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PSYCHIATRIST COMMENTARY

"Why are we so negative with ourselves?"

Freud described the superego as an internalized fictional voice of authority, constantly passing judgment on the self. Later, Donald Winnicott wrote about the false self—the part of us that grows in response to external expectations, sometimes to the point of suffocating the true self. Though different in scope, both ideas point to the same reality: most people are engaged in an ongoing internal dialogue that is harsh, critical, and often relentless.

And the numbers bear this out.

Most of my patients feel an immense sense of relief when they realize that self-critical talk is nearly universal. It’s not just them. That voice—the one that picks apart past mistakes, anticipates failure, and questions whether they’re enough—is something almost everyone carries. Research confirms this: negative thoughts are experienced by 80% to 99% of the non-clinical population and are strongly linked to emotional distress and psychopathology, especially when left unmanaged. If you’ve ever felt like your mind is working against you, you’re not alone—this is the default setting for most people.

But this isn’t just bad luck or personal failing—there’s a reason the mind works this way.

From an evolutionary standpoint, a brain that constantly scans for errors and replays past mistakes had survival advantages. The human who second-guessed whether they took the right path through the forest or handled a social conflict correctly was less likely to make lethal misjudgments. The one who constantly and relentlessly questioned an enemy’s explanation instead of blindly accepting it had a better chance of survival. The one who fixated on tracking how many lions remained nearby rather than living in a state of carefree optimism was more likely to see another day. Meanwhile, the one who charged forward with pure confidence, free from doubt, was far more likely to take reckless risks that ended badly.

The problem is that this survival system—built to keep our ancestors alive—now operates in a world where the threats are no longer predators in the jungle but self-doubt in relationships, in the boardroom, in the quiet moments before sleep. In some ways, it is an outdated alarm system that keeps ringing even when there’s no real danger. But sometimes, it can be a superpower, helping you identify things others don’t see and sharpening your ability to navigate complexity—to win in life, in relationships, in wealth, and in success overall.

So what is one to do?

First, know this: the goal isn’t to silence the mind or force it into positivity a la "manifesting." Instead, it’s to take a step back and recognize the patterns. When your body is unconsciously driving everything for you, you run the risk of becoming an unexamined AI, blindly chasing an objective that doesn’t serve you.

Before you can change the tune of the music box, you need to be able to see how it operates on its own. Otherwise, the AI of the system is running you, not the other way around.

The voice of self-doubt, among other automatic mechanisms, is not entirely your own. It’s an echo—of things you’ve heard throughout your life and of evolutionary vestiges. Some of these voices may have been useful once, but many of them are outdated, inaccurate, or just plain unhelpful. But sometimes, there is music in the noise, and the key is learning to pick it out.

Neuroscience confirms that simply noticing negative self-talk—without immediately believing it as absolute truth—creates psychological distance, reducing its emotional weight and its control over you. But this is like training a muscle. It doesn’t happen overnight.

This is why today’s reflection, depth reflection, isn’t just an abstract exercise—it’s the foundation of rewiring these automatic loops. The Five-Stage Depth Reflection exists to train this skill, not to replace negative thoughts with wild optimism or wishful thinking, but to help you recognize what is shaping your inner world so it is not unconsciously directing your actions, like ill-clockwork.

Just as you can’t become a marathon runner overnight, you can get stronger step by step, this is about building the capacity to shift your internal dialogue over time. You wouldn’t attempt heavy squats before strengthening your ankles. In the same way, you can learn to hear the instrument, meaning your body and your mind, then attune to it, then tune it—before, little by little, playing something ever more beautiful.

And this is the start.

SELECT REFERENCES

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