Silencing The Inner Critic
We all have that voice inside our heads.
We may not like to admit it but it is there.
Just when you feel brave enough to do something new or different, it suddenly pipes up - "who do you think you are?" "who wants to hear from you", "what if people laugh", "you stupid, fat, b****".
We are plagued with comments similar - all about who are we to make people listen to us and why would anyone be interested.
It's the voice of the inner critic and it stops you from speaking up and putting yourself "out there".
But if you ever stop to really listen to the inner critic - whose voice do you here? Is it yours? Is it someone from your past? Is it a parent? Whoever it is, what you are really listening to is their fears projected on you with a combination of your own mind trying to "protect" you in some way.
Take this scenario: As a child we have some sense of self - that's my toy, my mummy etc.
This is one level of identity - ownership.
We hear conversations between adults and we absorb their principles and ideals (we don't have our own yet).
It is the group dynamic at work - we support the same teams etc.
We are learning what is expected from the group and any "outsiders" or different opinion is bad.
The next level is how we are viewed by this group and it starts with our family unit, extends to outer family, school (all adults) and then our peers' views.
If the message you receive as a child is that you good for nothing, a waste of space, will never amount to anything, how will that make you feel - bad.
If this message is re-enforced at school by a teacher telling you are stupid, again this supplies further "evidence" of your failings.
This child will either be a very insecure adult or very angry at the world.
This is an extreme case but you can see how the inner critic can evolve in this person.
Compound this with reading out loud in class and stumbling over words and all you hear is laughing and perhaps the teacher goading the behavior - this time your mind, in its protective role, wants you to disappear so you never have to go through this again.
Each time you have to speak out in class, you feel nervous and anxious anticipating the bad feelings and being laughed at.
So you develop avoidance patterns.
All of these components make it difficult then to be someone else.
Each time you "try" to be different to have more confidence, you are collapsed internally by these negative thoughts and memories of feeling anxious and uneasy.
Even though you have matured into adulthood, the pain that began in childhood is still in a child's level of maturity.
You will always be the little child being berated or put down in some way.
But once you can understand this is outside programming and the sources of this information projected their own issues and fears onto you, doesn't that give you some power back.
It is not really who you are.
Yes, you endured being laughed at but when you think back, how many others did the same thing happen to.
You were not alone.
What do you think would happen if you set yourself a task and completed it - what would that do your inner critic? You begin to break down the supportive "evidence" - I put evidence in quotation marks because it is not true evidence.
Another step is to identify where inside you the inner critic lives and how it manifests itself - is a radio, or like the Wizard of Oz, a big head - what happens when you pull back the curtains.
It is petty and mean because of fear - fear that you will go against, fear that you will be brave enough to do what it is afraid of.
It feeds off your fear and the more afraid you are which is re-enforced each time you stop yourself doing something, the stronger it becomes.
If you want to be different, then you have do something differently.
It may surprise you that things are not as difficult as you build it up inside your head.
So what if everything does not go your way, you did it or you didn't.
It is a choice.
Forget about "trying".
Trying is lying.
You have already failed when you say you will "try" something.
In the words of that great philosopher Yoda - there is do or not do, there is no try.
Be free and switch off your inner critic by doing something that scares you.
http://zitastanley.
com/confidence/confidence/
We may not like to admit it but it is there.
Just when you feel brave enough to do something new or different, it suddenly pipes up - "who do you think you are?" "who wants to hear from you", "what if people laugh", "you stupid, fat, b****".
We are plagued with comments similar - all about who are we to make people listen to us and why would anyone be interested.
It's the voice of the inner critic and it stops you from speaking up and putting yourself "out there".
But if you ever stop to really listen to the inner critic - whose voice do you here? Is it yours? Is it someone from your past? Is it a parent? Whoever it is, what you are really listening to is their fears projected on you with a combination of your own mind trying to "protect" you in some way.
Take this scenario: As a child we have some sense of self - that's my toy, my mummy etc.
This is one level of identity - ownership.
We hear conversations between adults and we absorb their principles and ideals (we don't have our own yet).
It is the group dynamic at work - we support the same teams etc.
We are learning what is expected from the group and any "outsiders" or different opinion is bad.
The next level is how we are viewed by this group and it starts with our family unit, extends to outer family, school (all adults) and then our peers' views.
If the message you receive as a child is that you good for nothing, a waste of space, will never amount to anything, how will that make you feel - bad.
If this message is re-enforced at school by a teacher telling you are stupid, again this supplies further "evidence" of your failings.
This child will either be a very insecure adult or very angry at the world.
This is an extreme case but you can see how the inner critic can evolve in this person.
Compound this with reading out loud in class and stumbling over words and all you hear is laughing and perhaps the teacher goading the behavior - this time your mind, in its protective role, wants you to disappear so you never have to go through this again.
Each time you have to speak out in class, you feel nervous and anxious anticipating the bad feelings and being laughed at.
So you develop avoidance patterns.
All of these components make it difficult then to be someone else.
Each time you "try" to be different to have more confidence, you are collapsed internally by these negative thoughts and memories of feeling anxious and uneasy.
Even though you have matured into adulthood, the pain that began in childhood is still in a child's level of maturity.
You will always be the little child being berated or put down in some way.
But once you can understand this is outside programming and the sources of this information projected their own issues and fears onto you, doesn't that give you some power back.
It is not really who you are.
Yes, you endured being laughed at but when you think back, how many others did the same thing happen to.
You were not alone.
What do you think would happen if you set yourself a task and completed it - what would that do your inner critic? You begin to break down the supportive "evidence" - I put evidence in quotation marks because it is not true evidence.
Another step is to identify where inside you the inner critic lives and how it manifests itself - is a radio, or like the Wizard of Oz, a big head - what happens when you pull back the curtains.
It is petty and mean because of fear - fear that you will go against, fear that you will be brave enough to do what it is afraid of.
It feeds off your fear and the more afraid you are which is re-enforced each time you stop yourself doing something, the stronger it becomes.
If you want to be different, then you have do something differently.
It may surprise you that things are not as difficult as you build it up inside your head.
So what if everything does not go your way, you did it or you didn't.
It is a choice.
Forget about "trying".
Trying is lying.
You have already failed when you say you will "try" something.
In the words of that great philosopher Yoda - there is do or not do, there is no try.
Be free and switch off your inner critic by doing something that scares you.
http://zitastanley.
com/confidence/confidence/
