Gemma Speck

We just judge other people for not having it.

So this is what we need to be careful of.

And it's why I keep reinforcing that, again, hating yourself isn't just counterintuitive to your goals.

And your progress, it's counterintuitive to your happiness.

And the thing that I'd be most scared of is that the older we get, the more it becomes a neural pattern, right?

Because repeated mental habits over time become easier to repeat.

at a basic like neuroscientific level learning of any kind including learning how to hate yourself just involves repetition what we repeat is what sticks this has an actual term in psychology it's called long-term potentiation and it refers to a persistent strengthening of synaptic connections that are used commonly together

meaning that certain pathways become more efficient over time.

So when you repeatedly interpret yourself through a lens of loathing, when you constantly replay old embarrassing situations and say, this is proof that I am not worthy and that I'm embarrassing, or when you constantly are scanning your body or your identity for what's wrong with you, or you're picking up

apart your appearance in the mirror, you are practicing a style of self-relation that becomes neurally reinforced and recognizable.

And it therefore makes it easier for the brain to jump to these critical conclusions again and again rapidly in the long run until you don't know anything more or better or different about the

And this is where the concept of negative self-referential processing comes in.

This is a cognitive bias where people disproportionately focus on interpret events through and recall negative information about themselves and about the world around them because they've essentially trained their brain to do that for them.

This is why this is so important to discuss in your 20s.

Yes, this may begin in childhood, but this is the critical time when you get to interrupt this literal neural pathway of self-criticism.

There are certain neuroimaging studies which highlight...

where this is most evident.

They can literally see patterns of self-hatred in like the medial prefrontal cortex, in the posterior cingulate cortex, both areas of the brain that are involved in emotional regulation, ideas about the self, autobiographical memory.

This is where these patterns sit and become strong.

Research has found that these areas light up significantly when people think differently.