Which one is talking?

Free, I posted this on another thread, here it is again. Inner critic is not inner child. There are many parts of you.

A great book for understanding pain and how to heal it is the one I mention below.

"Free, you might have a loud inner critic.

From the book Meeting the Dragon, by Robert Masters…….Ending Our Suffering by Entering Our Pain

You inner critic is not a somebody, or a entity or thing, it is a process, a doing, an activity, usually manifesting as a heartlessly negative appraisal of us…a powerfully compelling dramatization of us as defective…that we internalized and personalized long ago.

It has been said that the inner critic tends to masquerade as conscience, but actually possesses no morality other that of “should”-ing us down.

I had a really loud inner critic, I went to a Buddhist Monastery for a Inner Critic Workshop, we did a series of exercises over three days that helped us explore learn how to relate to our inner critic and mine it for insights we might not be able to access.

You can’t get rid of the inner critic, but you can learn to relate to it and not from it. The trick it to change your relationship with it."

I posted this somewhere else but not in as much detail. Mars and Venus Starting Over has a LOT of exercises inside to help you deal with exactly this negative inner voice of yours. I have the voices in my head as well. Mostly they are my perfectionistic Blue Blood Mom disapproving of nearly everything I do. Inner critic is a good description.

That will cripple you IF you let it. Beating ourselves up with negative self-talk is such a trap, believe me I know! I am a champion at it.

Try to recognize it and tell it: Could you have said that in a kinder or gentler way?