Mental Self Flagellation: Why You Do It And How To Stop
Mental Self Flagellation is the practice of punishing yourself for nothing.
Ever heard of “self-flagellation”?
Back in the days when a monk or a religious person thought they did something horrible, the’d pull out some kind of whip and flog their backs repeatedly. They’d do it until they believed their sin had been forgiven — sometimes they went on for hours.
You have done something similar.
In fact, plenty of people self flagellate all day every day, but the type of flagellation they do is way worse…
They practice “Mental Self Flagellation”
Mental Self Flagellation
How to punish yourself for nothing.
“I’m ugly” “I’m fat” “I’m dumb” “I’m weird” “I’m broke” “I’m lonely” “I’m whatever”
You tell yourself those kinds of phrases every day. Don’t you think your mind is listening?
After all, the brain is just a complex computer whose objectives align with survival and reproduction.
One of its survival mechanisms is called Overconfidence Effect: when you are so confident something is one way that you can’t see the glaring fact that it’s not what you think.
Because the mind is so focused on survival, it doesn’t like to change and prefers staying in comfortable situations.
Thus, it won’t make an effort to change what you tell yourself. So much so, it would cringe if you told yourself you’re skinny when you have three chins, even if you’re a stick man compared to an elephant.
We go on with our life whipping ourselves with our negative thoughts. Then we behave according to those thoughts and activate another one of the brain’s survival mechanisms, called Confirmation Bias…
You do clumsy things and reinforce your belief that you’re a clumsy person. Your partner breaks up with you and you think you’re not loveable. See where this goes? A very dark place, way too many people are in these days.
And it’s such a strange phenomenon because all you have to do to stop self-flagellating is to drop the whip.
How To Drop Your Whips
“Slavery Was A Choice” — Kanye West
I know those words were said by the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time but those words cut really deep if you think about them in today’s context.
We’re blessed to have democracies allover the world, where people can live free. Most countries in the world are capitalistic — which simply means that anyone can become as wealthy as they want by providing value to others.
Yet, we’re tied by invisible ropes and pushed around by an invisible — but powerful — master: our minds.
At least, that’s what you think…
We are conscious creatures who can make decisions that go against what our master tells us. But before or after going against our master, it whips us (with negative self talk) and we stop what we’re doing.
And that’s the key to getting rid of the master. As I said, the whip is negative self talk.
The difference between modern mental slavery and olden days physical slavery is that the most your master can do to you is talk.
That allows you to make a choice: listen to the master or not.
Here’s where most people ruin lives by making the wrong choice. They listen to the master. The master is one of the best salesmen in the world who never fails to say the right words at the right time. The master knows all your secrets, all your desires and uses them against you when needed.
When that happens, you need to remember:
Mental slavery is a choice and you can choose to ignore your master.
“Can You Stop Thinking?”
I felt depressed when I searched that few months ago.
I had tried meditation but soon realized it takes years of meditation to come even close to doing such a thing.
After a week of research, the results were clear: you can’t silence your thoughts. But you can do something way better…
Be Present
The Power Of Now is one of those books that needs no introduction.
If you’ve never read it, the essence of the book is this: keep your focus on the present moment and you’ll be happier.
In all honesty, I used to think the “How To Win Friends And Influence People” type of book, which teach you the basis of something everyone knows to be true. How wrong I was…
After a reading of the book, I realized that by paying attention to my surrounding environment, my body or to whatever I was doing, my thoughts somehow dimmed.
They were still there, but in the background, like radio music playing at a Starbucks.
If you’ve never experienced it, it’s like when you visit a new country and you feel somewhat overwhelmed by the new environment. I saw things for the first time that had always been there, I engaged more in conversations, I had a positive outlook on life…
But only for few minutes, then I went back to normal.
So disappointing.
Like meditation, living in the present moment takes practice over long periods of time. I guess I’ve learned to accept that and I’m practicing every day. Lately, I’ve been able to stay in that state for much longer.
You can give it a shot right now. Here are the steps:
- Imagine your thoughts are a heavy winter jacket. Drop them, let them run in the background.
- Bring your attention to any of the 5 senses (sight, touch, smell, taste, hearing) and keep the attention on whatever you’re feeling.
- Slow down your perception of time. Feel and do things calmly, no rush. Feel every song second.
Master Your Master
After ending the self flagellating cycle, you could view the world as the beautiful place that it is.
Limiting beliefs are just that: beliefs. Your beliefs are not reality. In fact, if you look at the real world and the opportunities it has given all of us, you’ll realize that any dream you could ever have will never be better than this world.
That’s good and bad.
Tons of people are under the control of their master and believe they have no choice but to be a slave. In fact, this is what most addicts will tell you.
Most of those who get out or rehab come back soon or later. The ones that don’t, usually have found other passions and ambitions that are more important than their addiction — religion, a career, a family.
And I think the way we can all loosen our master’s control is by aiming for a goal that we really care about and that would go to rails if we fell back under the control of our master.
It would also be beneficial to change our environment in a way that helps us stay present and focused on the goal. According to Dr Benjamin Hardy, PhD, our environment and our goals shape our thoughts, not the other way round.
Try it out, maybe you’ll be able to master your master.
