Do you ever ask yourself things like: “Why did I do that? What on earth was I thinking?”

Do you ever get angry with yourself, and tell yourself off for your mistakes – in a way you’d never dream of speaking to another human being?

There could be a relatively simple explanation, according to Patricia Ridell in her talk at Richmond NLP Group last night.

Trish is an academic psychologist and neuroscientist, an expert in the science of the brain.

Apparently she was initially a bit reluctant to get involved with NLP :-)

But she said that once she engaged with it, she discovered all kinds of ways in which neuroscience could explain how NLP techniques worked (and yes, she is working on a book).

And this nugget about why we find it so difficult to like – or love – ourselves.

Apparently, there’s no direct connection between the part of the brain that does “empathy”, understanding how other people feel about things, and the part of the brain which generates the stream of consciousness about ourselves, about what we ourselves have done and what we should do. They just aren’t joined up.

Hence, you will usually speak to yourself without empathy – and therefore without the care you’d use with another person.

So typically, people are just not made to be nice to themselves!