Art Of Attraction - The Inner Critic

This episode of the Art of Attraction podcast focuses on the inner critic - how to recognize and identify it, and how it distinguishes itself from one's conscience, or the small inner voice of your higher self. Enjoy Dominey's Levar Burton-style approach today and learn how you can find - and eliminate - your inner critic.

Transcript

And we are live with the art of attraction with Dominie Drew.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

This is going to be a fantastic episode.

Of course if it were going to be terrible,

I would not sit here and tell you it was going to be a terrible episode.

So that doesn't really give you a whole lot of information because spoiler alert,

I'm biased.

I've already decided it's going to be a great episode.

I'm already in love with it and that's actually a great way to approach life if you think about it.

That is really the very best way to be because boy does it guarantee happiness.

And a lot more of life is about happiness.

I think then we give it credit.

It's like all the things we think make us happy,

Right?

But really like serotonin is the only thing that ever has.

You know what I mean?

The one thing that's ever really,

Really made you happy.

Other things make you close.

Oxytocin makes you something close.

Dopamine makes you something close.

The only thing that really made you ever made you happy is serotonin.

But really,

Oh thank you Jason,

Aren't you sweet?

I'm coming at you guys live on Facebook as well.

You're welcome to follow my page if you'd like.

Dominie Drew Coaching,

Consulting and Speaking.

I'm available for speaking gigs.

I'm exactly this entertaining on stage so how could you even say no?

I mean it just gets better and better.

I actually did a great live gig this past September out in Newport Beach for Kelly Fidell and it was so fun.

And I got to be up on this big stage and I talked for like an hour.

It was supposed to be 10 minutes but I just kept on going.

Just kidding,

It was an hour.

But it was this great speech and I got to like really dive into self-sabotage and how it all kind of works.

And you know I'm just in love with this topic.

This just makes me so happy and so you may wonder what fucking topic.

Harder question to answer than you might think honestly.

It seems like it should be simple.

I'm on a radio show so I think I should know what it's about.

And technically it's been in the past about men and dating and I definitely touch on that still as well.

But really it's about those deeper levels,

Right?

The deeper ways in which we hold ourselves back from what we want,

Right?

And that's what's really fascinating and that's so much bigger than dating.

And yes that solves all your dating problems because we don't really have any dating problems.

You have life problems that show up in your dating life,

Right?

Whether you're straight or gay or you're single or you're married,

It doesn't really matter,

Right?

Whatever you're struggling with in life shows up in your life so it shows up everywhere.

And on a sort of interesting note,

That's really made my work quite difficult to market in the past partially because marketing is not my gift.

I have many gifts.

I'm very talented.

That is not one of them.

And truly the work,

I mean I have helped people through profound anxiety.

I have helped people through feeling totally disconnected.

Even if they're a room full of people,

They feel lonely.

I've helped people through being perpetually single.

People who keep attracting the same relationship over and over again and getting the same result,

Right?

And it all comes down to the same thing.

Perfectionism,

Right?

Depression.

I mean it's like there's just something in the way.

There's something that you're holding onto,

Right?

From the past or in your head or the way you think that you should be.

And so it really affects every single area of your life because really what it affects is your happiness.

It brings us back to the initial point.

Happiness seems to be the topic today.

It's like you pursue all the things you think will make you happy,

Right?

Oh,

I definitely want,

This is a guy who's designing his perfect relationship,

Right?

He's like,

Oh,

I want her to be blonde and I want her to have big boobs and I want her to have,

Most of my guys don't say that.

They're like,

I really want some emotional support and companionship.

Like that's actually what I hear.

Those two things are what I hear the most.

But truly you don't care about any of that if she made you wildly happy,

Right?

You just think that those are the things that will make you wildly happy.

And if you kind of skip that step in the attraction process and just said,

You know what?

I want the woman who will make me wildly happy.

Jason,

You know all about this,

Right?

Jason's found a woman who makes them incredibly happy and that's just like,

That's such a profound and beautiful thing when it nails it,

Right?

And you really find that person who compliments you in a really profound way,

You know?

And so it's,

It's beautiful.

It's great.

So if you want to call in today,

Then today's a great day to do that.

Call in with your questions.

It's going to be a slightly different show than we usually do.

Just spontaneously,

I'm just deciding to do something a little bit different.

So I'm going to be doing some different things,

But you can call in any time with your questions.

833-4686.

I still have to read the number.

It's always,

It's pretty much always been the same.

I think since like five or 10 episodes in,

It's always been the same number and I'm always reading it.

828-333-4686.

Plus I chose the number.

I like it.

Anyway,

So if you have questions or just a comment or something you would like to add or you want to tell me how wonderful I am,

Any of those things are available.

Give me a call and we will chat on the phone.

So a little bit different than I usually do.

I had a thought.

I've been reading this book actually and it's really quite fantastic.

It's called The Five Personality Patterns and it's by a man named Stephen Kessler.

And I don't know anything about this man.

He seems to be quite wise in this particular topic,

But I do know quite a lot about this topic actually.

This work,

The work that he outlines in this book actually mirrors the work that I do.

Like exactly.

I have read I think maybe,

I don't know,

50 or 60 pages in so far and I found two things where I disagreed with what he said out of that entire time.

So he teaches the exact same work that I teach.

And so why am I reading this book,

Right?

Because it's essentially the material I've studied for the last 15 years and yet he just puts it together in a way that's really quite,

It's easy to understand,

It's digestible.

And so I had this idea randomly.

I went home for Thanksgiving last week and I picked up this book.

My mom had it and she was like,

Oh,

Do you want this?

And I was like,

Yup.

And so I started reading it and I thought it was really great.

So I thought I would share some of it with you,

Possibly because this is the divine inspiration for what needs to come through for your greatest and deepest learning or possibly because I've been watching too much LeVar Burton on his podcast and I'm into reading books.

So either one of those.

Regardless,

You,

My victim,

I mean listener,

Get to join me on this little ride.

So on Facebook live,

They can escape,

But you can't if you're in the podcast,

Which is why you should join on the Facebook live and subscribe and download the art of attraction podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Okay.

We'll plug.

So this is very much the work that I do.

What do I do?

I help right now,

I run a program called the art of attraction,

The same name as this podcast,

And it's focused specifically for single men.

Okay.

I help single men attract life partners through personal and relationship coaching.

And the way I do that is by helping them to eliminate the deep subconscious patterns they have that they carry.

They don't realize they carry that keep them single.

Okay.

Whether they're anticipating rejection,

So they're getting it,

Or they're assuming that they're worthless.

So they're projecting that.

So they're being seen as worthless and not valued and not seen as attractive.

Whatever.

Right.

Maybe your heart is closed and you don't have any,

Um,

Wait,

You know,

You don't,

You don't trust,

Maybe you've been over in the past and you're like,

Nope,

I'm done.

Screw the ladies on my ads.

I have ads on Facebook for my art of attraction program.

I run an eight week course where I help,

Um,

I show men exactly why they're still single and specifically what they need to do to fix it.

That's that's what my course is in.

And I have had that on Facebook and they get the funniest comments.

Seriously,

One of these podcasts episodes,

I should just read out some of the comments.

They're so mean.

One guy told me I should,

Um,

One guy told me I looked like an elf,

Which to be fair in the picture,

I kind of do.

Um,

And I thought that was hysterical.

And then some woman got on there.

I don't even know how she saw the ad cause they're,

I think they're just shown to men for that program.

Um,

And she gets on there and gets really mad.

She's like,

No,

She doesn't.

I can't believe you'd say that.

And I was like,

Actually I kind of do like,

I look like an elf and my hair's in my ear and like,

Yeah,

That's all right,

That's cool.

We all got our things.

It was just funny cause she got really triggered and I was like,

Nah,

I'm fine.

So what I want to talk about today is the process of this work a little bit.

This is a chapter called the basic skills needed for inner work.

And let me talk a little bit about this,

This book.

This,

So it goes through,

Um,

The,

The skills needed for the inner work,

The sort of overall how the system is shaped.

He talks,

He refers to them as survival patterns.

I've always heard them called characterologies,

But it doesn't matter.

And I am an adorable elf.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I can do irritating voice very,

Very well.

I grew up in like California in the eighties and like,

It was like a super great,

You know what I mean?

Um,

And everybody seemed to have yellow Jeeps with no doors.

Like that's what I took from growing up in California in the eighties.

There were a lot of yellow Jeeps,

No doors.

And now I live in the East coast and my yellow Jeep with no doors looks ridiculous.

Just kidding.

I don't have one of those,

But I will.

Um,

So,

So we talk about the basic skills needed for inner work.

And then what he talks about is the ways that whatever we experience in childhood,

And I don't mean like you have a single event.

I mean like something keeps happening.

Like,

Um,

The little kids like,

Oh,

I drew a picture of a bunny and they go,

Mama,

Mom,

Look,

It's a bunny.

And then mom comes in and goes,

Oh wow,

That's a great picture.

Sweetheart.

Well done.

But it really looks more like a kitty.

Don't you think it's a kitty?

And what that does is it,

It,

It,

Um,

Invalidates the child's sense of self.

That kid drew a bunny.

Chances are it looked like a blob.

I don't know if you've seen children's drawings lately,

But they are not very good.

And so there's girls on the paper.

She goes,

Oh,

It's wonderful.

She thinks she's doing a wonderful thing and correcting the kid.

But what,

But she's actually doing is,

Um,

Is invalidating them.

So like,

Well,

You can't be the way that you are,

But you can do any of these other things.

And so if that,

If that behavior is repeated,

Okay,

Then the kid starts to,

To,

Um,

Invalidate himself.

Right.

And then the kid would respond,

Comment,

And the kid was wounded.

It's like a repeated behavior,

Um,

That the child then learns.

Right.

And so in that particular situation,

That's going to lead to what's called the masochistic character structure,

Or he refers to it as,

Um,

What does he refer to it as?

He has different names than I,

Um,

Than I learned.

Um,

He uses,

Oh,

Enduring the enduring pattern.

So you can't be how you are,

Which is the,

In this example,

The artist of a bunny.

Cause your mother said no.

And at this point,

Your mother is the authority,

Right?

Or your,

Your primary caregiver,

Right?

Parent of some kind or primary caregiver,

Adopted parents,

Whatever.

And if they invalidate the child repeatedly,

The child goes,

Oh,

It can't be who I am,

But the natural desire is to be who you are.

And so over time they start to,

Um,

Hold.

Because it's like a holding pattern,

Right?

Just kind of enduring.

So what he,

What he's basically talking about is when a child goes into defense.

So when there's too much energy coming,

The child feels overwhelmed.

They defend themselves,

Right?

It's too much.

I need to let it out.

If I can't let it out,

Then what?

Right.

And so you go into these kind of holding patterns,

These defense mechanisms.

And that's what I teach.

I show you how to find your defense patterns,

Your defense mechanisms,

And how they're affecting your life without you realizing it.

Okay.

So um,

So you come to me and you go,

Man,

I don't know why I'm single.

I'm a great guy.

I'm intelligent.

I've,

I've got my life together.

I'm,

You know,

I'm a functioning adult.

Um,

And,

Uh,

Uh,

And you know,

Um,

You know,

There's,

There's,

There's no reason for it,

Right?

Okay,

Great.

So something's happening underneath the surface.

That's giving you that result.

What is it?

I'm going to show you what that is and then what you need to do to move through that and let it go.

And then the issue is literally not there anymore.

It's not like I'm teaching you a skill.

Like there is a skill in the sense that by the time you're finished working with me,

You know how to do what I do.

Like you know how to,

Not,

You know how to do what I do,

But you know how to identify your own defense mechanisms and see what the solution is.

Right?

So it's a life skill that you'll have.

So for the rest of your life,

Right?

So,

Um,

So the enduring pattern.

So anyway,

So then he goes into an outline of each of these patterns and talks about,

Um,

How they affect you and how to recognize them and things like that.

So,

So the first thing he talks about in this basic skills needed for inner work,

He talks about developing the inner witness and this is really key.

You have to be able to see yourself.

Okay.

Right now you think that the way you see the world is the way the world is.

Oh boo.

It is not,

It's not even probably that close.

Okay.

The fact of the matter is you are seeing the world through a,

Like a screen,

Right?

Of your past experiences and your beliefs and your assumptions and your,

This,

This,

This like silkscreen,

Right?

And life can get through,

But it's distorted by the time it gets to you.

So you see,

I'm going to use the phrase,

You're going to see what you want to see.

That's not exactly accurate because wanting indicates that it's conscious and it's profoundly not,

Right?

Others are,

You're not an idiot if you could tell that you weren't seeing real life,

You would could tell,

You know,

You could tell you're not seeing real life,

Right?

But you think that the way you see the world is the way the world is.

Most people do.

It is not.

Please take this as lesson one.

So here he goes.

He says,

When you start doing therapy or any sort of self reflective inner work,

Your first task is to develop the inner witness,

Also known as the observing self.

Oh,

I feel like I'm in one of those little reading circles,

The library.

Do you guys ever go to the,

I was in homes,

I was homeschooled,

So I went to the library a lot and we'd have these little reading circles.

We're like,

Oh yeah,

Okay.

The inner witness does not judge or comment on your experience.

Its job is simply to record what you think,

Feel,

Say,

And do moment by moment so that after the fact,

You can go back and walk through the experience again and see how you got from point A to point B.

For instance,

Suppose you're remarried after a bitter divorce and you're going out for the evening with your new husband,

But you're not quite ready yet and your husband mildly says,

Come on honey,

We'll be late and you suddenly find yourself enraged and screaming at him.

What happened?

How did you get from not quite ready yet to enraged and screaming?

You can ask your inner witness to very slowly playback for you all the steps in between.

As you review the steps,

You can begin to see the connections.

Maybe your inner dialogue went something like this.

Oh,

It's getting late,

But I still have one more thing to do to get ready.

If I don't do it,

I won't feel fully dressed for this party,

But if I take the time to do it,

I'll be late again.

I hate that.

What's wrong with me?

Why can't I be on time?

And this he described as the self attack,

Right?

He'll probably complain about it again.

I really hate that.

He's got no right attacking the other.

My first husband used to complain about that and then when he left me for his stupid secretary,

He pretended that it was because I was late so often.

From him.

It wasn't my fault.

So you can see how she's just like,

She's going and she's living in the past,

Right?

She's seeing the present through the screen of the past,

Right?

At this point,

Your hapless second husband says,

Come on,

Honey,

We'll be late.

And you bite his head off,

Not distinguishing between him and your first first husband.

You guys,

I cannot fucking tell you how often this happens,

Especially well,

It's not especially,

But you can see it especially clearly in relationships because half the time you're not even talking to the person in front of you.

You're talking to someone you've met in the past,

Someone who's fucked you up,

Someone who you blame for something,

Shit you're holding onto.

It's incessant.

Honest to God,

The secret to a happy relationship is to stay completely in the present,

To totally let go of the past,

Totally not project in the future,

But just take this person as they are right now.

I actually,

If you're inclined to go to my Facebook page and search it out,

There's a wonderful post that I reposted by a friend of mine,

Phil Huber,

H-U-B-E-R.

I think you should be able to search for it in my feed on Facebook.

If not,

Just send me a message and I'll forward it to you.

I won't quote it here,

But it's very long.

I think I actually put it in a previous episode,

But it's really just about,

He's been married for 30 some years,

Longer than I've been alive.

And he's really happily married because he says,

You shouldn't say the secret was,

But essentially what he's describing was a secret as each day or each moment,

You just see the person as they are.

Oftentimes you build them up as things they've done in the past and you color your current vision of them through that lens.

And they may not be that person anymore because that keeps them from evolving and growing.

And if you keep someone from evolving and growing,

It doesn't last.

Right?

It can't.

A person can't really stay stagnant.

We're not really meant to do that.

We can come close,

But it's usually distortion if we are,

If your life's really not going anywhere.

And I don't mean you live a quiet life.

You want to live a quiet life where you live in a cabin in the woods and you don't have a lot of interaction with people.

That's fine,

But you're still growing.

You're still,

Oh,

I'm noticing this bird and this one must migrate.

And I wonder,

Maybe I'll track the birds,

You know,

You know,

Where,

Where they go and when they come and,

And,

And your,

Your,

Your,

Your life may be quiet.

Doesn't need to be huge and exaggerated,

But it's still growing.

There's still growth.

As soon as there's not growth anymore,

There's stagnant.

Right?

If you have not developed your inner witness,

You may believe that your anger must have been caused by something your new husband did.

And your mind will get busy looking for the evidence to justify that belief.

That's basically what I was just saying.

I'm telling you,

This guy and I are so on the same page.

Maybe I'm gonna call him and have him be on my podcast.

But if you have the ability to go back through your own experience,

Second by second,

And I would correct that there,

It's actually millisecond by millisecond.

You have to slow things way,

Way,

Way,

Way down to see the reaction because this stuff is speed of light.

It's very,

Very quick.

But if you you'll realize that what angered you was hurt from the past and that the present situation only reminded you of it.

Okay.

If you can go through your day and,

And realize how much of your life it's probably 90%.

Now if you have the inner witness in this particular situation,

You ha you know some important things.

You're still hurt and angry about the past situation.

Two,

You're not being hurt right now.

Three,

You're caught in a reaction based on your past.

Four,

Your new husband did not cause your upset.

So I talk a lot on this show about how everything you experience comes back to you,

Even when it looks like it's caused by the other.

This is why,

Okay,

It looks like,

Oh,

My husband's always pissing me off.

I guarantee you he is not.

Okay.

He's doing a thing that's irritating you because of something you carry.

It's in your control to fix.

That's the best news you've heard all day.

And by day,

I mean week.

And by week,

I mean lifetime.

Okay.

Developing the inner witness is the first step required for all inner work.

Otherwise you just think that's how life is,

Right?

And there's no foundation for change.

It's the mirror you look into to see yourself more clearly.

Its job is to simply show you a clear reflection of yourself.

It does not judge.

It does not comment in any way.

It just plays back the movie of everything that was going on,

Both inside you and outside you.

Here's what's interesting about that statement.

That's actually basically what I do.

I don't give you advice.

I don't tell you what to do.

I just show you what it is that you're doing.

That's giving you the results that you want.

Does that make sense?

It's different.

I just reflect back what's there.

If you could already see clearly what was there,

You wouldn't have any issues.

Any.

You'd be an enlightened being.

Okay.

We're going to skip this.

Okay.

Okay.

This is a part called disidentifying from the inner critic.

I giggled because the sub tagline is the beatings will continue until morale improves,

Which has always been one of my favorite quotes.

I really want a thing that says that.

I think that's really great.

Inside each of us,

There's a voice that criticizes us whenever we do something wrong.

This voice is called the inner critic and it is an amalgamation of all the commands we heard as a child to be good.

Tell the truth.

Stand up straight.

Don't hit your brother.

Don't draw on the walls.

Don't talk with your mouth full.

Don't run with your scissors.

Don't talk back,

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

Every time mom or dad or whoever had power over us,

Instructed us on what to do or not to do.

Our little brain recorded it over time.

We built up a library of their voices and mix them together into one voice that tells us who we should be.

Anybody listening on the Facebook live right now,

Who's seen the episode on shitting?

Don't shut all over yourself.

Don't shut all over your friends.

Have you guys heard this?

I referenced this all the time.

My podcast,

I think I've got at least two episodes on shitting.

If I only have one,

I may go ahead and redo it because it was probably the most fun I ever had.

I love this because we should ourselves all the time.

All the time.

It's constant,

Right?

It's about,

You know,

I should lose five pounds or I should dress better or I should get a better job or I should move out or I should break up with this terrible person or I should be married.

Any ladies out there watching feel that one?

That's something I hear more from ladies than from men.

Although,

And to be fair,

I work with single men who want a lifetime relationship.

A lot of guys want to be married and are not.

Like a lot.

I say that,

I sort of emphasize that because a lot of women come to me and they're like,

Man,

There's no single men.

That's your pattern.

It's your image.

You look around the world and you see no single men.

Chances are you're looking over five single men as you look around but they don't fit your idea of what you should marry.

Here we are back to shitting again.

Etc.

Etc.

So shitting is one of the cleverest ways that our psyche keeps us stuck because it's telling us that reality is not okay.

Girl,

I'm going to tell you something right now.

The first step to changing anything is to allow the reality to be what it is.

Okay?

If you're lonely and you're fighting against it,

Right?

Or you're single and you're fighting against you're like,

Oh,

I shouldn't be single.

How is that a useful statement?

You are single,

So let's have that be the reality.

You could say,

Boy,

I sure would rather not be single.

I think I'd like to do something about that.

Great.

Different statement.

I should be single or I shouldn't be single at my age,

Whatever the fuck that means.

Or I should be fitter or I should be prettier or I should be stronger.

I should be fitter.

I should be more masculine or I should be more feminine.

I don't know where my voice is going.

Going off the rails there.

But these shoulds,

This keeps us stuck,

My friends.

It really does.

Oh God,

It's a bitch.

There's no getting around it.

You have to,

The very first thing when a client comes to me,

They're like,

This is happening and it shouldn't be happening.

I won't even dress anything else.

No matter what they've said before,

No matter if I already know the solution to their problem and I want to hand it to them.

No,

I'm just going to address what you said right there.

Fact of the matter is that you are 35 and single.

Take a deep breath.

Okay,

That's gotta be step one.

You can't change the reality while you're pretending it's not there.

It's not a thing.

It keeps you where you are.

It actually tangibly,

Literally in your life keeps you where you are because you're in denial.

It doesn't mean you need to stay single.

It doesn't mean you need to be single when you're 35 and a half.

I don't care whether you're single or not.

I've been single for most of my life and well,

A lot of it was pretty miserable actually because I was fighting against it.

But once I got to a certain point,

I've had a blast.

It was fantastic.

I was like,

Oh yeah,

This is great.

Total freedom.

I'm a freedom bug.

I like that a lot.

So the shoulding,

The arguing with reality.

That's Byron Katie's work.

Don't argue with reality truly.

Okay?

Things are what they are.

That one bit,

That one piece of,

I don't know,

Whatever advice,

Insight,

Whatever I just offered you could take you incredibly far if you can do it on a deep enough level.

Truly.

Okay.

This is what it is.

Relax your body.

Take a deep breath.

Yep.

It is what it is.

Okay.

So it's actually a really profound piece right there,

But the shoulding is where we're talking about this on more of like a mental psychological level for the moment.

Okay.

So this is the voice.

This is how the voice forms of who we think we should be.

Right?

Who we think we should be,

But it's not from us,

Right?

It's who we thought our parents thought we should be.

Okay.

So I should be a better writer.

I should run the business.

I should be more like my parents.

I should do my homework more.

I should get a PhD.

Did I ever tell you that?

Oh,

Man.

So there was this time I was on a bus.

Did I ever tell you about the bus in Boston?

This is such an amazing shoulding story that happened.

It was when I was living in Boston,

I was on a bus to New York City,

I think.

And this woman,

I had this book that I was reading and this woman gets on the bus and sits next to me and she's this beautiful Indian woman,

Probably,

I don't know,

Mid-30s.

And this was probably about 10 years ago for me.

And we'd chit chat a little bit,

Like,

Where are you going?

You want to visit my brother.

Okay.

That's cool.

And then I sort of went through my book and then she asked me about my business.

I said,

Oh,

I'm a coach.

And she said,

Oh,

Really?

Like,

What do you,

What kind of thing do you tend to coach?

And I really narrowed it down to like two sentences,

Right?

Because I kind of wanted to read my book.

She was lovely,

But I just kind of wanted to read my book.

And so I said,

Oh,

You know what?

People come to me for like lots of different things,

Help with their relationships or if they just haven't really figured out where their life is going or who they want to be,

Things like that.

And I help them work through issues and get them unstuck.

She looks like I slapped her in the face and she goes,

Oh,

Wait,

I forgot to tell you.

She's a doctor by the way.

Okay.

This is very,

Very key.

Okay.

She's Indian,

Big in the Indian culture.

Kind of need to be grow up to be a doctor or an Indian.

I mean,

She's a doctor or an engineer.

You're guaranteed to grow up to be an Indian.

And so she was,

She was a doctor.

And so she looks like,

Just like stunned at what I'd said.

And she goes,

Where my life is going.

Like she had never had this thought in her entire life.

And I was like,

Girl,

You are,

You're,

She's not like teenager young.

Like she's like into her life.

She's an adult.

She's beautiful.

She's a doctor.

She's a doctor.

How many years?

I don't know how long med school is in India,

But it's not like a few.

I'm sure.

You know what I mean?

That's a ton of years to put into something and never have considered.

And so then we're,

You know,

Sort of go back to my book and,

And then throughout the trip,

Probably three or four times,

She,

I hear her mutter to herself where my life is going.

I mean,

For real.

So,

And,

And look,

This,

This is really typical in that particular culture.

And that's fine.

This culture has its own,

Its own sort of flavor,

But it's such a good example of that girl made it to 35 years old.

She could have stepped off in New York and walked into a,

An agency and become a model or an actress.

Not that she needs to be just because she's,

You know,

She's attractive.

It's just like,

Girl,

How many years did you spend in med school?

Right?

All on a should,

All on a should.

And that's not that weird.

Actually,

I hear that kind of thing all the time.

People stay in careers they think they should have.

People do sports they think they should,

They should do.

People do ballet for decades and then realize it's not my dream.

It's like check in folks.

You've got to wake up.

You've got to,

And by wake up,

I don't mean that derogatory way.

I mean wake the fuck up.

Pay attention.

Look at your life.

Is it in every way the way you want it to be?

If not,

How about checking out,

Making it that way?

What if it were actually within your power to fix?

Right?

What if you could actually do something about this shit?

What if she wants to be an ice skater?

Girl,

Go be an ice skater.

And I'm not saying there's no other factors,

Right?

There's tradition and there's,

You know,

There may be,

You know,

Societal pressures,

You know,

There's,

There's stuff and things like tradition.

You know,

I think in America a lot of times it's not really respected a lot.

People are like,

Well,

Fuck it.

Who cares?

It's tradition.

I think tradition is really important.

Um,

It's,

It's ritualistic.

It's old.

It's been around for a long time.

It usually has really,

Really good reasons.

That being said,

If it's causing you more harm than good to become a shoemaker,

Then just because every,

You know,

Man in your family for the last 10 generations has been shoemaker,

Then you know,

Your,

Your,

Your system isn't lighting up with that,

Right?

Or if it's intolerable for you,

That's your system talking to you.

So you know,

Don't become a doctor and not be sure if you want to be a fucking doctor.

I kind of want her to check into,

I kind of wish I'd gotten her information.

I want to know how she's doing.

I want to be like,

I want to give her a session.

Like girl,

Come,

Come talk to me,

Baby.

I got you.

Okay.

So these are the voices that tell us who we should be.

Okay.

If you are just joining us now,

We are reading from the five personality patterns by Steven Kessler,

Which is fabulous.

And if you'd like to call him with a comment,

It's eight two eight three three three four six eight six.

Feel free to do so.

Okay.

Uh,

Okay.

Hang on.

This is going to go into super ego.

Okay.

That's actually fun.

The job of the super ego,

The inner critic is part of something larger that for that Freud called the super ego.

It develops in early childhood,

Roughly between two and five years old.

You know,

Two is right around the age when a child starts saying no.

Right.

That's one of five facts I know about children.

The only things I know about children are what's relevant to the process of what,

How things stick in your,

In your,

Uh,

In your psyche and in your energy and in your body and stay that cause that's my field of expertise,

Not children.

Um,

But that part is true.

Um,

The super ego's job is to stop you from doing things that will get you in trouble with your parents and caretakers.

Right.

So we're keeping ourselves safe.

It tries to keep you inside the good boy,

Good girl box they have defined where you are loved and safe.

The inner critic helps out by becoming a kind of inner policeman,

Interrupting you the moment you have an impulse to do something bad and scolding you to stop you from actually doing it.

Of course,

To stop you,

It has to beat down an awful lot of your impulses and desires.

Nope.

I will be a shoemaker because dad says I need to be a shoemaker.

My last name is Schumacher.

This is,

This is,

This is my fate,

Right?

But every impulse is like you want to be a figure skater.

Just saying to make you obey.

It criticizes and shames you and calls you names.

Anything you've seen others do it copies and uses against you.

I will add something here that is not in this book yet.

Anyway,

Um,

That inner critic,

That voice that goes in your head all the time that can go entirely,

That is a fixable thing.

I point that out here because I've never heard anybody else say that even in all my training.

But I've done it and I've helped other people do it.

So that constant voice,

It's like kind of telling you you're a piece of shit or is saying you're not good enough or any kind of,

Um,

Hi there,

Thank you.

Any kind of voice that's just,

It's just constantly sort of running.

People call it the,

Um,

People call it the,

What are names you've got guys have heard on Facebook live?

Give me some,

Uh,

Judge,

Judge Judy.

I've heard somebody called judge Judy before.

Um,

I've heard,

Uh,

The monkey brain,

Right?

Um,

The sort of constant,

Uh,

Constant chattering mind.

That is something that can go entirely and completely.

So,

You know,

Um,

So it's tone,

This is back to the book.

It's tone can range from merely devaluing to vicious and hateful.

This changes you from a free,

Spontaneous and uninhibited child to an internally censored,

Well behaved child.

Your parents like this of course,

And praise you for being such a good boy or girl.

Helping a super ego is important and necessary step for any child.

Now you have an internal mechanism that can regulate your behavior and some kind of inner regulation isn't much needed.

Inner self regulation is much needed for the first time.

Something is able to intervene between having an impulse and acting on it for the first time.

How others will respond to your actions enters your decision making process.

This is a real step forward,

Although ideally it would not include the self hatred that is so common in Western cultures.

So this is also really important.

Every single thing,

And I'm going to use positive and negative here.

And if you're,

If you're a fan of the podcast,

You know,

I really dislike those two words because it's dualistic.

And the fact of the matter is it's made up.

We call something positive because we decided we like it in that moment,

You know,

And it could change any point in time.

Whether it's something,

Oh,

That's negative energy,

That's positive energy.

It's not,

It's just energy.

Energy just is life just is folks.

If you decide it's good,

Great.

If you decide it's bad,

Okay.

But it's,

It's a,

It's a,

Uh,

It's a decision,

Right?

You're just calling it,

Okay.

This is white,

White.

We're going to call white good.

And dark is bad.

It's like,

Okay,

Really?

It's just light and dark.

It's they just,

They are,

They're much deeper concepts than that.

And we just sort of put this sort of positive negative on it.

But for the moment,

For the moment,

Um,

Let me go ahead and,

Uh,

And,

Um,

Let me go ahead and,

And,

And use those terms,

Right?

The,

The,

The positive and the negative.

Um,

So what are you saying here?

And this is such a great piece is that he,

Um,

Uh,

Is,

Is that while we may see things as negative,

They're actually quite,

Um,

There's always a positive side to it.

Okay.

A thing is never entirely positive or entirely negative.

Even defenses,

Even defenses,

Survival structures,

The things that we're talking about here,

They're never,

They're never all the way negative.

Okay.

They come from something positive and that positive thing is distorted.

So what he says here,

You know,

You're able to have,

Um,

Something is able to intervene between having an impulse and acting on it,

Right?

Um,

Some kind of inner self-regulation,

You need that for life.

That's important.

You need to self-regulate,

Right?

The problem is when it's regulating you without your consent,

Right?

When judge Judy comes in and you're like,

How do I look in this dress?

Your mind's like,

Ugh,

Girl,

You are trying way too hard.

Well now hold on just a second.

First of all,

Maybe I am,

Maybe I'm not,

Who are you to say it?

Right?

And so you're,

You're sort of automatically put into this.

And so that,

That would be an example of it being on autopilot.

Oh,

You're giving me your opinion and your opinion is going to be shitty no matter what,

What,

What are we,

What are we doing here?

Right.

If you can regulate,

Hmm,

I wonder if this comment would be offensive to the person to whom I'm speaking,

Whom I have no desire to offend.

There's an example of self-regulation where you can,

Um,

Uh,

That that's actually useful,

But it's voluntary.

It's in your control,

Right?

That's really what my work tends to be all about.

Okay.

It's about taking you off of autopilot thought about telling you what to do or how to live your life or what to believe in.

It's about showing you when your beliefs are screwing you and when they're not right.

And by screwing you,

I mean taking you away from the things you want as opposed to towards the things that you want.

Okay.

That is subconscious self-sabotage.

That is where I specialize.

Okay.

So the super ego,

He says,

Is composed of three parts.

The ideal self image.

This is what I should be.

The inner appraiser and the inner critic.

Okay.

The ideal self image literally holds all of your internalized images of the perfect you,

The one that mom and dad want you to be the one that they love best.

These are your images of the good boy or good girl of who I should be.

Okay.

So each time you have an impulse to do something,

That impulse is compared to your ideal self image.

There's also what I'll call here like forcing currents.

Okay.

Making you be something that you don't necessarily want to be.

You might be like,

I love dance.

And some part of you might love dance,

But you might not like dance that much.

Or you might,

You know what I mean?

You might be sort of making that because that's your idealized self image.

I'm a dancer.

That's who I am.

Okay.

The question to ask is,

Who would you be if you weren't a dancer?

Right.

If you see yourself as I'm very macho or I'm very conservative or I'm very,

You know,

I'm military,

I'm a military man.

Cool.

That's great.

Who would you be if you weren't a military man?

Who would you be if you weren't a husband?

Who would you be if you weren't successful?

Who would you be if you weren't a failure?

However you see yourself,

When you ask yourself that question,

I imagine that's probably where he's going in this chapter.

When you ask yourself that question,

Suddenly you just with considering the possibility,

You.

.

.

Thank you,

Jason.

Airline pilot man.

So you've got to have an answer to that.

It's not really so much about the answer.

It's about asking yourself the question,

Right?

When you ask yourself that question,

You consider the possibility that you might be more than how you've always defined yourself.

If you weren't an A student,

Who would you be?

If you weren't religious,

Who would you be?

And it's not saying that you shouldn't be any of those things.

Those things are great.

A students are great.

Religion's great.

It's awesome.

The problem comes when you,

When that's your entire identity,

When that's all of who you are,

Here's why that's a problem.

First of all,

It's false.

You are more than your religion,

Than your military career,

Than your relationship,

Than your race,

Right?

And when you identify as just that one thing,

Your sense of self gets very unstable,

Right?

I'm this person.

I'm this person who acts this way in these types of situations because life changes,

Right?

Life's always moving.

You're always,

You're growing,

Right?

I mean your race probably isn't changing,

But your identity with it might,

Right?

Are you only a black man?

Not that you're going to get whiter as you get older,

Although you're going to get it.

Your mustache and your hair.

Whatever.

I think I'm funny.

So it's not like your race is going to change as you get older,

But it does mean that what else are you?

Is that all you are?

Are you more than that?

Do you want to be seen as more than that,

Right?

And so there's this way in which we get sort of zoned into,

I'm this type of person.

I'm a dancer.

I'm a successful businessman.

I'm an artist.

And then,

Okay,

You're a person,

A full,

Beautiful,

Light-filled being who loves to make art.

You're not an artist.

I think artists would probably say that.

Art comes through,

I think.

So does genius in areas of math and physics and airline piloting,

Which is a verb.

So let me check in here with what needs to be said.

It is important to distinguish here between the inner critic and your conscience.

Your conscience is based more on empathy and compassion for others.

So it develops later as those abilities come online.

It also offers you advice about what to do and it matures along with you as you develop.

The inner critic,

However,

Doesn't mature much for after it is formed.

So for the rest of your life,

It operates with the understanding and maturity of a five-year-old.

This is really important.

Your shoulds are young.

New situations are measured only against,

Will mom like this?

Will dad be mad?

Anybody on Facebook live right now,

Raise your hand.

Who catches themselves making decisions based on what their parents will think,

Even if their parents aren't around anymore?

Somewhere in the back of your mind,

You're like,

Oh man,

My mom would hate this dress.

And that might make you not buy that dress or that might make you buy the hell out of that dress.

Either way,

You're reacting as an adult to a woman's opinion who's no longer your parent,

Who no longer controls what dress you buy.

But we still have this reaction like,

I'm either like,

Fuck you,

I'm out of here.

Like a rebellion,

In which case you're fighting against that person,

You're pushing against that person.

That's still a reaction.

You're still enslaved to them in some way.

Or you're kowtowing to it.

Oh,

I won't buy that dress.

She would just,

She would have a fit.

You know,

You're a grown woman.

What dress do you want to wear?

Who are you now?

The time when you're really through that,

When that is actually not an issue for you anymore is when it's neutralized.

When it doesn't occur to you what your mother might think of the dress that you're going to buy.

And that dress comment was about you.

The voice of the inner critic,

However,

Is not your own voice.

It is only the voices of the people who raised you.

For some people,

This inner voice is so clear in their head that they can tell you exactly which parent is speaking.

For other people,

All the voices have been mixed together into one voice that they think is their own.

And for some,

There isn't a voice at all,

But only a bad feeling in their body.

As if the voice is speaking in their unconscious and only the bad feeling arises into awareness.

So don't get attached to how this might look.

Just keep your mind open.

So this inner critic is a young part of you trying to protect you in its five year old way.

And it doesn't advise you,

It attacks you to control your behavior.

The inner critic always devalues you in some way.

It always makes you feel small or stupid or bad in some way.

That devaluing is the hallmark of the inner critic and the way you can recognize it every time.

Yes,

Jason,

Boys can like pretty things.

Love boys who like pretty things.

That's my favorite thing.

Can and should.

Haha,

I shitted you.

Pretty things are wonderful for all genders.

I love that.

I love people who break gender stereotypes.

I find that incredibly freeing.

It's beautiful.

Be who you are.

I'm like the most masculine chick.

Maybe that's why.

Maybe it's like my tribe.

I'm like,

Oh,

Okay.

So let's move forward.

So once you recognize a critic attack,

Let's go ahead and find the solution.

You're ready to learn how to defend yourself against it.

You do this by using your own life energy to push back against it instead of letting it use your life energy to squash you over time.

This practice will profoundly change your relationship with your inner critic.

Okay.

Even though at first your inner critic may seem like an 800 pound gorilla stomps at will and your small helpless self as you practice pushing back against it,

The life force that used to feed your inner critic will be redirected into feeding yourself.

Your inner critic.

That's actually true.

The more of these,

You guys,

This is so exciting.

This is like the secret to like all happiness in life.

I'm telling you,

Everybody likes their business,

But mine is like the solution to the world.

Okay.

So every time you go through an issue and you find what's blocking you or you find where you're telling yourself you're a piece of shit and you really release it,

Not like I am not a piece of shit.

That doesn't fix it.

A counter thought will not solve the problem.

It's maybe better than not a critical thought,

But that's,

That's not helpful.

Right.

Um,

Oh good.

Rose says,

I criticize myself all the time.

Girl,

I am there with you.

I had those voices in my head for decades and it was terrible and exhausting and they weren't even mine.

Wasn't even my voice.

I was fine with,

Well,

I wasn't fine with who I was,

But once I freed up that energy,

Oh man,

The freedom that you feel,

You guys like my life now is so free,

Right?

And there's like,

There's like little ups and downs.

Like,

You know,

Things can,

Things can still happen,

But there's no self criticism.

The self loathing is gone.

My insecurity is gone.

My self hatred is gone.

My hatred of my body is gone.

As a result,

My body is way better and way more alive and vivacious and,

Um,

And,

And powerful and like sexy and like it just,

It like,

Um,

It has this light kind of coming from it because I've freed it up all this stuff.

What I'm saying there is not that I'm a remarkable person.

I'm a regular person who has done this remarkable thing and now I teach people to do this remarkable thing.

Right.

And so as I freed myself from these kind of chains or the weights that were on me or the,

However you want to sort of see it really it's pieces of consciousness that are frozen and held in your body that dim your light because you think you need to dim your light and you don't need to dim your lights.

Your light is fucking awesome.

It's great.

It is the purpose of the world actually,

As it turns out.

And so what are you saying here is totally accurate as you,

Um,

As you release these parts of yourself,

You that,

That life force that's held,

That's frozen is freed and you have this incredible feeling of like energy,

Like life force is just pouring through you.

Like you as a human,

Man,

I gotta be honest.

You have access by being in a human body.

You have access to one of the most powerful,

Like high tech,

Bad ass vehicles ever created.

If you are a cat watching this,

I can't speak to that.

I'm not an expert in cats.

I don't know if it's the same way,

But with humans,

Definitely.

So you're driving this incredible vehicle,

Right?

And you don't know how to operate it.

You've never read the owner's manual.

You don't even know what your machine can do.

It's extraordinary,

Right?

You're like up there and you're driving down the street,

But you're driving with the rear view mirror instead of with the driver,

With the,

With the steering wheel.

Right?

And then you can't figure out why you keep hitting things and you're like,

Oh,

I,

I,

You hit a curb and you're like,

Oh man.

Okay.

And then,

Then a couple of different things happen.

What happens when people hit curbs can differ.

They might go,

You know,

They might go,

Oh,

I can't seem to go left.

They might go,

Oh,

God doesn't want me to go left.

Or they might go,

Oh,

The universe didn't want me to go left or up left would have been bad for me.

I'll definitely go right.

The fact of the matter is you hit something cause you didn't know where you were going.

And what God wants you to do is maybe a different thing,

But it has nothing to do with you hitting that curb,

Right?

You hit the curb because you don't have your hands in the steering wheel.

What I do,

The work that I teach,

I show you your owner's manual.

I show you how you work.

That's it.

That's it.

I don't have any agenda on where you drive.

Doesn't matter to me.

Right?

I just show you how you're getting in life,

Why you're getting in life,

What it is that you're getting and show you if you want,

How to use your instrument to get what you want.

So it's very black and white.

It's very like,

Oh,

You're getting this.

Oh,

Well,

Okay.

And we go into your system and we see what's there.

And there's a block that's causing every time you hit that block to go left,

Right?

Every time her husband,

In the example earlier tells her that she's going to be late,

She reverts back to a past relationship and she freaks out.

So then she comes to me and she goes,

Man,

You know,

In my coaching program,

And she goes,

I don't know why,

But I'm just furious with my husband all the time.

Let's go.

Okay,

Let's,

Let's look.

And turns out every time he speaks to her,

You know,

Not ever,

Maybe not every time he speaks to her,

But like,

You know,

Every time this lateness issue comes up,

Let's say it's hitting a curb and she's getting jolted to the left and she doesn't understand why her machine is going left.

Right?

Once you learn how to use your machine,

Life takes on a very,

Very,

Very different slant,

Very different slant.

Okay.

Suddenly you're in a goddamn F1,

Right?

You're in a fucking Grand Prix,

Right?

And so you're,

You know,

You're pulling on the parking brake and you're squealing around corners and you're,

You know,

You can do whatever you want.

You have an incredible instrument.

The problem is it's all glommed up with stuff that you're holding onto from the past.

As you release that you will experience more freedom,

More life,

More love,

More passion,

More direction,

More clarity,

More satisfaction,

And more freedom of being,

More self love than you've ever experienced in your entire life.

And that's a life worth living right there.

That is,

That's,

That's the purpose.

Humans are meant to lead joyful lives.

You can be in your joy when you know how to use your instrument,

When you're not always being,

You know,

Bombarded or you're running onto the curb or you're hitting trees or you can't figure out why you can't get out of the driveway.

It's because you're steering with the rear view mirror.

Nothing wrong with you.

You just have your hands in the wrong place.

That's okay.

And that is a really,

Really,

Really beautiful thing to really know how to use your instrument.

Oh,

I just put my hands here.

Oh,

Okay.

Now you can fucking steer.

How about that?

And you think,

And you're sitting there with your hands on the,

On the rear view mirror,

Trying to steer your instrument being like,

What is wrong with me?

And here's the should,

Listen for it.

I should know how to drive this.

I should know where to go.

I should be able to steer better.

No,

You shouldn't.

You have your hands on the rear view mirror.

It's okay girl.

That's okay.

Move your hands.

You're just,

You're just a little bit on the wrong track.

Okay.

You can see it's not like,

You know,

You,

And then you punishing yourself,

You punishing yourself for holding the rear view mirror does not bring your hands down to the steering wheel.

Yeah.

And in fact,

It just makes you feel like shit about the fact that you can't seem to drive with the rear view mirror.

So now not only are you still not driving,

You're still driving with the rear view mirror,

But now you feel terrible about it.

That's why the,

The,

The shoulds aren't useful.

They they they add on another layer that you have to now get through instead of just,

Wow,

I do not seem to be able to steer this machine.

Hmm.

That's interesting.

That's why that is.

There's an openness to that approach to it.

Right.

In doing that,

There's a there's a different way to come at it.

Right.

So,

So the vehicle you have is extraordinary.

I don't need to know who you are to know that you are incarnated as a human currently.

And as such,

You have access to a remarkable,

Remarkable vehicle that you do not know how to use 80,

90,

95% of.

It's like,

You know,

I think of,

I say this all the love.

It's like a really quite an older person using like an iPhone.

And like what they know how to do is they know how to turn it on and they know how to go to phone and they know how to go to contacts,

Contacts and find who they want to call and press call.

Right.

Like that's the thing.

Don't ask them to text.

Don't ask them to like link it to their email or like download apps or things like that.

That's that's just out of their wheelhouse.

Right.

They can sort of only do these things.

It's like me with a regular computer.

So so there's there's no judgment behind it.

There's there's been no owner's manual set out for you.

Right.

So just know that the things that you see as mistakes or a self-sabotage or places where you're not getting what you want.

That's OK.

These are all ways in which you're you're you're learning.

Right.

Please know there is a way that you can iron those out and you can you know,

You can.

Another great analogy is like one of those sun things on your windshield.

But like while you're driving.

Right.

You're like,

Man,

I keep hitting other cars and I can't figure out why.

It's like,

Well,

Because you've got your thing over your eyes.

Can't see.

Right.

So know that there is a way through this.

OK.

This is a great,

Great book.

I've really enjoyed reading this for you.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

My name is Dominique Drew.

This is The Art of Attraction.

Please download and subscribe the show.

I'd love to have you call in.

I often have space available for calls.

So please don't hesitate to do that.

I'm happy to help you here live on the phone.

And yeah,

I run an eight week course that where I help people through exactly this issue.

So if anything about this resonates,

Then please don't hesitate to reach out and send me send me a send me an email or reach out to me on Facebook.

Not on my business page,

Please.

I do not pick catch that.

I do not check that.

But send me an email or through my website and I would love to hear from you and I would love to help.

So have a great night.

And I hope you found this useful.

Thanks guys.

Talk soon.

Bye bye.

Reviews

I love this. I just wish I would have heard it 40 years ago but I'm hearing it today at 65

Hi, I found your podcast very useful. I love how you reframe the inner critic. This is the thing that I’m struggling with to the point of depression - living in an unsafe world with no hope of things ever getting any better. Yet my life has gotten nothing but better and better. I have everything you could possibly want. But my inner critic - it just beats me down and overpowers my life minute by minute. I hope that I will be able to remember that it is a 5 year old little child! I’ve posted myself a reminder. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us!!
Namaste! 🙏🏻