Dear Shirley:

I thought about you today as I heard commentary about the hot and humid weather these days on the east coast. Seems like you like the heat though.

I think people bring you down because the criticizing inner voice in you gives them power and they, the people, give it power. They feed on each other. That criticizing inner voice, in Freud terms, it is the superego, only in your case as in mine it has been an abusive superego (other terms: toxic inner critic. I call it the inner bully).

Like an abusive parent who beats up a child, so does this abusive superego and there is no benefit in abuse, not when another abuses you and not when you/ part of you abuses yourself. I figured out some things about this topic lately.

There is a way to externalize this critical voice, this abusive superego, toxic inner critic… this inner bully. I wish you could attend psychotherapy with a competent, caring therapist just for this reason, for this purpose: to minimize and… externalize this inner bully. It is possible and with help you can do it. Then you will be able to move forward without this energy draining inner bully.

With this inner bully it is like you are moving forward with great difficulty because of strong friction making your movement forward difficult. Without this inner bully you can move forward without something pulling you backward, without this exhausting friction.

Do you think there is a way for you to attend therapy for this very purpose, this summer? I wish you could.

It is raining here on the west coast.

anita