A therapist works with someone whose harsh inner critic drowns out their compassionate side, leaving them aware but paralyzed. The conversation focuses on building outrage at the critic itself, then strengthening the kinder voice through practice until it has real power to fight back.
So awareness isn't anything I ever had an issue with. I got awareness down, and the constancy is something that I'm working with. So I don't see that being an issue. But for me, what's really hard and what I'm really in touch with is the difficulty of the kindness. And that is consistently what keeps me from the strength.
So the power of criticism. Criticism is very macho. It's got a lot of juice, and it robs you from the real juice, because the real juice is courage and confidence and passion and a certain kind of love for the truth that has fire. And criticism takes your fire away. And so if you look at it nakedly, what you'll see is this huge critic saying, what's wrong with you? You should have it down by now. And then you have another voice over here that's saying, well, I'm pretty dedicated to the truth, and I'm really working hard. And the critic is still appearing to be the adult, powerful ogre voice. And developmentally, what's important to see is that your voice that actually is passionately connected to your awareness isn't as potent yet as your criticism. Now, from an outsider, from my view, that's outrageous. That really fires me up. But you don't know how to get fired up yet. You're still believing the critics and the criticism's potent voice, and it's getting you from behind the scenes. So what's needed is to keep experiencing the direct expression where the criticism's power is being met with sort of a weak, undeveloped voice that's saying, but I'm innocent. So the criticism is still posing as the adult. Now, how does that feel as you just look at that nakedly?
It feels scary because I'm in touch with feeling the opposite. I'm in touch with feeling the rage towards it, towards the fact that that's the truth. But the rage does not feel safe.
And what would the rage say? If the rage right now, let the rage be safe, what would it say to the criticism?
Yeah, that's where I get stuck, because the rage attaches to other people, and it doesn't attach to the criticism.
Let it attach to the criticism. Let it really zero in on the criticism. The criticism is dominating your life. It's running your life. So there must be a fair amount of rage at the criticism. So let the rage, the anger, the fire. Even if it's a dark fire, let it go towards the criticism.
I don't. It would say probably with more intensity than I'm able to do. I'M tired of you. You know, I. Enough already. You are leading me down this path that is just so far from where I want to be. And I can't have the relationships that I want and I can't have with myself or with others, and I'm sick of it. I don't want to trust you anymore. Leave me alone.
And how does that feel?
Muted?
Sincere? Strongly trying to muster up every ounce it has.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because then there's more that comes. It's like. Don't. Don't tell me that I'm wrong. You know? Of course I'm gonna be wrong sometimes, but I don't need you pointing it out to me all the time. It's not bad. To be wrong is human, you know? Don't expect perfection from me. It's not gonna happen. Just let me be the wrong and leave me alone.
Can you feel the nobility in the struggle that the critic is still more potent?
Yeah.
But you're actually. You are flexing your muscles. Yeah, you are.
Yeah.
So you might have a 10, critic. Still a 10, but you move from a 2 to a 4 or 5, and that's exactly what you need to do, which is to yell back at the critic. But recognize that it's actually not only anger, it's passion. It's a fight for your life. It's a fight for your life force. It's a fight for love. It's an outrage. That's saying, critic, you don't know anything. You're not here to help me. And the passion isn't quite as strong as the critic is yet. If you really know that's where the engagement belongs, and I think you do, then you know what the path is that you want to build the outrage and the fire.
Yeah.
So you stay and say, okay, fair enough. I'm game. I'm going to keep entering the ring, and I'm happy to be engaged with where the real source of suffering is, which is that the critic still believes it has more potency and has more potency than the passion for the truth and the love of the truth. And something inside you knows that's outrageous and that something will keep fueling and will keep raising the bar and the potency of the passion and love for the truth.
