Ascending with the Inner Critic

The Inner Critic is a function of the psyche, installed during childhood to keep us safe in the environment. When the parents or caregivers are experienced as dangerous, perhaps the alcoholic or Veteran with PTSD flies off the handle sometimes, the child adapts strategies to survive. This can lead to perfectionism, especially when the parent will criticise, judge and punish, when one’s room isn’t clean and tidy, or the report card isn’t all “A”s. Or perhaps the parent refuses to accept his child’s tears as “unmanly”, so the little boy hides his feelings and never sheds another tear. His Inner Critic hounds him to “stuff” his feelings and choke back the tears. This helps create a calm environment where the child isn’t beaten emotionally and/or physically, but the long range effects can stifle the child’s ability to engage in heart felt, intimately expressive relationships. The helpful friend of childhood, the Inner Critic, has become a demon telling us all the ways we aren’t doing it right. That’s when our adult self needs to have a talk with the Inner Critic.

We have to start with gratitude. Tell your Critic, “Thanks for keeping me safe all these years. You saved me from lots of beatings and I appreciate all you have done for me. Thank you. Now that I have become an adult, I want to give you a new job description, an upgrade. Here’s what I want you to do. It is still helping me to survive and it’s a big responsibility, but I know you can do it. The world has changed and I need your help being more mindful of how I present myself as a mature person. Your job from now on is to help me be :

• honest

• authentic

• vulnerable

• transparent

so that I can show my love to the world and model it in my actions with those whom I love and who love me. In this way you can help me demonstrate this way of being in the world and change my environment accordingly. OK?”

Wait for the Inner Critic’s questions and comments before you assume He/She is on board for the new voyage. Talk to the Critical Voice and explain in detail how you are expressing your feelings now, how hiding them used to be the program, but that has turned out to be counter-productive, actually it’s destroying my relationship with the person I love. Everything has changed. Now we are disclosing and being transparent. We aren’t hanging out with abusive people any more. We are surrounding ourselves with people who accept and love us just the way we are, so we have to be vulnerable and show who we have become. In this way we can show our love for the people we attract, they won’t hurt us like the ones in childhood did. Being honest is no longer dangerous with this new set of friends and family, it is actually the royal road to getting our needs met. It is necessary to be authentically ourselves. There is a shift of consciousness which supports us and transports us into another dimension. People are calling it Ascension. It sounds like Heaven on Earth and the Inner Critic is going to love the new way of being.

Write your Critic a letter in your journal and wait for His/Her response. Open a dialogue about this new job description and tune it to your personal needs. Have fun and the Critic will support you. That’s Her job.

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