Hey, Asshole! Stop being so mean to yourself.

Oh hi! Thanks for opening up this email. That was super nice of you and you didn’t have to do that… but now that I have you, I’d like to tell you about my upcoming live performances in NYC, Stamford CT, Gettysburg PA, Philadelphia PA, Fort Worth TX, Dallas TX, and Seattle WA. If you live nowhere near these places, just skip this part and enjoy the little essay below — unless you have friends who live in those places who might enjoy my act (schtick?) If that’s the case, please let your friends know so that they can come to a show and become my friends too. I love having new friends, as long as they’re not the type to constantly send me reels on Instagram, which I find irksome (unless you’re my mom).

If you DO live near one of these places, it would be really great to see you at a show, and I’d love it if you went over to isabelhagen.com and got a ticket or two or six! Bring the whole orchestra or knitting group or fellow WWI reenactors. We’ll have a great time together. All cities and dates and ticket links are here!

Thanks. Now please enjoy this essay:

The Battle Against Negative Self-Talk

Contrary to what some might think, I’m a really mean person. I’m quick to judge, I use names like loser, idiot, and stupid dumb-dumb who will never ever accomplish anything of true value, and I’m relentlessly unforgiving. Even worse, all of this behavior is targeted towards one person: me! Well, maybe not “even worse,” because if I were targeting that behavior towards others, that would be pretty bad. Then I’d actually deserve to have myself say all those mean things to me, which would compound the worse-ness.

Recently, I’ve realized just how mean to myself I truly am. It took years of therapy and self-reflection to not only hear what I was saying in my head more clearly, but also to recognize that those things aren’t “just what everyone says in their heads, right?”

I wish I could say this realization has caused me to stop the negative self-talk and that I am finally at peace. This is not the case, and though I intellectually understand being mean to myself does more harm than good, I seem to be unwilling to give up the thought patterns. My hunch is this unwillingness comes from fear. More specifically, fear that the meanness is somehow keeping me “in check.” I’m reminded of one of the first jokes I ever wrote, about ten years ago:

My mom told me I should go easy on myself, and I was like, “I do go easy on myself — that’s why I suck!”

Killer joke aside, my fear is probably unfounded. Sure, a healthy dose of self-criticism might be necessary to keep one from becoming a narcissistic tyrant, or even worse, someone who blames all of their shitty behavior on their astrological sign. However, I’m pretty confident that if I were seventy-five percent less mean to myself, I’d still be free of the urge to invade a country.

Now, you might be tempted to counter with, “I too am at low-risk for wanting to invade a country, but my self-criticism is what gives me my drive to keep working hard to achieve my goals. I’m at high-risk of never starting that Newsletter!!!”

As someone who has bouts of high productivity and also bouts of unmanageable negative self-talk, I can say confidently that these phases rarely overlap. In other words: I don’t think being mean to myself is what’s driving me. (Fear of death is).

Nevertheless I persist.

In fact, identifying these negative thought patterns has only brought on added frustration and subsequent self-berating, since I now hear the mean voice and then go, “Isabel! You’re doing it again! Can’t you do anything right?!”

This isn’t to say that I regret having the realization regarding my mean tendencies. I know that awareness is the first step in breaking the cycle. But there are just so many more steps! What are they? I’m not sure, because I’m a stupid dumb-dumb who will
never—

:-)