Befriending the Inner Critic [#38]

It was this feeling again. The urge to move to the music, the heart telling me to share my passion for dancing as a gift to the world.

But then the head came in: "Everybody else is sitting here. Maybe I am too much if I dance now. What will people think? Maybe they will judge? Maybe I will be rejected?"

5 more minutes of that and I just went to dance.

I felt the music, and my body moved to it without much thought. I felt resonance. I felt like creating beauty.

A few minutes later, more people joined and danced freely. We smiled at each other.

It became a fun dancing session until the music finally stopped. It was beautiful.

(Thank you, Jolle, for guiding us here as the DJane.)

You might recognize this conversation in your head, weighing whether you can do something socially risky. Something that you deeply feel you want to do that is different from the norm.

How many of your great ideas have been killed like that? How many opportunities for sharing gratitude and creating beauty have not been taken because the "I", conditioned by social norms of what is "okay to do", has talked you out of it?

For a more beautiful world to keep emerging, you need to listen to that soft inner feeling more and then act on it.

Often, what you think others will think about you is totally wrong.

In the example above, people loved that I made the first step in opening the dance floor, while my head was afraid of rejection.

And yes, there might have been some guys laughing at me, but that is more about them than about me: If you get triggered by someone feeling and acting free, you need to look inside and ask yourself why that is.

I think that a lot of the problems in the world exist because you and I do what is "sensible". You do what is expected of you. You quiet down the feelings of what wants to emerge until you don't hear them anymore.

And once you're living up to the expectations of society, your mind makes up all kinds of excuses for why that way is the right way.

The inner critic stops you, too often. How can you deal with it?

1 - Reopening the channel to the heart

Call it connection to the heart, intuition, or being in touch with your feelings. Often, you've closed that channel because the systems you live in reward thinking more than feeling.

You need to quiet down the mind to hear the heart.

There are many ways to do it - here are some that worked for me:

• A walk in the woods without a phone to distract you
• Meditating
• Movement of the body like dancing or sport
• Making music
• Just being and seeing what comes up
• A heart to heart conversation with a friend about how you really feel

It sounds simple, but it's not easy. You're conditioned to always be distracted and to do something. So simply being is an act of resistance that requires intentional energy.

Try one of the above this weekend and listen more to the heart.

2 - Reframing to find better answers

Next to listening more to your feelings, you can use your brain to your advantage, too.

When this conversation happens between what Jeremy Lent calls your conceptual consciousness (the thinking voice in your head that works in words, plans, and "what ifs") and your animate consciousness (the older, bodily sense of things you share with other animals, felt as a gut feeling or an urge to move) (1), you can choose which questions you ask yourself.

Instead of thinking about all the things that could go wrong if you did something, you can ask: "What are 5 reasons this is a great idea and it will succeed?" or "How will this create inspiration or ripple effects to create a more beautiful world your heart knows is possible?"

The power of questions is incredible. When something bad happens to you, you can ask "What's great about this?" or "What did I learn from this?" and you surely will find answers.

I remember when I used this reframing as I tore my ACL while at the height of my lacrosse career (meaning an operation and 9 months of recovery), and it brought a pool of amazing answers:

• I now have a lot of time to read and learn
• I can reevaluate if I want to keep spending a huge chunk of my free time in sports
• I can learn to listen to my body more and use the recovery time to work on imbalances and strengthen other weaknesses

In the end, I stopped playing lacrosse, moved to Portugal, and started working in social impact, which put my life on a whole different trajectory. Not too bad of an outcome from a horrendous injury.

Your brain is a marvelous answer machine. It just depends on what input you give it.

What is a situation in your life that you are unhappy about? An idea that you have been putting off because of everything that could go wrong?

Reframe it.

3 - The 5 second rule

The inner critic can also lead to procrastination. You put things off because you tell yourself it won't have an impact, it won't matter, or that you will fail anyway.

One rule that you can try, that I found really helps me with this, is the 5-second rule from Mel Robbins.

Whenever I want to do something but I'm procrastinating, I'm just counting down 5 seconds to then just start.

Nothing creates energy like starting to move.

Want to be fitter but are procrastinating? Count down from 5, then do one squat. And now, while you are at it, you can just do a few more. That counts as a workout.

Want to call that person that you want to connect with but are afraid? Count down from 5 and just call.

Want to start that passion project for your local community? Count down from 5 and write a proposal that summarizes what you want to do, what you need, and a plan for the first 90 days.

4 - Compassion for yourself

The inner critic will never stop. You'll just get better at dealing with it.

Don't beat yourself up when the critic comes up and doubts you.

Often the inner critic comes from your past. It can be an expression of what you experienced in childhood.

I think that if you had a difficult childhood with less encouraging surroundings or people in your life, that will make the inner critic louder.

And if you had a supportive environment and people who encouraged you to try things and who caught you if you failed, your inner critic will be less present.

You're a product of your unique life experiences up until this very moment, just like everybody else. You probably think you see things as they are, that you're objective. You don't.

You see the world as you are, or as you were conditioned to see it. And most of that conditioning comes from your childhood.

So be compassionate with your inner child and listen to it.

What does your inner child need today? Then go give it that :)

I hope these 4 ideas can help you to befriend the inner critic and live more towards the more beautiful world your heart knows is possible.

Listen more to your heart and what wants to emerge.

You can just do things.

Let me know how it goes.

Happy regenerating,
Jonas

(1) "The Web of Meaning - Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe" - Jeremy Lent