I want to talk to you just a little bit and offer some suggestions for how to begin to separate from the inner critic.
Now this is terminology from voice dialogue,
Parts work perspective.
To separate from the inner critic means that we no longer feel that the inner critic is me.
We no longer think that the inner critic is true.
We recognize the inner critic as just that,
The inner critic.
The inner critic only sees what is wrong.
The inner critic only can see flaw.
The inner critic can never know that it can only see flaw.
It can never know that it only sees what is wrong.
It's completely locked into its own limited perspective.
So separating from it means that we hear the inner critic arising,
Speaking with our mouths.
We hear the thoughts of the inner critic in our mind and instead of believing it,
Instead of being the inner critic as we talk with our friends,
As we look at our house,
Whatever,
We recognize ah there's the inner critic.
There's the inner critic once again.
Broken record,
Tired,
Old,
Don't got nothing new to say inner critic.
And once we do that then it has less weight.
It has less a potent effect on us and maybe it will eventually come to the point where we take it very very lightly and the inner critic is not a strong negative influence in our lives at all.
So how do you do that?
Well it's not necessarily a simple quick thing but one practice that comes from voice dialogue is to begin to notice who it sounds like.
Who does it sound like?
Does it sound like your brother?
Does it sound like your mother?
Or maybe it sounds like a teacher that you had when you were in first grade.
What does it sound like?
So it may have some of the speech patterns.
It may be an internalization of some of the things that were said to us.
Some hurtful,
Some biased things said to us when we were younger.
And so we listen to it and we recognize oh that sounds just like cousin Bob.
And we begin to realize this inner critic is not me.
It's an echo.
It's a thorn that I've carried with me from something that uncle Bob said.
And in seeing that we begin to gently pull it out.
Another way to listen for the inner critic and recognize when that's who's running the show,
That's who's operating the mind,
Is to listen to its tone of voice.
One thing I've discovered after lots of meditation practice and parts work,
Voice dialogue practice,
Is that negativity has a sound to it.
There's a characteristic quality of feeling tone in the words coming out of my own mouth.
There's a characteristic feeling quality of the thoughts.
And we know that when we're in an open-hearted,
When we're in a non-judgmental place,
We don't have that negative tinge to our voice.
We don't have that certain kind of vibe of pessimism,
That sourness.
We hear it immediately in other people.
And lots of us want to avoid people who are only the inner critic because it is negative energy and it affects us too.
So not only listening for the speech patterns and maybe if it's a voice from the past,
But listen for the negative tone in yourself,
In your thoughts,
And the words coming out of your mouth.
And when you detect that,
You prime yourself through listening to this and through intention to detect that quality of sourness,
Then you're more likely to say,
Oh,
That's just the inner critic.
