Social networks are full of advice to “become the best version of yourself.” Endless lists of habits to improve: doing yoga, getting up at 6 in the morning to be productive, reading a lot, having a skin care routine… For psychologist Lorena Gascón, “we should send our best version to hell and become the version of ourselves with better mental health.” That is, put aside that unrealistic goal based on productivity and the ideal of beauty and focus on taking care of our mind.
So claims psychologist Lorena Gascón, known on Instagram as @lapsicologajaputa, in her new book Stop Treating Yourself Like an Asshole. The name of psychologist ‘japuta’, occurred to her to sum up “that I am a psychologist, that I am a bit of a goat and that I say tacos”.
Why did you decide to make such a practical book?
I think that this way you learn better, that the concepts are consolidated more. I wanted to write a book that, instead of explaining a lot of theory, focused on acting. We want to change beliefs, right? Well, we have to do things different from what we do now. For the book to leave some kind of mark, I wanted to motivate the reader to do exercises, write about something or even mark the answers to a questionnaire with an ‘x’.
Both in the book and on Instagram you use very close language, without mincing words and you use memes.
I wanted to get away from most self-help books that use technical words to make it seem like what they are saying is very important, as if this gave them more authority to say things. My intention is to bring psychology to everyone, that’s why I use a more ‘street’ language, that everyone can understand. I think that humor helps to break through barriers that we sometimes put up to avoid seeing certain things that hurt us.
You emphasize the importance of letting go of guilt.
Most self-help books blame people for what happens to them: they tell them that the problem is their attitude and they do not take into account at all the context that each person may have. It is a very blaming message. Humbly, I try to remove the reader from that guilt and make him realize that the things that happen to him are the sum of a set of factors. The key is to change ‘guilt’ for ‘responsibility’, because guilt blocks us, it does not motivate us, it only leads us to mistreat ourselves.
There is a character who constantly appears in the book to annoy the reader: you call him the ‘bastard self’.
The ‘bastard self’ is our self-criticism, and the reason why it boycotts us so much is, normally, because it repeats messages that our references have told us in the past: parents, friends, teachers… Our little head keeps those critical phrases that They have told us and then repeat them to us in our moments of maximum vulnerability. She imagines that, for example, when we were little they told us: “You fat shit, no one is going to love you.” It is very easy for us, when we are adults, to tell ourselves the same thing when we look in the mirror. But the objective of our critical voice is not to annoy us or plunge us into misery, but to protect us. What our brain is really trying to tell us is: “Be smart so they don’t criticize you like that again, because it would be horrible.” What happens is that the ways it tells you are hostile and unpleasant.
That inner voice judges us, fills us with fears, insecurities and uncertainty. Is it possible to make peace with the ‘bastard voice’?
Absolutely, although there will always be moments of great vulnerability, no matter how self-confident someone is and no matter how hard they have worked on all of this, in which they create a little bit of their ‘bastard self’. Imagine that you have a very important interview soon, for example, and your ‘bastard self’ tells you that you are going to screw up. It is not something that is always overcome.
Should we not aspire, then, to eradicate it completely, but rather to set limits on it?
Yeah! We can have a fairly good relationship with it: ensure that it does not limit us in our lives and that, generally, we do not believe its message. You can live with it as if it were ambient music, like elevator music, that you don’t really realize is playing.
You dedicate a chapter to perfectionism. How do the messages so fashionable now impact seeking the best version of yourself?
If a person has had wonderful parents who have always reinforced their progress instead of their grades, etc., they are going to come across these messages and say, “Oh! This doesn’t matter to me, I go step by step and do the best I can.” But when we grow up in a social and upbringing context that has repeated messages to us since we were children: “You are a disaster” or “You have to do better,” these messages fit perfectly with what we have in our heads, and continue to reaffirm the idea of that we always have to do more. Then we think that our personal resources are not enough, and this causes us tremendous stress that usually ends in anxiety.
Does self-demand often lead us to procrastinate?
And we don’t do it out of laziness, but it is much more related to avoiding facing something difficult. Most people who procrastinate do so to avoid unpleasant feelings when they have to face something. Sometimes we think that we do not have enough resources to face the task we have to do. Another reason why many people procrastinate is because they believe that they have to do the task perfectly. The typical: “Either I do it perfect or I don’t.” This leads to inaction, because errors will always be seen.
How can we stop procrastinating?
First, let go of guilt and try to be kind to ourselves when we procrastinate. Stop telling ourselves “I’m so lazy” and recognize that it’s normal that this is costing us. Motivate us to do it little by little, but with love. It can also help us to lower standards a little.
Do we talk down to ourselves when we make mistakes?
There are people who say to themselves: “I tell myself this to wake up.” It is the belief that, with punishment, behaviors change. But many times I ask people: “Have you ever broken a glass?”, and they tell me yes. And I say to them: “Have you told yourself that you are useless or clumsy because of that?”, and they say yes. So, I ask them: “And has that helped you not break more glasses in the future?” Oh, and then they tell me no. Self-criticism does not help us change what we have done, it only makes us feel bad and keeps our self-esteem low. It’s of no use at all.
The key, then, is to talk to us and treat us as we would with a friend or a person we love?
Of course, I always tell people to treat themselves like you would your child or your cat. How would you talk to your child if you wanted him to do his homework? Surely you would tell him: “Well, he’s going to play for a while, but then you have to do them.” It’s about doing that with ourselves: motivating ourselves to do our obligations, but with kindness. There are patients I have who, when they talk to themselves, I think: “My God, if he were saying that to me, I would start crying.” And many times it comes from how their parents have spoken to them, but that internal dialogue can be changed. It is not easy to do it but we can start with things like: “I do the best I can and I make mistakes like any other human being.” It’s a start.
The bastard voice that you talk so much about in the book also attacks our image. You say we learn to hate our bodies due to social pressures like fatphobia, but we can also unlearn it. As?
We must surround ourselves with environments in which there are not only regulatory bodies. Imagine that we are surrounded by friends who have all undergone surgery and that their topics of conversation are always about counting calories, for example. Being in that context every day is going to affect us, because we normalize what is familiar and repeat patterns from the closest context.
Something we do a lot is downplay our achievements: Why?
Many times it is because we do not see ourselves as others see us. And when someone sees us through their eyes and flatters us, we don’t believe it. A psychology professor of mine told us that most women do not see ourselves as we really are; We perceive ourselves in a distorted way. I always say that there is an invention that would solve our lives: glasses that would allow us to see ourselves with the eyes of our pets.
You say that we do not have the responsibility to manage “the shit” of others.
It is just as bad not to take responsibility for our own ‘shit’, that is, to blame others for what happens to us, as it is to take responsibility for the ‘shit’ of others. It seems that we are very good people when we put aside all our needs to take care of those of others, but when we do that, we are headed for a toxic relationship.
You attribute it to that ‘savior syndrome’.
Yes. They tend to be people who have that savior or good girl syndrome. They are people who have a hard time defending themselves from manipulators, because they make a ‘match’ with them: a person who has many things to improve with a person who always seeks to save another. They usually end up being very toxic relationships in which we end up thinking that we have to take care of the other person, as if they were a small child who needs us. A strange role ends up being generated, because a couple should be a relationship of equals.
“Staying where they mistreat you is also treating you like ass,” you say in the book. How do we detect if we are with a manipulative person?
One way to detect manipulations is to see if what the other person is asking us is not what we wanted to do from the beginning. Observe if what he asks of us is only benefiting the other or if the way in which he asks it of us does not give us the freedom to choose. Maybe he tells us: “If you don’t do this, you don’t love me.” Be alert to these phrases that make us feel guilty if we do not do what the other person wants.
