A goal of therapy has been to recognize in the moment when I am speaking unkindly to myself and change the script. I am my worst and harshest critic. No one can say anything to me that is worse than what I say to myself.
It’s also an unforced error. There is no imperative for me to direct negative commentary inward. It hurts me. It makes me angry, sad, and demoralized. And, it’s completely unnecessary.
In conversation with a friend yesterday, I was reminded that I don’t give others permission to speak to me this way. There is no reason to give myself permission to treat myself this way. It goes a step further. I simultaneously withhold permission to speak to myself with care and kindness.
If this resonates with you, I’d ask, how can you give yourself permission to speak more kindness and love to yourself right now?
Published by liz
From history major, with side quests in Medieval Studies and chemical engineering, to nonprofit finance leader, Big 4 tax partner, technologist, researcher, and now co-founder of Divine, nothing about my career has been linear. The throughline has always been systems: financial systems, organizational systems, technological systems, and human systems. I have an MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management and a PhD in Organizational Leadership Psychology, and I’ve spent my career trying to understand how complex systems shape people’s choices, opportunities, wellbeing, and sense of belonging. Today, my work sits at the intersection of psychology, technology, human-centered design, and digital trust. I am co-founder of Divine, an open-source, decentralized social video app built to put creativity back in human hands and replace doomscrolling with joyscrolling. Divine is part of a bigger question I care deeply about: how do we create online spaces that support safety, creativity, identity, and belonging without defaulting to surveillance, extraction, or control? At Divine, I wear a lot of hats across engineering, finance, operations, and strategy, while helping shape the app’s trust, safety, and values work. I focus especially on teen online safety, human-generated content, participatory design, and healthier relationships with technology. I am a postdoctoral alum of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Computer Science, where I worked with Dr. Pam Wisniewski’s Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab. I continue to write, speak, and research at the intersection of online safety, digital trust, decentralized technology, and youth wellbeing. I was named a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Data Integrity in 2023. In 2025, I had the honor of serving as President of Division 13 of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Consulting Psychology. I also live with major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2020, I took a leave from PwC to focus on my mental wellness, and I now speak and write openly about mental health, especially in the workplace and in relation to digital wellbeing. This blog, Seriously Jerk Brain, chronicles much of that journey.
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Seriously, Jerk Brain?! 
I literally stop everything if I catch myself doing it. Stand in the kitchen doorway with the mug of coffee. Turn the shower off. Stand aside on the pavement. Wait until I’ve been able to reframe things in line with what my therapist taught me and what I read in Dr Neff’s book. Then I carry on. Don’t give the infection time to spread. Don’t let it win.
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“Don’t give the infection time to spread.” That’s powerful. Thank you for sharing!
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