Have you ever wanted to reprogramme your inner critic? The one that rules everything
Yes, okay so let me ask you this…………
Have you ever been really good on that diet for a week
Been hyper vigilant about keeping your thoughts in check and noticing if you think a so called bad thought
Meditating every day for weeks
Not drinking every weekend all month
Stopped needing that guy or girl to text you every waking minute to feel they are still in to you
You are living up to your own self imposed expectations, and then BOOM…………….you fail
Fall off the no booze on the weekend wagon
Eat the bad food
Stop the meditating because you’ve got too many other things to fit in to your day
Let the bad thoughts back in and you don’t see them in time and they spiral and you begin to drown in them
Then you enter a downward spiral of shame and disgust and hate and the inner dialogue goes something like……
“I cant even get that right, I have absolutely no willpower, I can’t believe I even did that, I am such a terrible person, god I hate myself”
And then the core belief that you have about yourself rears its ugly head and suddenly “I am not good enough, I am not worthy, I’ll never be successful, no-one will ever love me” (insert your own core belief here)
The thing is……..
You were actually operating from that core belief way before you fell off the meditating, food, drink, inner critic wagon
Firstly, it’s important that you know you actually have a limiting core belief
And that you realise it wont matter how much you try and fill your cup with the so called good behaviour if there’s a hole in that bucket that needs filling
(You can read more about core beliefs and what they are here)
The question I want to ask you is this…….
Do you actually want to change that pattern?
If you really get in to it, if you really feel it, if you know the work that its going to take, do you want to change?
Because the truth is you have achieved things in your life that you didn’t think you could
You have been dedicated and driven and stopped at nothing, despite the problems thrown in your path, to do something you wanted or have something you wanted
So I know that if YOU really, really, really wanted to change the pattern or the behaviour or the thoughts then you would
And I also know that you are literally the ONLY PERSON in your life that can do this for you, that can change, that can plug the holes in your bucket
I know because for years I kept saying I want to be thinner
Losing weight will make me happier
Yada, Yada, Yada
BUT, I also knew that I didn’t want to stop eating
Being over weight was my protection, no one would love me if I was fat
So voila, the thing I feared the most in my life, people who I love leave me
That wasn’t even an option because they wouldn’t love me in the first place
Being fat was my safety blanket
I didn’t actually want to change it, I didn’t really want to get thin when I stopped and got down to the crux of it
But there came a time in my life that I was ready and I wanted to change FOR ME, not because other people told me I should
So do you want to? Are you there at that point? Is it your dream, not someone else’s?
If it is, if you answered yes, hell yes, truly honestly yes……..
Then here are a few things you can do to stop the inner critic and quieten the negative thoughts
- 1. Stop labelling something good or bad
This comes from a belief system that you hold
For me back in the day cake was bad, lettuce was good
The truth is they are both food items, nothing good or bad about either of them, its just we’ve been brainwashed to believe otherwise
- 2. Stop over thinking it, stop intellectualising what you are doing, stop making things have implications
It goes something like I just have to stop doing, x, y, z then I’ll be okay
If I was a size 14, 12, 10, 8 (that was my pattern) then I’ll be okay
I should not do it like that, if I could just do this instead, then I’ll be okay
Doing that, that kind of inner dialogue, disconnects you from your emotions
It stops you being able to feel any empathy for yourself
And it makes the belief, the thing you are doing good or bad again (see point number 1)
- 3. Start to question it, get curious about it
Where did the belief actually come from? Is there anyone who enforced that belief for you?
Who did you see in your childhood, or now even, doing the same thing? Using the words you use about yourself?
Is this belief even actually yours or is it a learned behaviors from someone or somewhere else?
Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviours, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited – Margaret Mead
- 4. Get intentional about wanting to change and work from that place to actually change it once and for all
I have written a whole other blog post on that topic which you can read here
I know its not easy
I’ve been where you are now, standing at the crossroads
Wanting better but fearing what will happen if you actually change this time
If you’re coming off a pattern of internal abuse, the rollercoaster of wanting to change, feeling afraid so staying the same over and over again
You know it wont happen overnight, I know it wont happen overnight
If you try and go straight to rainbows and unicorns
‘This is easy’ ‘I can do it’ affirming all the good things……..your subconscious mind wont trust you
It will try and show you all the ways you cant change
It will try and keep you safe
So you have to work to override it
Don’t try and go straight to the happy ending – instead find neutral
Think of how you can change your language to neutral instead of toxic
Then from neutral to good
Then from good to rainbows and unicorns, because then you have made it, you have changed the pattern
Moving forward
When you are right in the middle of your next negative pattern, take a moment to stop…..
Collect your thoughts and then ask yourself “do I really want to change this?
“Am I using this to hide”?
“Is this keeping me safe for fear of getting hurt”
Because how you answer that question will change everything, if YOU want to change it, there’s your power
