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Transform Your Inner Critic into Your Inner Coach

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We all have inner critics. For most of us, they blather on and on in negativity. They feed our mind a steady diet of destruction, peppered with strong words like: can’t, don’t, should have, not, never . . . and overly generalized labels like: idiot, stupid, schmuck, jerk . . . as well as the more “colorful” (blue) labels.

We have grown accustomed to this berating inner dialog and allow it to work against us. It wears us down by the repetition of negativity that we take at face value and then manifest in our lives by the powerful law of attraction.

Whatever is the predominant thought and attitude about any given subject is what we create in our experience. So if we allow our inner critic to run amuck with the usual garbage dished out by the modern media conglomerates and cultural conditioning, we lock ourselves into a self-perpetuating cycle of negativity, lack and disempowerment. (See previous articles, “The Law of Attraction,” “The Subtle Side of Manifestation,” and “The Trouble with TV.”)

Look a Little Deeper

If you look beneath the surface, these prolific comments from our inner critic contain concealed, valuable and powerful gifts. To receive the gifts, it’s necessary to shift your attitude about the nature of the inner critic self-talk. Quit considering it as a negative hindrance and out-of-control annoyance bent on your self-destruction. Instead, see it as an attempt at communication from your higher self, urging you to make improvements in order to live up to your potential.

The problem is we have become complacent and don’t often engage in conversation with our higher self. The first stab at inner dialog comes from the inner critic, usually with a blunt, over-generalized statement or criticism that gets our attention – at least for a split-second. Now it’s our turn to respond to the initial comment by looking beyond it to discover the gift it conceals.

Critic to Coach in Four Steps

1) Blunt, over-generalized shock statement designed to get your attention. – This is the original comment from your inner critic.

2) Reason for the shock statement. – It’s up to you to get to the truth hidden behind step one. Many of us never get this far because we never pause to ask ourselves why such a thought would occur to us in the first place.

3) Implied Adjustment. – After we understand the reason, it becomes apparent how the situation could be improved next time.

4) The greater good. – This is the benefit of the dialog . . . and the deep, underlying hope for improvement that was the impetus for the blunt statement of step one in the first place.

External Example of an Internal Process

Let’s explore these four steps with an example. Imagine you have just discovered that your teenage daughter has started smoking cigarettes. In this example, you, as the caring parent, represent the teenager’s highest self. Your motivation is to help guide and inspire her to live up to her potential and live her best possible life.

1) First, you react immediately with something blunt, over-generalized, and rich with shock value . . . hopefully, it will get her attention. It could be something like: “What a stupid, suicidal thing to do – you are killing yourself!”

2) The reason for step one’s shock statement is because you sincerely care and have your teenage daughter’s best interests at heart.

3) The implied adjustment hoped for in this example would be for your daughter to get the facts and statistics related to smoking and how it relates to disease and longevity. Armed with this information, she will choose her actions deliberately, on purpose, rather than as a knee-jerk reaction to peer pressure, social conditioning or irresponsible marketing.

4) The greater good potential for this example is your daughter becoming informed and then inspired from within to quit smoking because she understands and honors the sanctity of life and knows how her energy, vitality, health and longevity all increase without the daily doses of self-administered poison. Without the detriment of tobacco, her potential for meaningful contribution is enhanced and lengthened. This positively impacts the greater good for not only herself but for family and friends close to her. Through the years, it will also affect the life of many others who she may never meet, whether or not she is aware of it.

Plenty of Opportunities to Practice

Since we all seem to have such a steady stream of comments coming from our inner critic, we have constant opportunities to go through these four steps in order to transform the criticisms into coaching sessions. We can get in the habit of looking beyond the first comment from the inner critic and discovering the hidden treasure that we can apply to our lives the next time a similar situation presents itself.

Next Time

What’s done is done. It doesn’t do any good to dwell upon what’s in the past. Learn the lessons and move on. Whether you are talking to yourself, as in the four steps, or talking to someone else, learn the lesson the past experience has to offer, and then move your attention away from the past and into the present moment. The key idea to help you stay present is to focus on the idea of “next time.” Next time, here’s how I will handle it differently. Next time, it will be better. Spell it out so you will remember.

Be Firm

Let your inner critic know who’s boss. Tell it in no uncertain terms that you are no longer interested in indulging in negative, berating comments for their own sake. If the inner critic doesn’t make its offerings bearing gifts for improvements next time, you aren’t interested. Either the critic’s comments come with something worthwhile to offer or they will be ignored.

With a little practice in the art of mindfulness, you will be aware of which comments are offered from your inner critic and come packaged with hidden gifts from your inner self for the greater good. You will also get quicker at recognizing which ones are simply undisciplined regurgitation of the useless noise so prolific in the media and social consciousness.

With the former, you will learn to hit the inner “delete” button at a moment’s notice without wasting valuable time and energy. With the latter, you will learn to look beyond the surface, engage in an inner dialog, and benefit from the gifts concealed beyond the blunt comments from your inner critic. In these instances, you successfully transform your inner critic into your inner coach, enhancing the effectiveness with which you play the game of life.

Don’t Be Judged – Be More

Before training yourself to look for this hidden treasure, it’s easy to be complacent about the endless stream of negativity from the inner critic. You become callous to the self-depreciating judgments, but they compromise the quality of your life just the same.

After getting in the habit of using this four-step treasure map, an attitude shift happens that allows you to recognize these mental messages as the potential for self-appreciating nudges from your higher self. Like a loving, protective parent, its motivation is to help you live up to your potential for the greater good.

It’s up to us to listen with new ears and then apply whatever insights we discover. Instead of allowing the negative self-talk to keep us down and out, we have the opportunity to turn it around with an attitude shift and use it to have more, give more and be more.

While reading, did you choose to hear the relaxing instrumental music linked at the beginning of this article? To learn more about it, click here.

Listen FREE to the song samples below . . . chosen to enhance the ideas in this article.

	Trash Our Treasures People seem to have a history of awarding seemingly insignificant details with places of prominence in our lives, while ignoring or even destroying the most important aspects. http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescX.html#Anchor2 Don’t Tell Me No Just don’t do it. It’s better that way . . . for both of us! http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescX.html#Anchor3 Angels Around Us Is it your higher self, or your guardian angel, or perhaps an over-active imagination? http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescHere.html#Anchor3 Here A love song to the beloved and/or to the larger part of ourselves. http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescHere.html#Anchor16 Love is Who You Are "What is love, anyway?" Is it something you give or get, have or make? Or could it be, down deep, simply who we are? http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescHB.html#Anchor1 Be Kind Your example and the kindness shown to others can have a rippling affect that goes on and on. http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescHB.html#Anchor9 Songs by Tupelo
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