Today, I’m taking you along a trail ride, not just through the physical landscapes but through the terrain of our minds. It’s about confronting and managing the self-criticism that often accompanies our high expectations, especially when we push towards big goals in high-performance settings.
In this episode, I’ll share how I transform self-criticism into a tool for growth and resilience. Whether you’re riding a bike, running a trail, or pursuing any challenge, this meditation is designed to help you maintain focus and foster a positive mindset.
Key Takeaways:
– Understanding self-criticism
– Cultivating acceptance
– Strategies for boosting optimism
– How to embrace mental flexibility
LINKS
– Listen to another mindfulness meditation
– Learn about the science of meditation with Dave Vago
– Feel skeptical about meditation? Check out this interview with Jeff Warren
LISTEN TO SONYA
If you want to work towards your goals and more, check out my self-paced online course: Moxy & Grit Mindset Academy.
Episode Transcript
Sonya Looney 0:00
Most of the time, we can be our own harshest critic, especially whenever we are pushing ourselves toward big goals and we have high expectations. Today’s episode is a moving meditation.
Sonya Looney 1 0:22
Welcome to
Sonya Looney 0:28
the Sonya Looney show. This is a podcast about high performance and well being, and I’m your host, Sonya. I am a mental performance coach, world champion professional athlete, mom of two and keynote speaker. I’m so excited for you to be here today and to join me for a special episode that we are trying out on a more regular basis, a moving meditation. In the show notes, you will find a link to a previous moving meditation that we published, and there was a lot of positive feedback and people asking for more. I tried doing some of these out on the trail, and I thought maybe I should come back and do it in my studio, where the audio quality was better, but it was more authentic when it was out on the trail, because it was a reflection of what I was thinking and doing that day. Today’s moving meditation is about how we can manage our own self criticism, especially when we are pushing towards big goals, and a lot of times, whenever our expectations are high, our criticism is also very high. I’ll walk you through what I was going through in real time. And this type of meditation is something that I have to use several times a week whenever I am out on the trail, because I am somebody who can have very high expectations and does and I needed to learn how to meet that and this skill has been incredibly helpful for me, so much so that the self critical voice when I’m out on the trail is not nearly as loud as it used to be. And I hope that after listening to this and practicing this, that can be the case for you. Too many people think that self criticism is something that can drive them to be better, but research shows just the opposite. So let’s go on a journey together on the trail, and I will see you on the other side. Today’s meditation is for those days where you’re having trouble, where reality is not matching anything near your expectations, and you’re beating yourself up. This happens so much to athletes, but also to people who are just pushing themselves. Today, I’m out for a long run because I signed up to race the 50k in February. I’ve been feeling really good for a couple of weeks. Today’s the first day where I’m dragging and I’m so excited for this run, and just don’t feel that great. Not so bad I need to go home, but just different than I was expecting. This happens in my bike racing all the time. I go out to do workout, I don’t feel the way that I wanted to feel and can’t execute. Or worse, on race day, I show up and I have nothing this happens to all of us. It happens to us in the boardroom, on the trail. Parenting, not every day is going to be the best ever. So what do we do with that? You guys have probably heard so much about self compassion that you want to just cringe when you hear that word again. So we’re not going to call it that. We’re going to talk about being mentally flexible. This is such an important skill in life and in performance, because whenever things get hard, our focus narrows. We start getting really negative. Research even shows that bad is stronger than good. That’s why you need three positive emotions to outweigh one negative. So when we’re out here and we start struggling, and you’re probably tired if you’re struggling, which makes it even harder to regulate, I want you to think about a couple things, and then we’re going to practice it. Practice it. So number one, when we’re negative, our practice goes three places. First, it becomes very personal. Instead of saying I’m not doing well at this run today, or I’m not performing well right now, it turns into, I suck. I really suck. I’m a total failure with this, and I should be better. And then you start going down the rabbit hole next. It becomes not just localized to that incident. It becomes about everything. And you start thinking how you suck at everything that you do, and your mind starts bringing up all these different scenarios to confirm that belief that you suck. And thus the negativity seems permanent. I suck now. I’m always going to suck at everything. It’s never going to get better. And then you start getting anxious and worrying about future challenges and endeavors, thinking the next time you show up, you’re going to suck again and again and again. That’s a really hard place to be. The next time you go down the negative rabbit hole, look for those three landmines. Notice when you’re doing them. Then just being aware that you’re doing it. I started off on my run, and it took me a little bit to realize I was doing it. I looked down on my watch and like, Oh, God, I’m going a lot slower than I usually go. And I kind of felt bad about it, but I didn’t realize until I tuned in, how am I feeling? Oh, I’m feeling a bit disappointed and maybe feeling a little bit shameful, because people are going to ask me how my run went. Am I going to meet other people’s expectations? They’re noticing that then, because of practice, I’ve learned not to let that take hold of me, and I don’t always succeed at that, but I was able to say, Okay, today is going to be a little bit slower. I’m going to feel a bit more tired. And then I allowed myself to see why I’m tired, but not get stuck there. I got a head cold. Been pushing by definition. I’m doing this because it’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. There are going to be days where I don’t feel this good, and then I flip the script, not ignoring all the bad things, but being curious about them. So I start saying to myself, Okay, well, how can I use this in a way that’s going to benefit me, because when you’re doing a race, you’re going to feel like this, especially when you’re racing an ultra, you’re going to feel bad, and then you’re going to come out of it, not permanent, you’re going to come out of it. So I told myself today, I’m going to use that today’s a great mental training day to reinforce all of these skills, and I work on them all the time. So when people ask me, How do you stay so positive, things go wrong on race day, and they often do because I train them very frequently, because a lot of the time I don’t feel the way that I was hoping to feel, especially juggling a lot of different roles in my life, jobs and being a parent to two young kids, not having a ton of control over my sleep, I have to practice some skills all the time, and I’m encouraging you to do it. So first notice, recognize having a hard day. What’s coming up for you? What are you saying to yourself? How do you feel? How are those feelings impacting your thoughts and vice versa? Are you letting it take you down a rabbit hole of all these different reasons why you’re not good enough, why you’ll never be good enough, maybe why you’re bad at everything. Worst case. Now we can shift and to acceptance. Acceptance is not the same as resignation. Saying, Oh, well, who cares? Not the same. You still care when you accept it. It just means that if you accept this moment, you accept that this is not a reflection of who you are. A lot of times our self worth gets tied up in something. It’s called contingent self worth. A lot of us get tied up in achievement and what other people think, or in competition. How good are we compared to somebody else? So accepting this is where I am right now. I can’t change it right now. It’s okay. I recorded a couple Instagram stories or reels about this. It’s okay. That’s been the most the most powerful mantra for myself. I used to get so mad when I couldn’t ride a technical downhill, even if I’d ridden it before. Maybe it was something I knew I was capable of, but I just couldn’t do it in the moment that happened yesterday, I walked my bike down something I could barely walk down it because it was so hard, but it’s okay. Or today. Last week, I was way faster here. Well, this family home is gonna be asking me how my runway.
Sonya Looney 9:50
It’s okay. What
Sonya Looney 9:54
would you say to a friend they were struggling, or maybe not even struggling, just how many kind of. Blah day it’s okay. Pick your own mantra that one might not work for people. People that haven’t worked on this skill might say it’s okay, and then right after six, it’s not okay. This is unacceptable. I encourage you to figure out what is the story underneath that that makes it unacceptable. And I have suspicions, based on my own experience and research that it’s a story of, I’m not good enough. It’s not okay, because I need to be better than this, otherwise, I’m not good enough. So let’s practice this for a little bit. Whenever you accept it, then you can move past it. You can choose where you want to focus, and we’ll do that after this meditation, we’ll change our focus so something else, once we’ve moved into the acceptance role of what’s happening and meaning ourselves with kindness. Again, this is a practice. You might need to pull this meditation out several times in order for it to start working. The first couple times, you might be like, This is so stupid. This is boring. This is some bullshit I know, because I used to think that this is so lame, but it’s not okay. Here we go. I’m assuming you’re moving right now. If you’re not moving, try and tailor it to yourself, because I’m moving right now, felling in to the body, noticing your breath, noticing where you feel the lightness in your body,
Sonya Looney 11:43
in your chest.
Sonya Looney 11:46
Is it behind your eyes? Noticing where you feel the heaviness, the sluggishness, the boat anchor? Where is it? I
maybe something hurts. Pain is a sensation. Some sensations are alarm bells that we do need to listen to. But sometimes pain just saying, Hey, we’re doing something hard here, the sensation letting go of everything you were doing right before this, before you started listening,
feeling yourself moving in space. It doesn’t matter how you feel, feeling the air,
the sound of the wind or the birds, or any sound I maybe the sound of silence,
sound of your feet and your tires and
a feeling of movement, of motion, not
letting that all go. Just carry on with what you’re doing. Let your mind wander wherever it goes. The second you notice your mind saying something critical or judgmental, touch it. Tap it, mentally, tap it. Put a butterfly net around it for just a second, just so you notice it.
Don’t try and strangle it. Just chop it and let it go. Let it go right by.
I just noticed one for myself running downhill, working on my downhill running. I thought I should be better than this, letting it go. I
letting it melt like a snowflake.
You can’t let it go. Need it with something else. It’s okay. I. I’m okay.
It’s okay.
Keep practicing that on your own, or whatever word you need, you can say this moment or not permanent, or not me.
Sonya Looney 15:36
This isn’t me.
Sonya Looney 15:38
You can pause this and practice for as long as you like, and it’s a practice. Catch yourself, beating yourself up for the practice. It’s okay, noticing that now we’re going to move into part two, which is the shift of attention. So you’ve noticed you’re having a hard day, you’ve accepted that your expectations are not in line with reality today, and you’ve let it go a little bit. Maybe you’ve accepted where you’re at. You’ve met yourself with kindness. It’s okay. Everyone has days like these. Even the best athletes in the world have days like these. Lots of days like these. If you’re asking me or any of my friends, no, what do they do next? There’s different ways we can focus our attention. You can do Association, which is tuning in to all the things happening, or dissociation, tuning out, focusing outward. And elite athletes are good at doing both and being flexible with how they do it. Are you tuning in too much, or are you tuning out too much? We tune out too much. We’re trying to ignore all the bad things happening and pushing them down. And sometimes you need to do that for a short period of time to get through something I can erase. But other time it’s better to move right through it. Sometimes we are afraid to tune in because that voice is so critical and we don’t want to face it. Now you’re starting to give yourself some tools in order to tune in and not be as afraid of what that voice might be telling you next we can add in a dose of optimism. And I use that word hesitantly, because social media has basically ruined what that word means. Optimism is not saying everything is fine. Isn’t saying it isn’t saying only positive feelings are allowed, or being unrealistic about what’s going to happen next. Optimism is two definitions. There’s how you look at the past and make sense of it. Are you looking at things as challenges? Are you finding the ways that things went well, or things even how things could have been worse, and you’re just grateful that they weren’t worse? That’s one way. Optimism is also how we view the future. You can be very negative and still train your optimism. I’ll tell you that everyone thinks I’m so positive, but when something happens, my mind doesn’t go straight to the positive, it goes straight to the negative, to the absolute worst case scenario down here, back from my husband on a road trip, I think he’s crashed and died, and I started imagining how I’m going to have to raise kids by myself. If someone passes me in a race, my initial thought is, oh, my God, I suck. I’m never gonna catch up. My training didn’t work. I should just quit, and I’m gonna embarrass myself. And how dare I even call myself a pro? That’s like, where my first mind these are all things I’ve worked on. That’s where my mind goes, and I’ve trained myself to not let that be permanent, not let that take over. So optimism is first. We’ve just talked about that skill, noticing that thing that came up. Optimism is just having a little bit of light, a little bit of light in the dark, saying maybe things are actually going to go my way, or maybe even not go my way, but maybe things will just get a little bit better. So in the context of the easy context of your legs feeling bad or feeling fatigued, or this blister on your foot that you got last week still hurting a little bit, maybe you can say. It. This is hard right now. Yeah, most things are different. It’s okay. Maybe they’ll get better. Maybe if I just keep going, they’ll get better. You know what? They might even the act of letting go and accepting praise, openness and space in your mind, to allow for that, without the acceptance and the kindness, it’s hard to even be optimistic. Maybe they don’t get better, and that’s fine, too. I hope you found today helpful. I’d love to get your feedback on any of this. This is something I’m trying. I tried to do this on my last bike ride where things were pretty much a struggle bus, but I was all over the place. I tried to do a moving meditation, but I gave way too much information and too many things. And I thought, well, I’ll go home and I’ll do it sitting at my computer, but I want to be authentic, as authentic as possible with these. I want to do them with you. So I waited until another day, which is today. I know the audio is not perfect, completely unscripted and unpolished, but that’s the point, and I’m excited to go back and kind of pick themes from that last one that I recorded, the mega meditation with too many things, and start bringing them to you. My goal with these is to help you live more fully. Help you be more resilient, to help you show up and find something in that process, even when it’s hard that’s meaningful to you and that will help you move forward with other challenges make you better in your life. This is the work that I’ve been doing my whole athletic career. This is pretty much why I love being an athlete. Is because I love the inner work. I love it more than the outer work. I love the exploration and the curiosity of seeing what’s happening inside as I push myself through all these different scenarios. And I hope you do too. Please share this with your friends if you think I’ll help somebody subscribe to the show if you haven’t already, and I’m with you on this journey, literally, of personal growth adventure and our mission to do better every Day, we’ll see you right back here next week.