing.
But I feel like, because thatstate of anxiety is heightened
(02:15):
and we have such a strong desireto get out of it, people can
often overlook this very, veryimportant initial step, which is
to decrease the shame and theself judgment around that
mindset to begin with and let meexplain this further so you can
understand what this tends tolook like.
So the double negative mindsetoften sounds like this I should
(02:39):
be stronger than this.
I thought I had worked throughmy self-doubt.
Stronger than this, I thought Ihad worked through my
self-doubt.
A big one for many people in mycoaching is I shouldn't be
experiencing this at this stageof my career, like I should be
better than this.
I should have more confidenceby now.
You know I'm a leader, or I'min this role.
(03:00):
That requires a lot ofcompetency and confidence, and
so something's wrong with mebecause I'm not feeling that.
Another really common one that Ioften hear from my clients is
no one else seems this anxious,no one else seems to be having
this much self-doubt.
So something is really wrongwith me, something's wrong with,
(03:20):
like, my own emotionalresilience.
And so what's really happeningis your brain is creating a pile
on.
You already feel bad.
It's challenging to carry theanxiety and self-doubt and now
you have this other layer ofself-judgment about those
feelings, which actually cancreate a cycle that feeds the
(03:41):
initial mindset.
This is really important.
The reason why I feel like it'sso important to catch this is
because I see it reproduce thislack of self-trust and lack of
self-confidence over and overand over and over again.
(04:02):
And I wanna be clear.
I understand why your brainwants to pile on right, we've
all been there.
I've been there.
The reason the brain often wantsto pile on and judge the
anxiety, judge the secondguessing is because it has a
desire to move you to a morepositive and productive mindset.
(04:23):
So it's almost like that toughlove strategy where it's like
you're better than this.
You shouldn't be experiencingthis.
You've come so far in yourcareer, be stronger and I get it
.
My goal in coaching is also tohelp you be in a more productive
mindset, but the lack ofacceptance for the emotions that
(04:46):
are coming up actually impedesand prolongs your ability to
move through the self-doubt andthe overwhelm.
When you are judging yourselffor feeling a lack of confidence
and telling yourself I shouldbe more confident, I shouldn't
be so fragile, I should be ableto handle this, you are
(05:06):
communicating to yourself morereasons why you should believe
that you're not confident, morereasons to not be confident,
more reasons to feel moreself-doubt, more reasons to
second guess yourself.
So it's like this attempt to getout of it often just fuels it
(05:29):
even further.
It increases the shame, itcreates a resistance and it
almost creates like panicpositivity, where I see people
who are like panicked to get outof it because their feeling
that they're even having it tobegin with is saying something
so strongly about who theybelieve themselves to be.
(05:51):
And I will say that for some ofyou, the self-judgment, the
what are you doing?
You know, buck up, camper youshouldn't be feeling this way
will get you moving.
Initially, for about 60% of myclients it actually creates an
avoidance.
It creates a procrastination.
(06:12):
For another 40% of my clientsit creates quick movement where
all of a sudden they're in thisstate of panic and they're
really judging all of theiremotions and so they will move
forward really quickly to try toget out of it.
But even if it creates aninitial movement, what I see
(06:32):
over and over again is that inthe end it just keeps
reinforcing the self-conceptthat I'm broken, I'm weak, I'm
feeling things I shouldn't befeeling, and it ends up
disrupting your self-confidenceand your self-trust.
So I really want to talk aboutthis today because I think it's
a really sneaky mindset block.
I see it get overlooked a lot.
My clients will come to me andthey will have worked with
(06:54):
therapists or coaches or otherpeople to try to kind of move
through the second guessing orthis self-doubt or this
self-confidence issue, and Ioften see this piece missing.
I often see people skippingover, not even realizing that
they're doing this doublenegative and not giving
themselves the time to developthe skill of being in the
(07:18):
emotion without the judgmentfirst, so that you stop
reinforcing to yourself a shamearound who you are, how you feel
and how your brain and body isreacting to the world.
So bypassing the first stepplays such a big role in
reinforcing a self-concept thatwe don't want.
(07:40):
So I want to offer a couple ofshifts for you to think about
and consider to help youpractice this first and initial
skill of being in a space whereyou are not judging whatever
feeling or mindset that's comingup for you.
The first thing I want to talkabout is a metaphor I use with
(08:03):
my clients a lot that I thinkcan help the brain have a
different way of viewing this.
I like to think about emotionsas it's just a reaction to
something.
The same way your body reactsto temperature outside.
So you step outside, you feelphysically hot or cold.
Likely, you don't have a wholebunch of internal dialogue about
(08:28):
you feeling hot or cold.
You're not making it meansomething about yourself.
You're not making it mean thatyou are a weak person.
You're not making it mean thatsomething's terribly wrong with
you, it just is.
You're like oh interesting,it's like really hot or it's
really cold outside.
You are likely in some level ofacceptance about it, right, I'm
(08:48):
not saying you like it.
I don't like that.
It's freezing in upstate NewYork, but I'm certainly in
acceptance that my body feelscold.
Once you're in that space, it'seasier to mitigate it, whether
I'm going to put on more clothesor do something.
And for mindset barriers likeanxiety, fear of judgment,
second guessing, it is soimportant that you first allow
(09:12):
it to be okay that it's comingup.
And allowing it to be okaymeans really catching when
you're shaming yourself forfeeling it and when you are
dismissing it and not validatingit.
So the first step that I walkpeople through is the importance
of validating your emotionsbefore you try to move past it.
(09:37):
So whatever is coming up foryou if you're having a lot of
anxiety, before you're to movepast it.
So whatever is coming up foryou if you're having a lot of
anxiety before you're speakingup, if you're struggling while
you're learning something inyour new position and you find
yourself in a lot of fear aroundjudgment, it's always okay that
you're feeling what you'refeeling.
The same way, it's always okaythat you feel cold.
When you feel cold and you feelhot.
(09:58):
When you feel hot, it is areaction to your brain's
interpretation of whatever ishappening.
That's it.
So your brain is stepping infront of a group of people.
Your brain thinks this isunsafe, it thinks there's
judgment, it thinks there's lifeor death involved and it's
panicking.
That's all that's happening andthe shame around that only
(10:23):
creates a disruption in yourself-confidence.
To begin with, judging yournegative feelings will create an
additional barrier to movingthrough it.
So I want you to practice theidea that it's okay that I am
feeling what I am feeling, thatit's first about accepting and
(10:47):
allowing the feeling that'scoming up to be okay.
It's like okay, my brain'smaybe more scared than it needs
to be in this situation becauseit's not life or death, but it's
okay that it's happening.
My brain's just confused inthis moment.
My brain might be overreacting.
My brain might be taking inpartial information, but not all
(11:10):
of the information.
My brain might be reallyuncomfortable because it hasn't
gone from point A to point B andseen a positive result yet.
Like any skill, allowing thatnegative emotion at first takes
practice and sometimes, if it'sreally strong, if you have a lot
of shame or a lot ofself-judgment around whatever
you're experiencing, you willneed a person to model back to
(11:33):
you that your feelings are validand that you don't need to hold
shame around it.
So Brene Brown talks a lotabout shame needing light, shame
needing to be brought into thelight.
Shame needs to be held bysomeone else to help diminish it
.
Right that when you bring itinto the light and someone else
allows it compassionately, yousuddenly see that you don't need
(11:55):
to be secretive or hold it inor be quiet about it, because
it's okay, it's normal.
I'm not a bad person, I'm notweak, because I'm experiencing
it.
Developing the skill ofacceptance, of allowing the
feelings without judgment orshame, is actually going to
expedite your ability to movethrough it.
(12:16):
And once that clicks, forpeople it is often very freeing
because you now can experiencethe suffering that's associated
with anxiety, fear of failure,fear of judgment in a clean way,
which means you experience itfor what it is, but you don't
(12:37):
experience it as more heightenedthan it is.
Many of you are trying so hardto avoid it, to push against it
and to get out of it, which Icompletely understand why?
Because it doesn't feel good.
But I actually want you to dothe opposite.
I want you to relax your bodyand show yourself.
I can handle the feeling.
(12:58):
I can handle this thoughtcoming up.
I can handle the fact that I'mhaving anxiety.
It makes sense that I feel this.
My brain is just reacting tonot feeling safe.
You can shift your self-conceptto one that supports yourself,
into feeling safe and confidentand focused.
(13:18):
But I don't recommend trying todo this by diminishing and
judging your feelings.
You first want to be inacceptance.
You want to make your firststep to be a space of accepting
and allowing what you arefeeling, without piling on.
The pile on will just exhaust,you will create resistance and
(13:42):
will further create thisself-concept that you can't
trust yourself, that you're notconfident enough, that something
is wrong with you.
So I wanted to hop on today andtalk about that double negative.
Like I said, I see it so muchin my coaching and I see it as
so sneaky and I see so many ofmy clients who are in it and
they have no idea that they'reeven in it.
They aren't even aware thatthey're judging their feelings.
(14:04):
So tune into that, startobserving yourself, start
observing what you do when younotice you're feeling anxious,
nervous, uncertain and notice ifyou are having a bunch of
thoughts about why you shouldn'tbe feeling that way and a lot
of shame around feeling that way, and I invite you to practice
being in that acceptance so thatyou can move into the stage of
(14:28):
then applying the work ofshifting out of that mindset.
But we don't want to make thatmindset five times worse than it
already is by piling on to itbefore we start to move through
it.
Okay, I hope you all have agreat rest of your week.
I'll be back with more greatmindset coaching for you.
(14:51):
Have a great week and I'll talkto you soon.
Today's episode walks you through how to decrease the
anxiety that comes from sneakyself-judgment.
It is so common to get in ourown way of feeling calmer and
more confident, especially whenwe're spinning in self-judgment.
So keep listening and learn myprocess for helping you dial
this way down.
Okay, so let's dive intotoday's episode.
(00:22):
I want to introduce you all toa concept I call the double
negative mindset, and the doublenegative mindset is when you
feel bad because your mind andyour body is reacting to a
circumstance.
So you're leading a teammeeting, you're feeling scared,
you're worrying that you aren'tdoing a good job, your brain's
panicked, so you're feelinganxiety.
(00:43):
This is the initial negativemindset, and then you judge
yourself for having theseanxious feelings.
This is the second negativemindset to arrive on the scene.
So you have the initial mindsetwhere you are feeling panicked.
You have all these thoughts offear, you have thoughts around
(01:04):
your capabilities, you'refeeling judged by other people,
you're feeling like you're notdoing a good job, and the double
comes in when you have a bit ofa pile on.
So all of a sudden, you'refeeling this negative mindset
and you're judging yourself forexperiencing it.
So you not only have thedifficult effects of having
(01:25):
anxiety, but you now have alittle bit of shame for even
feeling that anxiety and I seethis so often in my coaching and
it's like a sneaky shame andit's a sneaky way of piling on
to an already difficult mindsetwith a set of judgment.
(01:49):
I feel very strongly abouthelping people ease the initial
anxious mindset.
I understand that it'sexhausting.
I understand why this leads toburnout for people.
I know how much energy it takesto be in a state where you're
feeling a lot of anxiety, a lotof self-doubt, a lot of second
guessing.
But I feel like, because thatstate of anxiety is heightened
(02:15):
and we have such a strong desireto get out of it, people can
often overlook this very, veryimportant initial step, which is
to decrease the shame and theself judgment around that
mindset to begin with and let meexplain this further so you can
understand what this tends tolook like.
So the double negative mindsetoften sounds like this I should
(02:39):
be stronger than this.
I thought I had worked throughmy self-doubt.
Stronger than this, I thought Ihad worked through my
self-doubt.
A big one for many people in mycoaching is I shouldn't be
experiencing this at this stageof my career, like I should be
better than this.
I should have more confidenceby now.
You know I'm a leader, or I'min this role.
(03:00):
That requires a lot ofcompetency and confidence, and
so something's wrong with mebecause I'm not feeling that.
Another really common one that Ioften hear from my clients is
no one else seems this anxious,no one else seems to be having
this much self-doubt.
So something is really wrongwith me, something's wrong with,
(03:20):
like, my own emotionalresilience.
And so what's really happeningis your brain is creating a pile
on.
You already feel bad.
It's challenging to carry theanxiety and self-doubt and now
you have this other layer ofself-judgment about those
feelings, which actually cancreate a cycle that feeds the
(03:41):
initial mindset.
This is really important.
The reason why I feel like it'sso important to catch this is
because I see it reproduce thislack of self-trust and lack of
self-confidence over and overand over and over again.
(04:02):
And I wanna be clear.
I understand why your brainwants to pile on right, we've
all been there.
I've been there.
The reason the brain often wantsto pile on and judge the
anxiety, judge the secondguessing is because it has a
desire to move you to a morepositive and productive mindset.
(04:23):
So it's almost like that toughlove strategy where it's like
you're better than this.
You shouldn't be experiencingthis.
You've come so far in yourcareer, be stronger and I get it
.
My goal in coaching is also tohelp you be in a more productive
mindset, but the lack ofacceptance for the emotions that
(04:46):
are coming up actually impedesand prolongs your ability to
move through the self-doubt andthe overwhelm.
When you are judging yourselffor feeling a lack of confidence
and telling yourself I shouldbe more confident, I shouldn't
be so fragile, I should be ableto handle this, you are
(05:06):
communicating to yourself morereasons why you should believe
that you're not confident, morereasons to not be confident,
more reasons to feel moreself-doubt, more reasons to
second guess yourself.
So it's like this attempt to getout of it often just fuels it
(05:29):
even further.
It increases the shame, itcreates a resistance and it
almost creates like panicpositivity, where I see people
who are like panicked to get outof it because their feeling
that they're even having it tobegin with is saying something
so strongly about who theybelieve themselves to be.
(05:51):
And I will say that for some ofyou, the self-judgment, the
what are you doing?
You know, buck up, camper youshouldn't be feeling this way
will get you moving.
Initially, for about 60% of myclients it actually creates an
avoidance.
It creates a procrastination.
(06:12):
For another 40% of my clientsit creates quick movement where
all of a sudden they're in thisstate of panic and they're
really judging all of theiremotions and so they will move
forward really quickly to try toget out of it.
But even if it creates aninitial movement, what I see
(06:32):
over and over again is that inthe end it just keeps
reinforcing the self-conceptthat I'm broken, I'm weak, I'm
feeling things I shouldn't befeeling, and it ends up
disrupting your self-confidenceand your self-trust.
So I really want to talk aboutthis today because I think it's
a really sneaky mindset block.
I see it get overlooked a lot.
My clients will come to me andthey will have worked with
(06:54):
therapists or coaches or otherpeople to try to kind of move
through the second guessing orthis self-doubt or this
self-confidence issue, and Ioften see this piece missing.
I often see people skippingover, not even realizing that
they're doing this doublenegative and not giving
themselves the time to developthe skill of being in the
(07:18):
emotion without the judgmentfirst, so that you stop
reinforcing to yourself a shamearound who you are, how you feel
and how your brain and body isreacting to the world.
So bypassing the first stepplays such a big role in
reinforcing a self-concept thatwe don't want.
(07:40):
So I want to offer a couple ofshifts for you to think about
and consider to help youpractice this first and initial
skill of being in a space whereyou are not judging whatever
feeling or mindset that's comingup for you.
The first thing I want to talkabout is a metaphor I use with
(08:03):
my clients a lot that I thinkcan help the brain have a
different way of viewing this.
I like to think about emotionsas it's just a reaction to
something.
The same way your body reactsto temperature outside.
So you step outside, you feelphysically hot or cold.
Likely, you don't have a wholebunch of internal dialogue about
(08:28):
you feeling hot or cold.
You're not making it meansomething about yourself.
You're not making it mean thatyou are a weak person.
You're not making it mean thatsomething's terribly wrong with
you, it just is.
You're like oh interesting,it's like really hot or it's
really cold outside.
You are likely in some level ofacceptance about it, right, I'm
(08:48):
not saying you like it.
I don't like that.
It's freezing in upstate NewYork, but I'm certainly in
acceptance that my body feelscold.
Once you're in that space, it'seasier to mitigate it, whether
I'm going to put on more clothesor do something.
And for mindset barriers likeanxiety, fear of judgment,
second guessing, it is soimportant that you first allow
(09:12):
it to be okay that it's comingup.
And allowing it to be okaymeans really catching when
you're shaming yourself forfeeling it and when you are
dismissing it and not validatingit.
So the first step that I walkpeople through is the importance
of validating your emotionsbefore you try to move past it.
(09:37):
So whatever is coming up foryou if you're having a lot of
anxiety, before you're to movepast it.
So whatever is coming up foryou if you're having a lot of
anxiety before you're speakingup, if you're struggling while
you're learning something inyour new position and you find
yourself in a lot of fear aroundjudgment, it's always okay that
you're feeling what you'refeeling.
The same way, it's always okaythat you feel cold.
When you feel cold and you feelhot.
(09:58):
When you feel hot, it is areaction to your brain's
interpretation of whatever ishappening.
That's it.
So your brain is stepping infront of a group of people.
Your brain thinks this isunsafe, it thinks there's
judgment, it thinks there's lifeor death involved and it's
panicking.
That's all that's happening andthe shame around that only
(10:23):
creates a disruption in yourself-confidence.
To begin with, judging yournegative feelings will create an
additional barrier to movingthrough it.
So I want you to practice theidea that it's okay that I am
feeling what I am feeling, thatit's first about accepting and
(10:47):
allowing the feeling that'scoming up to be okay.
It's like okay, my brain'smaybe more scared than it needs
to be in this situation becauseit's not life or death, but it's
okay that it's happening.
My brain's just confused inthis moment.
My brain might be overreacting.
My brain might be taking inpartial information, but not all
(11:10):
of the information.
My brain might be reallyuncomfortable because it hasn't
gone from point A to point B andseen a positive result yet.
Like any skill, allowing thatnegative emotion at first takes
practice and sometimes, if it'sreally strong, if you have a lot
of shame or a lot ofself-judgment around whatever
you're experiencing, you willneed a person to model back to
(11:33):
you that your feelings are validand that you don't need to hold
shame around it.
So Brene Brown talks a lotabout shame needing light, shame
needing to be brought into thelight.
Shame needs to be held bysomeone else to help diminish it
.
Right that when you bring itinto the light and someone else
allows it compassionately, yousuddenly see that you don't need
(11:55):
to be secretive or hold it inor be quiet about it, because
it's okay, it's normal.
I'm not a bad person, I'm notweak, because I'm experiencing
it.
Developing the skill ofacceptance, of allowing the
feelings without judgment orshame, is actually going to
expedite your ability to movethrough it.
(12:16):
And once that clicks, forpeople it is often very freeing
because you now can experiencethe suffering that's associated
with anxiety, fear of failure,fear of judgment in a clean way,
which means you experience itfor what it is, but you don't
(12:37):
experience it as more heightenedthan it is.
Many of you are trying so hardto avoid it, to push against it
and to get out of it, which Icompletely understand why?
Because it doesn't feel good.
But I actually want you to dothe opposite.
I want you to relax your bodyand show yourself.
I can handle the feeling.
(12:58):
I can handle this thoughtcoming up.
I can handle the fact that I'mhaving anxiety.
It makes sense that I feel this.
My brain is just reacting tonot feeling safe.
You can shift your self-conceptto one that supports yourself,
into feeling safe and confidentand focused.
(13:18):
But I don't recommend trying todo this by diminishing and
judging your feelings.
You first want to be inacceptance.
You want to make your firststep to be a space of accepting
and allowing what you arefeeling, without piling on.
The pile on will just exhaust,you will create resistance and
(13:42):
will further create thisself-concept that you can't
trust yourself, that you're notconfident enough, that something
is wrong with you.
So I wanted to hop on today andtalk about that double negative.
Like I said, I see it so muchin my coaching and I see it as
so sneaky and I see so many ofmy clients who are in it and
they have no idea that they'reeven in it.
They aren't even aware thatthey're judging their feelings.
(14:04):
So tune into that, startobserving yourself, start
observing what you do when younotice you're feeling anxious,
nervous, uncertain and notice ifyou are having a bunch of
thoughts about why you shouldn'tbe feeling that way and a lot
of shame around feeling that way, and I invite you to practice
being in that acceptance so thatyou can move into the stage of
(14:28):
then applying the work ofshifting out of that mindset.
But we don't want to make thatmindset five times worse than it
already is by piling on to itbefore we start to move through
it.
Okay, I hope you all have agreat rest of your week.
I'll be back with more greatmindset coaching for you.
(14:51):
Have a great week and I'll talkto you soon.
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