Speaker 0 00:00:03 Welcome to the doctor's wig show, where I show you how bad States of mind, difficult life issues. Aren't pathological, but rather signs of personal growth trying to happen. All right, let's get into it. Hey people, how are you? I hope you're doing well. And aren't suffering from an inner critic. But if you are, I've got just the exercise for you. Don't do this exercise. When you driving your car, operating machinery or doing anything that requires your full attention. Now, each of you is total unique in how you process things. So at each step of the exercise, turn the podcast on and off, however you need.
Speaker 0 00:01:02 All right, I'm going to show you how to process your inner critic. Do you ever criticize yourself? If you don't. You're a rare breed. Most of us do it all the time. Now, why process this hurtful inner voice or thought pattern? Why give something negative? Any attention at all? Won't that make it worse? Why not just try to ignore it or think positive thoughts or go to the gym and sweat it out or smoke some pot, drink a beer, watch a movie, take a Xanax. Surf the internet, eat cake, work, talk, sleep. Well. These distractions can help you in the moment, but they won't transform this part of your mind and they won't help you discover the hidden gold in this negative experience processing the self critical part of your mind means engaging with it in a way that uncovers its true message and purpose. This begins the process of transforming it from an attacker to an ally. All right, let's begin by reviewing your critics, beefs with you. What kind of negative hurtful things does it say to you? What nasty attacks do you hurl at yourself? Review all the ways you think you're just not good enough and choose one of them to focus on
Speaker 1 00:03:29 Now, close your eyes and listen to this critical part of your mind. You may experience it as your own thoughts, thinking things about yourself, but I want you to use your awareness to just watch and listen to the stream of these thoughts. Don't participate in them. Step back, observe and listen from a detached place. Listen closely to what this mean. Inner voice says and let it take on a character of its own imagined these aren't your thoughts, but rather those of some nasty figure. Notice if it sounds like the voice of a male or a female, an old or a young person, someone you know, or a stranger, does it speak fast or slow? Is it high or low pitched? Does it sound angry? Frustrated, vengeful, afraid, go ahead and listen to your critic from this neutral detached place and observe its characteristics.
Speaker 1 00:05:37 Now make a picture in your mind of this critical figure. What does it look like? Is it a man or a woman? Is it someone you know, or a stranger or maybe it's a fantasy figure, like an animal or a spirit. How do you visualize this character? Look closely and study everything. You see its face, body movements and energy. Now I want you to talk back to it, tell it your thoughts and your feelings. If you feel hurt by what it says, voice your feelings. If you feel angry, say it. If it scares you, let it know if you disagree with its ideas, tell it, argue, debate it and do this out loud. Using writing can also be helpful, but make sure you express yourself out loud. Don't worry. If you feel silly or awkward talking to an imaginary figure, you do this all the time. Anyway, it's called internal dialogue. The only difference here is you're voicing things out loud to bring consciousness to them.
Speaker 1 00:08:03 Now, if you're completely identified with your critic, agreeing with everything, it says, this part of the exercise is going to be very confusing. You'll wonder how can I disagree with my own thoughts when I'm the one, having these thoughts in this case, ask yourself the following two questions. Number one. Is there any part of me, even just 1% that doesn't agree with my own thoughts and number two, is there any part of me that feels uncomfortable, hurt, angry, frustrated, afraid, confused, sad, or otherwise unhappy. When I think these negative things about myself, if you answer yes to either of these questions, express it to yourself, tell your own thoughts that you're unhappy with what they're saying. You and your thoughts are not the same thing. You're far more than your thoughts. The point is to make a clear distinction between what you feel and what the critic or your critical thoughts say it should be a dialogue between you meaning what you feel in your critic. In other words, you have two parts, your feelings and your critic, keep them separate. Don't mush them together into an undifferentiated stream of consciousness.
Speaker 1 00:09:55 All right, go ahead and talk back to your critic as you do this, listen to what the critic says back, and then talk back to it again, let it progress into a dialogue talk. Then listen, then talk some more and crucial in this process is to not give up in the middle. Don't let the dialogue stalemate immediately press the conversation forward. As far as you can go. Even if it seems to cycle, keep expressing what you really feel. You don't have to solve anything. This first time solutions will happen after revisiting the dialogue. A bunch of times, just hang in there and keep challenging to baiting, negotiating, interacting, and expressing what you really feel. Don't just agree with it. Don't let it beat you down. Remember to always ask yourself, is there 1% of me that doesn't agree with this or feels hurt by these ideas? Pause and feel your real feelings. Think your deepest thoughts and sense your core intuitions. Then tell them to the critic.
Speaker 1 00:13:43 If you want to go another step, try play acting the critic. Pretend you are this mean nasty character saying hurtful things, act, think and speak like this figure. Then step out of the critic role, be yourself again, and respond. Think of it as an acting exercise. You're in theater class and you're trying out different roles. Only these roles are real. All right? Here's some questions for you to answer to your critic, force you to get stronger in your side, stand up for yourself, explain and defend your feelings. If so great job. Oftentimes a critic is there to make you stronger in who you are.
Speaker 1 00:15:31 Did your critic have anything to teach you? It's often difficult to find this because critics tend to be so hurtful and say a lot of ignorant things. Your job is to fight it tooth and nail, and then see if there's anything of value left. Sometimes there is. And sometimes there isn't. Where did you get to in your dialogue? Did you make progress in the discussion? If so, Bravo, but if not, no worries. Dialoguing with the inner critic progresses slowly and sometimes ends in a stalemate. I'm going to address this and show you a solution in the next episode, by the way, if your critic is fear-based, it's really just your inner worrier, trying to get your attention. It feels ignored and unseen and turns negative. It can't get its message through to you. So now, instead of saying, I'm afraid, it says he, you suck or you're stupid or you're going to die or something like that.
Speaker 1 00:16:49 But behind its negativity is a need to have a dialogue with you regarding something. This part of you is afraid of great work. You've just learned how to dialogue with your inner critic. You did this by listening to visualizing and then doing a role-play with the critic. You may have also gone another step, play, acting the critic, and then doing a role-play acting dialogue. Take as much time as you need to absorb what you just did. If you feel like it, you can listen to some bonus material where I share some of my client's experiences doing this exercise. That's up next.
Speaker 0 00:17:50 Here are some of my clients' experiences processing their inner critics, a 21 year old depressed woman's critic told her she's a bad person, does everything wrong and will never amount to anything pretty harsh. She dialogued with the critic and was able to begin to fight back against it. At one point in the session, she punched my punching bag. A bunch of times screaming, shut the fuck up. We did this over time and she started to feel better about herself and her depression started to reduce a 59 year old, newly single man's critic told him that he will never find a new girlfriend because he's too old. He dialogued with the critic and was able to educate it on the fact that age is just a number and that, uh, he will have no problem finding a new partner, doing the dialogue, helped him connect with and formulate his true beliefs on the subject.
Speaker 0 00:18:59 A 39 year old woman who always felt pushed around by her husband had an inner critic that said she's a pathetic, weak powerless person. She tried to argue with the critic, but it didn't seem to help. So I had her play act a critic. And as the critic itself, she felt really powerful. Then she worked on integrating this strength as her own and eventually she was able to use it in her relationship. The more she did this, the weaker her critic, God unable to bully her anymore. This was a case in which the critic was right. Its communication was hurtful, but its message was correct. The woman needed to connect with her personal power. See you next time. Stay aware.
Speaker 1 00:19:58 You can follow me on social media at Dr. Swig. And you can sign up on the mailing
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