Working With An Inner Critic

Do you ever feel you do not belong, or that you are not good enough? Ann Weiser Cornell starts by pausing to feel your body and notice what feels good or okay right now, alongside what does not. She then offers the words "If you're here, you belong here," and invites you to say them to yourself and to every part of you, noticing what happens. She talks about how an inner critic can make stressful times harder, and why welcoming what is hard to accept matters. This content is educational and is not a substitute for one-on-one professional care.

Transcript

Hello and welcome and do take the time right now to pause. And that means. Letting yourself be aware of your body. That often happens just automatically when you let yourself pause. You then become more aware of your body. Perhaps you're aware of how you're sitting. Where your feet are, Where your hands are and what they're touching. You might become aware that your shoulders need a little stretch. Feel where your back is, And if your back needs a little more support. Here you are sensing your body more and more. And especially sensing the inner area of your body that includes your throat, Your chest. Down into your stomach and belly area. Being present with yourself right now. Is here and now. There is support. There is support. In the here and now. A lot of things that bother us. Either things we're carrying from the past that are hard things. For things in the future. We're worried about. And all those things are legitimate. And here and now. There are. Comfort, Support. Resources, Gifts that can help. With both the past and the future. So. . . We're pausing. Pausing together, Feeling your body. Feeling your breath. Letting yourself arrive. Allowing yourself to be here. Here and now. And having your breath. Mm-hmm. And then take a pause and ask yourself, How am I right now? How am I right now? How is it to be here? How is it to be me at this moment? And notice. What feels good or okay in this moment. Maybe it feels good. To be in a community. About 50 people. Aww. Calling in from different parts of the world. Maybe you like hearing my voice, That would be nice. Maybe you're comfortable somewhere in your body right now or peaceful. Maybe you're in a room where you feel safe. Where there's familiar. Colors and objects. There's also things going on probably that don't feel so good. Let's make room for all of them. Oh. I can be here and I can feel what feels comfortable and good and good enough and okay. And I can also. . . Make a welcome inside. What doesn't feel so good? Think of that, Think of welcoming. Now what I. First learned. Focusing. The night I met Eugene Shendland. The first words I heard him say. If you're here, You belong here. He was speaking to the group, He was speaking to me. I felt anxious, Uncertain. I was coming into a group that had already existed for a year. I wasn't sure. They would accept me. They had funny ways of talking. They talked about bodies and feelings. And he said, If you're here, You belong here. And that's really essential. To loving ourselves. If we can say to ourselves. If you're here, You belong here. Can you say that to yourself? I say it to you. You say it to each other and to yourself. If you're here, You belong here. Ah. And then notice how it feels to take that in. If you're here, You belong here. Most of my life. I had a lot of worries about belonging. I often felt at school like I didn't belong. I envied the popular kids. It looked like they felt they belonged. Belonging is. A human need. Do we belong? Do we belong in this world? Do we belong in this universe? There's an uneasy feeling if we don't. But right now. Let's practice what it feels like to say to ourselves. If you're here, You belong here. And might there be something in you that you wish weren't here, That you wish didn't belong here? Might there be something like body pain? Are you in pain somewhere? Are you in? Are you suffering or is there a feeling of something in you not being there? Acceptable, Not being good enough. Let's let's. One of our themes for today is this. Well it's called the inner critic when parts of us arise to feel that we're wrong somehow. It's one of the things that can make. Stressful times, Even more stressful. Something that you feel. Not okay. You shouldn't feel that way or something that you think or believe or something that you do. You shouldn't do that, Shouldn't feel that. You shouldn't think that. Or maybe. These inner doubts come about something you haven't. I, I worry that I'm not good enough that I, I will fail that I can't. Do what I need to do. Do what I really long to do. The feeling of not belonging. Is related to that. Feeling it. But I'm. I'm not in the right place. I don't fit. I don't fit anywhere. Who feels like that these days? Is going on in you that's difficult to to accept, To say yes. I welcome that too. If it's difficult to accept something. Then that's a very important thing to be in touch with. So here we are. Here we are together. We are saying to each other, If you're here, You belong here. I'm saying it to you. And you're practicing saying to yourself, To every part of you. If you're here, You belong here.