You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

Extending to yourself what you extend freely to other people is oddly difficult, and most of us run the double standard without noticing. Severity you would never use on a friend gets used on yourself and called honesty or high standards. It is neither; it is a habit, usually learned early, and it makes you worse at most things rather than better.

Next time you catch that voice, try answering it with what you would say to someone you care about. Not as a technique, but because the same accuracy ought to apply in both directions.