Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression
May 29, 2026 · 15 min · 7 segments
Summary: In this episode, I talk about how self-criticism can quietly interfere with recovery and healing. So many people believe being hard on themselves will motivate them to do better, but in…
[upbeat music] My guess is that you are really, really hard on yourself, and my guess is you've been doing this for so many years that it feels like it's just a habit for you.
It feels like it's the only way to be, and you probably think you deserve it.
Now, if that's you, you're going to want to listen to this episode because today we're going to talk about the signs that you are too self-critical and how it is impacting your recovery.
We have so much research to show that the more you beat yourself up, the slower your recovery is, the more difficult it is to be motivated.
All of the work I do circles around this one concept, which is you can overcome your anxiety.
You can recover from OCD, but a huge part of that is about how you talk to yourself, whether that's how you motivate yourself, how kind you are, how you much you encourage yourself while in the face of actual adversity, while you are anxious, while you're having intrusive thoughts.
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[upbeat music] My guess is that you are really, really hard on yourself, and my guess is you've been doing this for so many years that it feels like it's just a habit for you.
It feels like it's the only way to be, and you probably think you deserve it.
Now, if that's you, you're going to want to listen to this episode because today we're going to talk about the signs that you are too self-critical and how it is impacting your recovery.
We have so much research to show that the more you beat yourself up, the slower your recovery is, the more difficult it is to be motivated.
All of the work I do circles around this one concept, which is you can overcome your anxiety.
You can recover from OCD, but a huge part of that is about how you talk to yourself, whether that's how you motivate yourself, how kind you are, how you much you encourage yourself while in the face of actual adversity, while you are anxious, while you're having intrusive thoughts.