How do you stop being self-critical?

Not long ago, I met a talented horse trainer. He is a young man from Kazakhstan who grew up with a love of horses, then studied with a master equestrian and eventually ran his own stable.

He took me for a ride, and when he spoke of the taming of the horse, he said:

"Hi Will, did you know? There are really two ways to train a horse. One is the suppression style. Nowadays many horse trainers use this way for efficiency. Sometimes a horse can be tamed in two or three hours. This method is to make the horse afraid. If the horse doesn't obey, they pull it hard, punish it, or even beat it. Horses tamed this way can be ridden, but they can't realize their true potential."

"What about the other way of taming a horse, which is communicative. This is the method I use. It takes a long time to tame a horse, long months even. I will give the horse some norms, and if the horse does well, I will reward it; if the horse resists, I won't force it, but I will understand why it doesn't accept it, soothe it, and patiently communicate with it until it trusts me and accepts me."

We passed right by a river, he said, pointing ahead:

"A horse tamed by suppression usually listens to commands, but when it comes to danger, such as this river, it won't charge if you tell it to. If you really push it, it will leave you behind. But a horse that has been tamed by communication, knowing that there is danger, will rush with you. It trusts you and knows you won't put it at risk for no reason."

I think he's talking not just about taming horses, but about relationships more generally - what relationship isn't like that between the state and the people, parents and children, couples, counselors and visitors, and even us and ourselves?

The word "taming" may seem to have connotations of control and exploitation, but communicative horse-taming shapes a cooperative and secure relationship, which is the key. Safe relationships are important because they allow people to move forward, otherwise they will always be looking for that safety.

• In families where parents do not provide a secure relationship, children tend to become entangled with their parents, complaining that they are not good enough while clinging to them and unable to develop themselves.
• Insecure people care more about the rules of the group and the eyes of others, distort their feelings and needs to fit in, and ultimately lose themselves.

Even worse, the way others treat us in insecure relationships often becomes the way we treat ourselves. If our parents were harsh on us growing up, we can be harsh on ourselves. As some of my friends have said, "Why can't we get out of the relationship when we've obviously left our parents?"

Perhaps because we are attached to the goodness of the one who criticizes us, or perhaps because we envy the power of the one who criticizes us, between the one who criticizes us and ourselves, we choose to stand on the side of the one who criticizes us. When we stand on the side of the one who criticizes us, we seem to have power; when we stand on the side of ourselves, we are left with vulnerability, powerlessness and the shame of being criticized.

So can we give ourselves to ourselves if we don't get a secure relationship? Theoretically it is possible, and this is what we often refer to as accepting the self. Acceptance of self is really about slowly giving yourself security by practicing a change in your attitude towards yourself, from harshness to understanding, and reconstructing a secure relationship.

But it's not easy. If you're used to a suppressive approach to horse training, you worry: "If I give up being demanding and hard on myself, what if the 'horse' doesn't listen and wants to lie down?"

Some time ago in a salon, a friend asked a career development question. He said that he had changed from a star salesman to management, and the challenge was bigger than he had imagined. He found that he had a lot of shortcomings in his new position, and his peers were all better than him, and he had made a lot of efforts but with little result.

He asked me, "Master Will, I read your book, The Charisma Personality, and you talk about accepting yourself, so should I accept my mediocrity?"

I said, "Accepting myself is not accepting that I'm mediocre, but accepting the fact that 'I've just switched careers, I don't have enough experience in management yet, and my efforts won't be able to make up for this shortcoming in the short term.' Accepting the facts and accepting the self are actually the same thing. By accepting the facts, you won't be hard on yourself and will figure things out on a realistic basis. But that doesn't mean you have to label yourself as mediocre, much less lay flat because of it."

Accepting yourself simply means understanding reality, knowing yourself, and making choices based on that. It is a safe relationship. Perhaps the work this trainer is doing is also allowing the horse to accept itself and make choices that work with the trainer.

By the way, this horse trainer also made a point:

"Every horse is different. To train a horse well, you can't be blinded by what they look like now, but you have to be able to see them at their best. That best look is what you have to tame out."

So, how are you a horse trainer? And how would you tame yourself?

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