SShh!
It’s the inner critic piping up again. It always tries to get involved in our lives.
It’s not helpful or constructive, it causes chaos and wrecks havoc on our spirit.
It tells us we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive, have dumb ideas and are too old. We’re fat, lazy, fearful, disorganized, stupid….you know the one.
If we listen to the inner critic it stops us from pursuing dreams and leaves us stuck in places we don’t want to be. It makes us a victim of ourselves.
Time to take back our power and realize most of what the inner critic says is based on things we were told in….are you ready…. childhood. Limiting messages most often delivered in our best interests and somehow still running our lives. It is not the voice of truth.
We also hear the “what will people think” voice. This one, which feeds the habit of avoiding embarrassment and worrying about other people’s judgements, apparently is implanted in junior high school and never leaves. It becomes a permanent part of us.
Here we are at mid life with voices from childhood and high school guiding our lives. Oh geez……
I was recently talking to a bright, articulate, talented woman who at 52 was getting her life on track and finding joy. She’d been stymied by thinking she was stupid her whole life….well… not her whole life just since grade 3. It seems she had a less than stellar grade three teacher whose negative messages had been defining her life for 44 years!
Deepak Chopra says, “You alone are the judge of your worth and your goal is to discover infinite worth in yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks.”
Time to talk back to the inner critic, delete the old, no longer valid messages and replace with new ones.
ps/ the next time the inner critic tries to tell you you’re too old…here’s the truth…people don’t care how old you are–only what you can do.
reACTION [to change in the response to stimulus]: Day 13 – Sshh
Next time you hear the voice of the inner critic telling you who you are and what you can/cannot do—remind yourself it likely has no relevancy today. These messages and beliefs could be more than 50 years old!
We carefully shape positive messages for our kids that we reinforce until they own them.We could do the same for ourselves.
Reminder to self. Review messages. Delete old. Insert new.
When we change our messages everything changes.
This nasty old inner critic can really hold us back. It truly does stop us in our track, keeping us from becoming who we truly were meant to be. For me, when my inner critic pipes in with the very well used “you’re not good enough”, I do my best to affirm with fists pounding in the air, that “I am a powerful woman”. Just this simple act makes a great shift.