And the practice of softening the inner critical in three steps.
I'll begin by inviting you to bring to your attention and to your mind eye something that happened either recently or in the past where you notice your inner self being very critical,
The self critical.
And as you bring that event and memory to the mind eyes,
Hearing what the inner critical is saying.
The inner critical voice can be very unkind sometimes and because for one reason or another we have been enduring the inner critical it might be that sometimes we don't even notice it.
So this first step is to really notice.
Notice the tone of the voice of the inner critical.
Noticing words.
There are sentences that tend to be usual,
Said by the inner critical.
Just noticing that perhaps words that come up again and again.
So just connecting with that inner critical the way that it is.
We want to be able to know it very well.
For example if I have just finished eating half a box of Oreos how does that inner critical voice sounds like?
Does it say something you're discussing?
You make me sick.
You don't know what you're doing or even you're not a good person.
Really try to get a clear sense of the inner critical talking to yourself.
And then we go into the second step.
The second step is making an active effort to soften this self-critical voice and doing so with compassion rather than self judgment.
So we don't want to be talking unkindly with the inner critical.
We want to be kind.
Saying something like I know you're worried about me and you feel that I am unsafe and you know you're also causing unnecessary pain.
So just now letting the other side of you,
The inner compassion side of you,
The compassionate part of you to say some words now in a soft way.
And if for any reason this is hard for you perhaps just imagine a very soft good friend talking to you.
And perhaps saying very very soft things like in the example if I just ate a half box of Oreos I can say hey darling I know you ate that cookies because you're feeling very very sad and you thought it would cheer you up and just notice once you feel even worse and perhaps now we have even the body feeling discomfort I want you to be happy.
So what about taking a walk outside noticing the flowers listening to the birds smelling the perfume and now we go into the third step and this third step is if you feel comfortable just touching the body perhaps stroking one of your arms or the chest and belly while you are still engaging in this supportive self-talk.
Those physical gestures of warmth they tap into our caregiving system and also can help the body releasing the oxytocin and that will help to change the biochemistry of the body.
So just sensing if it's possible the kindness of one hand touching parts of the body or perhaps both hands if you feel like.
The very important thing is that we start acting kindly and feeling this true warmness and caring will coming towards ourselves and I'll invite you if you choose to accept to practice this soothing and helping the inner critical to be less strong that we practice several times a week so you can really slowly change it over time and now as we are coming to the closing of this practice if you choose to accept my invitation is that you can bring a sense of gratitude to yourself for practicing with me and for being here.
Thank you.
Slowly perhaps stretching arms and legs and opening the eyes and connecting again.
