Dear Shirley:

I am glad you are making progress and are celebrating your victories. No victory is too small.

When you tell your inner bully “see I am capable of things”-

your bully is not going to be impressed and change his behavior. This is why I termed it Bully- because people who are bullies do not back down, are not impressed by the ones bullied doing well. The motivation of the bully is to harm.

The concept of the Inner Critic is not one I invented. It is the Freudian “superego”- an old term. The superego is something we all have, it is our “conscience”- necessary for the social animals that we are, so that we can live in groups. It is not a bad psychic entity.

The Inner Bully (my term) is the Inner Critic, the Superego when it is abusive!

So, develop over time your relationship with your Inner Bully- I have. I no longer argue with it (it will not change its mind!). I no longer believe what it says (it lies, repeats untruth with no concern of the lack of truth, again, it will not listen to anything different- it does not listen). When I notice it starting to give me its commentary I distract myself, take my attention away from what it says while it is in mid sentence!

Glycolysis- I remember many classes on it, many hours of studying. Now I forgot. Maybe I should google it… wait, I will…Good information on Wikipedia- wonder if you’d like to read it yourself. So a couple of things, paraphrasing (this is how I always studied, using my own words after reading): it is about the breaking of glucose and the release of ATP as a result. It is oxygen independent, does not require oxygen. It is done in aerobic and anaerobic conditions. It includes ten steps (now I remember why it was so time consuming to me and I still remember getting confused and lost in all the details!). The work or discovery of glycolysis started with the work of Pasteur who investigated why wine somewhat did not develop right, tasted bad instead of turning into alcohol. That was in the 1850s. Hmmm… can you imagine, glycolysis was discovered because people liked drinking wine- an advantage then… of consuming alcohol.

Ahhh… Science, how refreshing!

anita