Menu

Posts tagged with “inner critic”

How to Make Your Cruel Inner Voice Work for You, Not Against You

By

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.” ~Carlos Castaneda

I’ve always had issues with food, but in the past five years this struggle became a full-blown eating disorder.

I remember the first time I thought I was too big, in fourth grade. Now I know that I wasn’t too big. Maybe I hadn’t outgrown my baby fat yet, but I wasn’t overweight. Still, all the other girls at my school were smaller than me.

There was one day when a pediatrician came to our school for a …

How to Stop Being a Victim of Your Own High Expectations

By

“The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within.” ~Gandhi

If someone asked you to recall the last time you were kind to yourself, would you struggle to bring up that memory?

At one point in time, I couldn’t remember ever being kind to myself.

I grew up with a lot of expectations from a demanding mother and other caretakers. Their expectations …

7 Things to Realize When You Think You Don’t Matter

By

“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” ~Hafiz of Shiraz

Have you ever felt like you didn’t matter?

Were you ever held back from pursuing something because the voice in your head said, “Why bother?”

You’re not alone.

I once felt that way too, but I discovered a way out of that dark time.

In my early twenties, fresh out of college, I had my first professional job interview. I had the blissful optimism and naiveté characteristic of most college grads seeing a world full of infinite …

How to Practice Self-Compassion: 5 Tips to Stop Being Down on Yourself

By

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~Jack Kornfield

I never wanted to see a therapist. I imagined settling onto the storied couch and seeing dollar signs appear in concerned eyes as I listed the family history of mental illness, addiction, and abuse. I feared I’d be labeled before I’d ever been heard.

But after experiencing the emotional shock of witnessing a murder, I knew I needed a space to grieve. So I gathered all of my courage and laid myself bare to a very nice woman who had Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements on her …

A Simple Process to Deal with a Hypercritical Mind

By

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I can’t believe I screwed this up again!”

“Why did I do that?”

“This is all my fault!”

The third grader ruminated as he walked away from the soccer field where his team had tied, two to two. It was their sixth tie in seven games.

The lone game that was not a tie was a loss. According to this young man, his team’s record was a direct reflection of his worth; therefore, verbal self-deprecation was the only response one should have after such failure.

His …

Silencing Your Inner Critic: You Don’t Need to Torture Yourself to Grow

By

“You yourself, as much as anyone in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

I was tortured by self-hatred for most of my life.

There were aspects of myself that I had a hard time loving. I didn’t like that I am competitive, that I was not a blonde with blue eyes, that I am not good at math or managing money.

I did everything I could to hide these things. I was over-caring, over-helping, and over-accommodating others.

I think I did a pretty good job of not being myself. This created additional psychic pain in me. I …