In every Now there is a thousand yesterdays.  As much as we want to isolate the present, to appreciate it for what it is, the past follows us.  If our mother was mean, we can only be conscious about that self-talk she put in our minds, refuting it with positive, constructive self-talk.  Our minds swirl around the ether, mixing with the thoughts of others.  The atmosphere in the ether is very much the ideas, thoughts, feelings we catch, we pick up from our surroundings.  Perhaps where we are most comfortable is where we lived as children...the loving, or critical, environment.  If we are critical of ourselves, we are critical of other people.  How to advance ourselves?  To let go of that harsh voice, to acknowledge it, to name it, and to be kind to it saying, "I no longer am a child criticized by a harsh controlling mother or a harsh controlling wife. I believe in myself."

It is  human thing to match people around us?  To emulate them?  Is that the way we form our hunting and gathering groups?  That is why it is of utmost importance to surround yourself with people who support your best, not your worst, characteristics.  

I have things that I am good at, and places where I need work.  Spiritual discipline, daily meditation, or daily practice is one major thing I need to do.  My writing can be my practice, as it was for Natalie Goldberg.  she spent years studying Buddhism under Katageri Roshi.  She still had Western sensibilities, and was terribly offended that Roshi  made the moves on her, rather  than seeing it as another form of prayer.  The sacred sexual as in the Kamma Sutra.  To our western sensibilities, sex equals exploitation.