Re-educating Our Inner Critic

Simply stopping negative thoughts in their tracks can be helpful. This is known as "thought-stopping" and can take the form of snapping a rubber band on your wrist, visualizing a stop sign, or simply changing to another thought when a negative train of thought enters your mind.

Telling a trusted friend what you're thinking about can often lead to support or a good laugh when the negative self-talk is ridiculous. Even saying some negative self-talk phrases under your breath can remind you how unreasonable and unrealistic they sound, and remind you to give yourself a break.

Talking back to your inner critic is an important part of taking away its power. 

Telling the critic you don’t want to hear what it has to say begins to give you a sense of choice in the matter. 

Self-criticism isn’t innate to us, it’s internalized based on outside influences, such as other people’s criticism, expectations, or standards. It’s a habit that can be unlearned or controlled.

One way to separate yourself from the self-criticism is to give it a name. Doing so, you better positioned to free yourself from its influence.

It is difficult to fight an inner battle if you do not know what you are fighting.

Get to the root of the problem by putting a face on that demon. Identify the real problem that is holding you back.

Don't try to fight your inner battle until you have leveled up. The inner battle you're facing never goes away completely. It just becomes easier when you are prepared.

• Remove all the junk food out of your house until you’re better equipped to handle it.
• Drive a different path to work so that you can avoid Burger King and McDonald’s.
• Take a month off from going out to bars.

Meditation as a practice is useful to tune into awareness and to calm your nervous system.

To start, take a minute or two to pay attention to where your mind wanders. When you're able to begin noticing problematic situations through the practice of awareness, you can stop doing them.

It often arise from something beyond our control, whether a breakup or loss of someone dear. We can even feel anxiety when trying something new.

We tend to desire a quick-fix for problems, but when dealing with anxiety, it's better to think of it as a practice where you build muscles.

Whenever our inner child surfaces, we are told by society to grow up, throwing aside or killing childish things like innocence, wonder, awe, joy, sensitivity, and playfulness.

Most grown-ups don't realize that they are not grown-ups at all, but emotionally wounded children inhabiting adult bodies. And a wounded inner child is the root cause of bad relationships, bad career, and of the persistent negative emotions of fear, anxiety, insecurity, and inferiority.

In the 70s, creativity was thought of as a trait, something a few geniuses have, and the rest of us do not.

New studies show that ‘extrinsic’ motivators, factors outside ourselves, can influence our creativity. Competition, evaluation, level of strictness along with rewards and punishment play a huge factor in a person’s overall creative levels.

Knowledge that someone will check, evaluate and grade one’s work, surveillance, a promise of a reward, threat of a punishment, creative constraints, competition and motivating factors like power, money and fame can kill creativity.

Rewards generally provide the individual with a feeling of being controlled, but can also enhance creativity in some cases.

• Make sure that you speak up when you have something important to say. 
• Take advantage of your ability to observe other people, the environment you’re in and the energy flow in the room.
• People will pay more attention to what you say when you do speak up.
• You probably have the ability to study things better and faster, so when you do say something make sure that it’s an eye-opener.
• People will trust you more and thus you’ll have access to more privileged information.