A short talk by Dr. Aziz describing a technique to improve confidence by engaging in a compassionate, dialoguing response with one's inner critic. He contrasts typical automatic shame reactions with a practiced internal conversation where the adult self acknowledges emotions, labels them, and counters the critic to prevent shutdown.
The most powerful confidence tool is your ability to respond to and dialogue with your own inner critic, which is the creator of all low confidence. So what happens is most people, when their critic jumps in, start saying, you sounded stupid. That didn't go well. They cower, they hide, they shut down. Here's what you do instead. Let's say I just spoke up in a meeting, and I share an idea, and I'm not sure how the room is responding. And then enter this guy. Oh, you sounded so nervous. That was so, so bad. Everyone's gonna think you're an idiot. Whoa, whoa. You're upset. Well, yeah, I'm upset. You made a fool of yourself in front of everybody. You seem really worried. Worried about what other people are gonna think of us, Right? Like you're really afraid. Yeah. Yeah. You absolutely hate that feeling that someone might be judging us out there. And you're really mad at me for taking that risk and being vulnerable in that way. So notice how you can go back and forth with the critic, and instead of cowering, you respond like a powerful adult. You're no longer the child in there. You are the authority inside your own mind and handle that criticism.
