by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Often The Things We Cringe At Are Things We’ve Disowned in Ourselves
Let me know if you’ve felt this feeling before:
It’s that tightening in the chest when you remember something awkward you said years ago; the second-hand embarrassment you feel watching someone express themselves openly; the hesitation before posting something sincere online, trying something new in public, or expressing how you really feel.
We’re talking about the cringe.
Usually, when the cringe shows up, we treat it as a sort of warning sign – i.e. that it’s showing us something to avoid, suppress, or reject.
But what if the cringe isn’t what we think it is?
What if cringe is actually feedback about who we want to become and a signal that something REAL within us is waiting to be owned?
In this article we’re going to explore the idea that embracing the cringe in a conscious way can be a powerful pathway to wholeness and REALNESS:
When we stop running from what makes us squirm and instead lean into it with Awareness and Acceptance, then we begin reclaiming parts of ourselves that have been exiled to the shadow self so that we can take real Action and move closer to realness.
(Awareness, Acceptance, and Action works every time which is why I build my coaching containers around it).
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Table of Contents
- Often The Things We Cringe At Are Things We’ve Disowned in Ourselves
- What Is the “Cringe” Really?
- The Hidden Standard Behind the Cringe
- Judgement vs Acceptance vs Discernment
- The Cringe as the Ego’s Defence Mechanism
- The Sequence of the Cringe Reaction
- What We’re Really Cringing At
- Why Suppression Keeps Us Stuck
- Embracing the Cringe as a Path to Real Growth
- Acting “Cringey” as a Practice of Realness
- The Cringe as Feedback from Reality
- Moving Towards Wholeness Through the Cringe
- A Practical Exercise: The Cringe Integration Practice
- The Final Word: The Freedom Beyond the Cringe
What Is the “Cringe” Really?
Sometimes in life we find ourselves cringing at things we’ve either done or want to do which just makes us freeze up and try to reject whatever it is we’re reacting to.
You might have cringed at certain things yourself before:
- Expressing your emotions openly.
- Trying something new and failing publicly.
- Showing enthusiasm for something others might not understand.
- A memory from your past when you acted naïvely (in relation to who you are now).
- Someone else behaving in a way that feels “too much”.
- Etc. Etc. Etc.
In each of these cases, the reaction to the cringe tends to be the same:
Rejection in the sense that we pull away internally and try to distance ourselves from whatever triggered the cringe in the first place..
Here’s the deeper truth that often gets overlooked, though:
In many cases, the cringe is feedback about who we want to become and grow into that also signals that there’s something very real about ourselves that we’re not yet ready to own.
In other words, the cringe is often a signal that appears at the edge of growth and shows us where our realness is pressing against the boundaries of our self-image.
The Hidden Standard Behind the Cringe
What’s also interesting about cringe is that it always happens in relation to some conceptual standard we’ve picked up from the outside world.
In other words, instead of looking at ourselves from a place of acceptance (realness), we look at ourselves from a place of judgement (unreal/ego).
This is almost always because somewhere along the line we’ve absorbed ideas about what’s ‘cool’, socially ‘acceptable’, ‘impressive’, ’embarrassing’, or what we “should” or “shouldn’t” allow ourselves to be.
These standards form a kind of internal measuring system – even though they’re not always REAL – and so when something within us doesn’t meet the standard, we feel the emotional recoil we and call it “cringe”.
The problem is that this measuring system isn’t reality but conditioning in the form of a set of LEARNED beliefs about about what we’re allowed to be, do, think, and feel.
Judgement vs Acceptance vs Discernment
To understand the cringe fully, we need to distinguish between the three different mental stances of judgement, acceptance, and discernment.
Judgement: In this case is the emotional charge of rejection weaponised (for the ego) against the truth. It tells us something is unacceptable, shameful, or wrong simply because it threatens our ego’s self-image.
Acceptance: Is real because it’s capable of recognising what’s actually present without resistance and allows experience to exist without distortion.
Discernment: Is necessary because it helps us to distinguish what is real from what’s unreal and guides us into action that’s aligned with our realness instead of going against it. Discernment never rejects reality – it simply aims to see it in the first place.
The reason that it’s worth knowing about these distinctions is because judgement and discernment are often confused even though they’re not the same.
Clinging to judgement will keep you in a state of unreality but learning to discern will help you make CHOICES that allow you to grow real:
- Judgement says: “This part of me (or life) is unacceptable“.
- Discernment says: “This is what is happening; how shall I respond in a REAL way?”
Judgement leads to suppression but discernment leads to clarity and the cringe is rooted in judgement and not discernment.
The Cringe as the Ego’s Defence Mechanism
When we find ourselves cringing at ourselves or others, it means some quality has been expressed that our judgements have deemed ‘unacceptable’ because we’re (unconsciously) trying to maintain the ego and keep the shadow self at bay (because of the great Shadow Dance).
Usually, this happens because we carry an arbitrary idea of what happens to be ‘cool’, ‘strong’, ‘intelligent’, ‘worthy’, or [whatever else], and we use this idea as a barometer for what we allow ourselves to be and express in the world.
In short, our self-image depends on maintaining these arbitrary standards and so the the ego judges and rejects anything that threatens it and cringe is one of its primary tools to do this.
The Sequence of the Cringe Reaction
Let’s quickly look at a predictable psychological sequence that unfolds when we cringe at things.
It basically goes like this:
1. We see something in ourselves or others: For example, a behaviour, emotion, desire, or memory appears.
2. It triggers the shadow self, which agitates the ego and its belief systems: Something within us recognises a disowned quality.
3. We cringe: The ego sends a signal that says suppress this, reject it, and distance yourself from it.
In the short term, this protects our identity and keeps our belief systems intact but in the long term, all it does is it keeps us fragmented and so we end up divided against ourselves – i.e. accepting some real ‘parts’ and rejecting others.
This is unfortunate because fragmentation is the opposite of wholeness and moving deeper into wholeness is what we really all need to feel fully alive and REAL.
What We’re Really Cringing At
If you want to live out your realness, then you need to start owning many of the disowned ‘parts’ of yourself – ‘good’ or ‘bad’ doesn’t matter because they’re all REAL (the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ label are the ego’s judgements but realness is beyond this kind of duality).
A good general rule to understand here is that when we cringe, we’re usually just seeing something we haven’t yet owned.
Consider a few common examples:
Cringing at Emotional Expression
Maybe you feel uncomfortable when someone expresses strong emotions openly and in an effusive way.
Often, this reflects judgement towards your own emotional depth and the discomfort reveals a part of yourself that wants to feel freely but has been suppressed.
Cringing at Imperfect Effort
You might cringe when someone tries doing something they love but does it badly – for example, singing, dancing, creating, or speaking.
This often reveals your own fear of imperfection and your reluctance to risk looking foolish because you’re living your own life in an outcome-dependent way.
Cringing at Your Past Self
You might revisit a memory and feel intense embarrassment.
This usually reflects ongoing judgement towards who you used to be (or thought you were) rather than learning from the past so that you can accept yourself today and build something real.
Cringing at Enthusiasm
Sometimes genuine passion makes people uncomfortable because enthusiasm threatens the persona of detachment many people use to feel ‘safe’ (i.e. to protect the ego).
Why Suppression Keeps Us Stuck
When we respond to cringe by suppressing what we see, we reinforce fragmentation.
Whenever we tell ourselves “I shouldn’t be like that”, “This part of me is unacceptable”, “I need to hide this”, or “I shouldn’t think/feel this” then it creates tension within the mind-body system and energy that could be used for growth becomes locked in defence mechanisms.
Over time, this leads to:
- Hesitation in action.
- Fear of expressing anything real.
- Chronic self-consciousness.
- Emotional repression that leads to us being ‘stuck’.
- Disconnection from authenticity and realness in general.
In other words, when we allow the cringe to dictate our relationship with ourselves then we become performers of a self-image rather than participants in reality and so the ego maintains control at the cost of our true vitality.
Embracing the Cringe as a Path to Real Growth
If suppression leads to fragmentation, then the altearnative is simple:
Ownership – This means that instead of automatically rejecting what makes us cringe, we can embrace it consciously.
This doesn’t mean acting recklessly or abandoning discernment but instead means recognising that the cringe reaction often points to something real that deserves integration.
Embracing the cringe like this involves:
- Pausing and recognising the judgement behind the reaction.
- Questioning the external standards shaping the judgement.
- Accepting the reality of the experience.
- Re-owning the disowned quality.
When we do this, the energy locked in resistance becomes available for growth and what once felt like it was a threat (to the ego) becomes a source of power.
Acting “Cringey” as a Practice of Realness
The paradox is that acting in ways that feel “cringey” can actually be part of the solution when it comes to growing real because it directly challenges the ego’s illusory control.
All of the following potential ‘cringe’ activities can actually help you to become more integrated if you do it in a conscious and real way:
- Expressing yourself sincerely.
- Showing enthusiasm openly.
- Trying something new without needing to be impressive in any way, shape, or form.
- Speaking the truth.
- Allowing yourself to be seen imperfectly.
- Etc. etc. etc.
When you consciously push through the cringe like this then you can start to reclaim the ‘parts’ of yourself that were previously exiled.
You demonstrate to your nervous system that expression is safe, weaken the grip of external standards, and put yourself back on the path toward wholeness.
Over time, what once produced cringe becomes natural – not because you’ve changed who you are but because you’ve stopped rejecting who yourself.
The Cringe as Feedback from Reality
From the perspective of realness, cringe is not an obstacle but information that can reveal:
- Where judgement has replaced acceptance.
- Where the ego is protecting an unreal image.
- Where the shadow holds unintegrated energy.
- Where growth is available to you.
What matters more than how we ‘feel’ about things is how we respond with the basic lesson being that if we treat cringe as an enemy, we remain divided but if we treat it as FEEDBACK, then at least have the opportunity to become integrated.
Moving Towards Wholeness Through the Cringe
Wholeness requires that nothing real within us is rejected:
This doesn’t mean indulging every impulse that arises in us or abandoning responsibility – it just means acknowledging what we start to become aware of the existence of and relating to it consciously in relation to our vision for ourselves and our lives.
Instead of suppressing what makes us cringe, then, the way forward into realness is to embrace it and find ways to re-own whatever we’re reacting to.
This doesn’t mean that the goal is not to eliminate cringe entirely (which is probably impossible because none of us are perfect) – instead, the goal is to transform our relationship with it so we can move from avoidance to curiosity and from rejection to ownership.
When we do this, we stop living according to arbitrary standards and begin living from our realness.
If you’re ready to go deeper into unconditional self-acceptance instead of judgement then check out my book Shadow Life: Freedom From BS in an Unreal World.
A Practical Exercise: The Cringe Integration Practice
To make this idea practical, here is a simple exercise you can use whenever you notice yourself cringing and want to grow REAL instead.
Step 1: Notice the Reaction
When you feel the urge to pull away because of the cringe, freeze, or reject something, then PAUSE and take a breath then ask yourself :
- What exactly am I reacting to?
- What quality is being expressed here?
Step 2: Identify the Judgement
Write down the judgement that’s motivating the cringe in the first place – for example:
- “That’s embarrassing”.
- “That’s weak”.
- “That’s not cool”.
- “I shouldn’t be like this”.
- Etc. etc. etc.
Remember that these are all learned standards and judgements – not reality (which you can only accept if you’re being real).
Step 3: Find the Disowned Part
Ask yourself what this attempt to judge or push something away says about YOU and your own ‘stuff’:
- Where does the quality I’m cringing at already exist in me?
- What ‘part‘ of myself have I rejected here?
The goal here is ownership, not perfection, so don’t fall into the trap of judging and deceiving yourself. Nothing ‘bad’ can happen to you if you learn that you have some ‘cringy’ qualities.
Step 4: Practise Acceptance
Instead of rejecting the quality, consciously allow it to exist:
“This is part of the human experience and I allow it”.
Feel the shift from judgement to acceptance because that means you’re standing on the solid ground of REALITY itself.
Step 5: Take One Small “Cringe” Action
Choose a small action that will allow you to actively own the disowned part.
A few examples might be to:
- Express a feeling honestly.
- Share an idea imperfectly.
- Try something you’re not good at.
- Show enthusiasm openly.
- Forgive your past self.
- Etc. etc. etc.
The key is to change things slowly and to stretch yourself – not to overwhelm yourself and create a state of internal panic (which means you’ve gone too far).
Step 6: Reflect
Afterwards, reflect on what you just experienced:
- Did the fear match the reality or was it just F.E.A.R (“False Evidence Appearing Real”)?
- Do you feel more alive or like you’re carrying less inner friction?
- Did the cringe lose intensity overall?
Keep paying attention to the cringe and embracing it like this because integration happens through repetition.
The Final Word: The Freedom Beyond the Cringe
When you begin embracing what once made you cringe, then you’re finally free to stop organising your life around avoiding embarrassment.
You stop performing an identity and become freer to act, express, and grow because the energy once spent maintaining an image becomes available for living your REAL life.
The cringe isn’t something to escape but an invitation:
An invitation to own what you are.
An invitation to reclaim what you rejected.
And an invitation to move from judgement into acceptance.
Stay real out there,
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