You're listening to episode 60 of the Baggage Reclaim sessions.

I'm your host Natalie Lou, author of Baggage reclaim.com, where I help people to offload the shady relationships and emotional baggage that block healthy self-esteem and loving relationships.

This week I talk about stressing over gifts and why we shouldn't read too much into a

commitment dodging X's intensity with their new flame.

I've taught often on the show about how we can be really hard on ourselves.

How I've talked about it a lot on the blog and in my books.

And what I've noticed actually over the last while is that when I talk to people who have had to make a decision about something and they are actually doing well as a result of it. They give themselves a hard time

about having to make that that particular decision or having to execute the

decision in the way that they have.

So they go, I should have had more self-discipline.

So this can be, for instance, around food,

you know, feeling as if like, oh't I shouldn't have to like avoid the

aisle with the chocolate and the cake so I shouldn't have to get rid of

everything out of the house I should have more self-discipline or it would be like I shouldn't have to

remove myself off Instagram or remove myself off Facebook or Twitter or whatever it is that you know

driving them batty you know I should have more self-discipline. I should be able to go on

Facebook and, you know, see my ex or see certain things and not get stressed out about it and not get bothered about it. I shouldn't have to

block, you know, a dodgy X, I should be able to handle that, I should be able to this, I should be able to that.

We can be so hard on ourselves and what we really don't recognize about this is that we're almost

being a perfectionist about how we are supposed to change our habits or how we are supposed to resolve some of the

natural stresses that do come up in life. We are all only human.

Something that we really do seem to forget and we only have a certain

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