Thread: Inner critic?
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Perna
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Default Oct 17, 2011 at 12:55 PM
 
We learn and internalize "how" to do things from our parents by directly interacting with them but also by "watching" them and other adults in our lives (teachers, friends' parents, etc.). But everyone has a good/"bad" way of interacting with self and others based on what is observed and experienced in the past. The trick is to learn to stop and be thoughtful and creative and come up with multiple ways that one could do something, a kind of good, better, best way of thinking so we don't just listen to, "No! That's not the way to do it" or whatever your critic's knee-jerk words might be.

At first I had to engage with the critic to get the volume and magnitude of the negative lowered; usually critics are simple in what they say, things like, "You're stupid" and don't have much in the way of references or good argument. All it takes is one actual remembering of when you weren't stupid or an argument where you ask the critic to be more specific and it falls apart. Once I did that several times, the critic started to get wary :-) and when that happens, you look at what is being criticized and often can figure out "why", what the critic has to gain (usually I'm scared to try something new or otherwise afraid of making a mistake) and just reconnecting with my true self and what I want and need can get through that.

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Thanks for this!
Onward2wards, SoupDragon