Self Talk 101
July 11th, 2008, by Shelley Riutta
| Hello from Shelley! |
The theme of this newsletter is becoming more aware of your Self Talk and how to deal with your inner critic.
I hope you had a great July 4th weekend–however you spent it. I was with my family at my Dad and Step-Mom’s cottage about an hour and a half north of Green Bay.
The weather was beautiful and we had a lot of fun. We talked, swam, floated on rafts on the water, watched movies, sat by the fire, played ladder ball and made tie dyed t-shirts! Here is a photo of some of my family with our “Camp Riutta” t-shirts on. For more photos
Wishing you a summer filled with fun times with people you love.
Warmly,
Shelley
| Self Talk 101 | |||
|
“Every waking moment we talk to ourselves about the things we experience. Our self-talk, the thoughts we communicate to ourselves, in turn control the way we feel and act.” John Lembo
How have you been talking to yourself today? Has it been loving and kind or critical and harsh. We all have an inner dialogue that is going on throughout the day. The tone and content of this dialogue will determine how you feel. If it is loving and supportive, you will feel peaceful and happy; if it is judging and unkind, you will feel anxious and down. When I begin working with clients oftentimes they are very unaware of how they are talking to themselves. There are certain exercises we do to begin to bring this inner dialogue to the surface so they can begin to work with it more consciously. Once we make this dialogue “visible,” they so often will say “No wonder I feel so anxious” or “No wonder I feel so depressed”. This is the first step to making profound changes that will tremendously impact their life. Sometimes people are walking around with an inner part of them being incredibly critical and hard on themselves — picking at themselves for every little thing. This criticalness and pressure is very draining and will put a lid on their joy and freedom of expressing who they truly are. Sometimes this is modeled after a parent that was very critical with them and sometimes it is something that they developed on their own. Either way, the good news is that they can transform this inner dialogue to one that is more loving and supportive. One of the methods of shifting this dynamic is to understand the function of the criticalness. If you can, think of the part of you that is critical and understand that it has some good reasons for being critical–it actually is trying to help you. The logic it has for “helping” you is somewhat distorted, but it makes sense to this part of you. The more you understand the “why” than you can work with it more consciously. If you know you have a critical part of you, dialogue with it in writing. Ask it, “Why are you being so critical? How are you trying to help me?” Once you get the answer you can respond to this part of you and find a way to address the things it is trying to help you with in a way other than the criticalness. Here is an example: Audre was so excited that she was making so much progress in developing her business. She had a big vision for what she wanted to do in the world and she was actively manifesting her vision. The more progress she made, the stronger and more vicious her critical voice began to get, saying things like, “You don’t know what you are doing; you don’t have the talent to do this!” “Who do you think you are? Do you think you are better than everyone else?” and “You are going to fall flat on your face. You may as well give up right now”.
This voice surprised her because she had moved forward so much because she had worked hard to develop a supportive inner voice and now her critic was bigger than it had ever been. This was confusing to her and when she listened to her critic, she became very disheartened and depressed. She knew that there must be a good reason this part of her was so strong now–and she felt it may be connected to how much progress she had made. She dialogued with this part of her, asking why it was so critical of her and how it was trying to help her. This critical part of her said back, “I’m afraid that you will be hurt as you have more success,” ”I’m afraid others will judge you,” “I’m afraid you will fail and this will disappoint you,” “I’m trying to hold you back and keep you safe from all of these things; I don’t want you to get hurt”. As Audre heard the concerns of her critic she felt compassion for this voice inside of her that was trying to protect her. She realized it was just a part of her that was very afraid. She was able to talk back to the inner critic and say this, “Thank you for your concern and care for me. I need to let you know that I can take care of myself as I succeed. If others judge me, I will not take it personally and understand it is their own hurt parts doing that, and has nothing to do with us. Also there is no way that we can fail. The success is that we are following our dreams. We have the courage to do this. We may have obstacles and setbacks at times, but we will keep going and that in of itself is a success.” By saying these words to her critic, her whole body relaxed and she was able to move forward without that critical voice floating around in her head. Every now and then she would hear it again, but she would do the same process and listen to and reassure this part of herself. By doing this she was able to continue to move forward in leaps and bounds without her inner critic–out of fear–trying to put the brakes on her. Open up to learning from your inner critic: how is it trying to ”help” you? What are the ways that your inner critic manifests for you? How do you deal with it now? I would love to hear your comments–please comment below. |
|||
|
| Free Tele-Class “The Power of Your Own Pleasure” |
| Mark your calendar! I will be doing a fr*ee teleclass on Tuesday, July 22nd 2008 from 7-8 p.m. Central Time zone.The topic will be “The Power of Your Own Pleasure.” Are you having enough Pleasure in your life? When you focus on bringing more Pleasure into your life, you support and energize every area of it. In this tele-class, you will learn specific things you can do to bring more Pleasure into your life and release any blocks to living a Pleasure-filled life. This tele-class is based on my article “The Power of Your Own Pleasure.“ The number for the call is 712-432-3900 the access code to get on the call is 5594042# For more details If you missed last month’s call, “Soulmate Manifestation Tips,” don’t worry–I have a recording of the presentation available. My recording equipment did not record the actual call so I recorded the presentation and added some additional information. This audio is a must if you have a deep intention to meet your Soulmate or you are wanting to uplevel your current relationship to a Soulmate Relationship. For more details. |
re. our inner critic
Hi Shelley:
This was a great article-thank you for writing this .
My inner critic seems to use not only criticism, but also keep interjecting false beliefs into my thoughts to “help” me.
When I dialogued with my wounded part about the good reasons she has for criticizing and using false beliefs, many things came up:
First I heard: “the only way to achieve anything is by hard work, many hours spent, and continually pushing and criticizing oneself”, ” Nothing comes Easy” , “without struggle , the achievement doesn’t mean as much”, “we’ll be destitute if you don’t work and struggle hard”, and “this is the one thing in life you can control-many hours at work guarantees safety and security”
The inner critic here and use of the false beliefs, is trying to “help” me from failing and being poor.
I also heard:
” as you reach for more, the potential for defeat, rejection, and pain increases” , “I don’t want you to feel great pain”. The inner critic here thinks this false belief will help keep me from reaching too high or for too much and and helps avoid the great pain if I fail.
The harshness and fear behind this criticism and the false beliefs really make me want to be free of it all. My loving adult has to be present more
and compassionately explain the truth.
JW
Comment by JW — July 13, 2008 @ 10:52 am
Hello JW-
Thanks for sharing what came out with your dialogue with your critic. You make a good point that the critic not only uses criticism but also false beliefs to hold you back. These false beliefs are the framework for how the critic is perceiving what you are doing and it is what fuels the criticism (fear).
So you are right on that both the false beliefs and the criticism both need to be understood and addressed. You are right that your loving adult being present with compassion, reassurance and the truth is what will help heal the critic. Thanks again for taking the time to share!
Blessings-
Shelley
Comment by Shelley — July 13, 2008 @ 3:11 pm