Making Friends With Your Inner Critic

You are guided to change your relationship with your inner critic into something more compassionate. You explore the critical part of your mind and get to know it deeply, and are guided to find a way to collaborate and coexist more peacefully with your critic. If you have a very powerful or frightening critic, and you don’t feel safe when you access it, then I would recommend that you seek support from a mental health professional before experimenting with this exercise.
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Transcript

Welcome to this exercise where you learn to make friends with the critical part of your mind.

For the exercise you get relaxed and internally focused.

You get to know your critic better and become really familiar with how your critic operates in your mind and body.

You're guided to forge a friendly connection and a better collaboration with this critical part of you.

Take a few moments now to get comfortable and settle yourself into an easy and sustainable posture before we start.

Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.

This exercise is just for you so feel free to keep what's useful to you and to leave behind what isn't.

Take a few moments to deepen your breathing.

Breathing deeply into your whole body.

With each in-breath gather up any tension you find and with each out-breath let it go.

Blow it out of your body.

Really letting it go.

Breathe in,

Gather it up.

Breathe out,

Let it go.

Breathe into your lungs,

Into your heart.

Breathe into your whole abdomen.

Breathe into your pelvis.

Breathe into your legs and feet.

Breathe up into your back.

Breathe up into your shoulders.

Breathe into your neck.

Breathe into your arms and hands.

Breathe into your face and head.

And as you're breathing all the tension away from your body,

Give yourself some time to do the same with your mind.

Breathe into your mind and gather up your worries.

And breathe out,

Let them go for now.

Let yourself focus on this exercise.

Breathe into your mind and gather up all your plans and thoughts.

And breathe out,

Let them go for now.

Breathe into your mind and gather up whatever else is going on in there.

And breathe it out,

Letting it go for the duration of this exercise.

Let your mind rest quietly into your breath for now.

Be here breathing,

Relaxing,

Listening to yourself.

Take a moment to think of a person that you have a positive,

Caring relationship with.

A friend,

A loved one,

Someone you're fond of.

Notice how it feels in your heart and in your body when you get in touch with your fondness for that person.

Take a moment to be with that feeling,

Noticing all of its features.

And take a moment to notice what it feels like to be you in this relationship with this other person.

Take note of this feeling of fondness so you can find your way back to it if you ever need to.

Imagine this person coming to you with a problem about a mistake that they made.

How would you go about helping them?

What would you say or do?

How would you say it to them?

What would you want them to know?

What is important to you about how you connect with this person in their struggle?

Notice what it feels like to approach them this way.

We are often very hard on ourselves.

When we engage with ourselves in private,

We're usually harsher and more critical than we would be with others.

We say things to ourselves in our own minds that are often unkind,

Cruel even,

And we would never talk to anyone else that way.

It's interesting,

Isn't it,

The way we've learned to be so critical towards ourselves?

Take a moment to get a sense of the critical part of your mind.

You might want to think of something you've done recently that you were not happy about.

Let yourself get in touch with your critical side.

When you listen inside,

What do you notice?

How does your critic communicate with you?

Is it in words and sentences like thoughts or a voice?

Is it in pictures,

Mental images,

Or songs?

Does your critic have a look?

Does your critic remind you of someone?

How does it feel inside your body when your critic is engaging you?

Take your attention from the bottoms of your feet,

Noticing how you might stand on the ground when your critic is active within you,

And move your attention slowly up your body,

Noticing what feelings are present when your critic is active.

Go all the way up your legs,

Your torso,

Your arms and your hands,

Your shoulders,

Neck,

And throat,

Your jaw,

Your mouth,

Your face,

And your eyes,

Your head and your scalp.

How is your critic's activity affecting the way you feel in your body?

How do those feelings contrast with the feelings you had when you were imagining supporting your friend?

Let's explore another aspect of your experience here.

Get a sense of how you feel in your body for this one.

Don't think of the answer.

This is about how you feel.

When your critic is active,

How old do you feel?

And how old are you today?

Take a moment to notice those changes,

The age you feel when your critic is active,

And notice how old you actually are today.

If there is a big age difference,

It might be useful to run a little movie for yourself,

Walking backwards through the things you've achieved from now to back then,

And then moving from back then back up to today,

Just so your critic knows what you've been up to.

Make sure it's a friendly introduction of you to your critic.

You live with each other in the same brain and body.

So it's important that you learn to get along well.

Now let's explore another aspect of your experience.

Now let's explore how your critic has tried to help you in your life.

Open yourself up to any times when your critic has made a positive difference for you.

Maybe your critic made you work harder on something so it got finished or got done in a better way.

Maybe your critic helped you see an error you made that was worth learning from or addressing.

I'm sure your critic can show you some times when it has really improved things for you.

Open yourself up to exploring those times.

I wonder if you can now find your way back to that feeling of fondness you had earlier,

That feeling of love and care and connection for another person.

I wonder what happens if you offer some of that fondness to your critic now that you know how hard your critic has been working to help you all this time.

See if you can express some real warmth and gratitude for those moments.

Can you do it more generally without your critic in those times of assistance?

Where would you be now?

Now when you focus on your inner critic,

I wonder if you can explore your current world with your critic.

And let yourself notice what your critic sees,

Taking note of its observations and concerns.

Really sharing in its perspective as it looks around at your current life.

And can you be a comforting presence there with your critic?

Where your critic is concerned about things.

Can you offer reassurance and kindness?

Can you show your critic how to help you the way you would help a friend?

Can you guide your critic to communicate in a wise and kind way?

Can you encourage it to relate to you in this way?

It might now be helpful to consider some of the limits of the ways you and your critic have been relating to one another.

Have there been times when the critic has tried to help you and it hasn't felt so helpful?

Why didn't it feel helpful?

Are there times when you've ignored your critic and that hasn't been helpful?

Why wasn't that helpful?

Take some time to really explore these less helpful aspects of your relationship with your inner critic.

I wonder if you're realizing that there might be some ways that this relationship could become more helpful.

Remember that you have strengths,

That you know how to offer support to a friend,

That you can guide yourself to communicate wisely and kindly with yourself,

Just as you communicate with those outside you that you care about.

Remember,

When you want to help someone you really care about who's having a problem,

Remember how you go about doing it.

When a loved one or a child you know needs encouragement,

Remember how you go about encouraging them.

What are some ways that you have seen others communicate support and unconditional acceptance of someone else who is struggling?

What would it be like if your inner critic began to communicate like that?

Can you picture that change?

What changes does it make in your body?

Are you ready today to commit to changing the way you communicate with yourself when you're feeling critical?

Try to picture what life would be like if your inner critic started helping you in these new ways.

It can be really helpful to set a strong intention to notice how you're relating to yourself and to move towards a more positive way of relating.

You can picture yourself on your own side offering the support to yourself that you need to face all the challenges in your life.

From now on,

When you notice those communications from your critic,

Those feelings and thoughts you get in your body when your critic is so active,

You might be surprised to find yourself realizing that your critic is trying to help you.

And you can step in and remind your critic to communicate in supportive and helpful ways.

You can guide your critic to interact with you the way you interact with people you're really fond of.

And you may be surprised to see what a difference it makes to your relationship with yourself and the world around you.

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Reviews

That was useful. Thank you

Thank you So much for this expert guided meditation on the critic
Anyone deepening their journey into the parts that make up their inner world will immensely appreciate this meditation and information.