Dr. Gail Brenner

Sacred Space for Awakened Living

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10 Life-Changing Facts to Heal the Inner Critic

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
~Thornton Wilder

Note: This post is part of the 10 Life-Changing Facts series. Feel free to check out the other posts on fear, habits, and attachment.

Let’s tell the truth. If you feel held back in any area of your life and have the sense that there must be something more, your inner critic is alive and well. There is nothing helpful about the way the inner critic guides you. Who finds it supportive to be incessantly doubted, devalued, and deflated?

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. If you learn to recognize the inner critic in all its disguises and commit to no longer letting this voice dominate you, you can return to wholeness. After all, you in all your awesome glory, are not limited, needy, scared, and small. You are vast and spacious, infinitely creative and endlessly at peace.

Study these facts about the inner critic, then apply them to your own experience – relentlessly. The thoughts may remain, but they will lose their power over you. After all, would you tolerate for one second someone else saying the things to you that you say to yourself? Don’t wait one more second to reclaim the life that is rightfully yours.

10 Life-Changing Facts

1. Self-critical thoughts mask the truth. Do you believe that you are incapable or unworthy? These beliefs hide your inherent wholeness, enthusiasm, and potential.

2. The past doesn’t predict the future. The root of self-critical thoughts is in our experiences in the past. News flash: The past is over. See yourself and the situations you are in with the innocent eyes of a child. You will realize that the conclusions you drew from the past no longer apply. Who are you now?

3. The inner critic is a habitual way of thinking. As with any habit, you need to study how it arises and plays out. What triggers it? What does it say? How does it make you feel in your body? What does it make you do or not do as a consequence? As you get to know it intimately, you see it for what it is – thoughts, feelings, physical sensations – and it begins to no longer define who you are.

4. The inner critical voice is learned. It is not naturally occurring or present at birth, which is very good news. It is a layer of conditioning that is absolutely possible to unwind. As it loosens its grip on you, the unconditioned you begins to shine through – light, joyful, alive, happy, open.

5 .Self-criticism may be at the root of unhealthy tendencies and addictions. When the inner critic goes unattended, it can lead to all sorts of trouble – making poor relationship choices, abusing substances, accepting “good enough” and giving up on your passions and interests, sustained unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Make it a priority to reflect on your thoughts and feelings. Learn what subtle patterns underlie your discontent, and address them. This is the path that will set you free.

6. Believing self-critical thoughts creates separation. Do you feel alone, abnormal, not a part of this world, unworthy? Then the inner critic is in control. You are believing thoughts without checking to see if they are actually true. Investigate them, and simply say, “No thank you,” to thoughts that don’t serve your happiness and well being.

7. Love heals. The inner critic is built on the illusion that you are damaged, lacking, or insufficient. Rather than continuing to live according to these false stories, welcome the hurt feelings into your tender, open heart. Receive them with kindness, and you will know firsthand that love heals.

8. Inattention and ignoring feed the inner critic. Instead, turn to face these challenging parts of yourself. With compassion, lean into the hardest places. Learn about them with open-hearted curiosity. They can’t help but surrender in the face of love and acceptance. Then they begin to lose their power over you.

9. The inner critic might be protecting you. These nagging and demeaning thoughts might be keeping you from realizing your inherent greatness. As the strength of these thoughts melts away, you may find that changes are inevitable – in the realms of work, relationships, how you spend your time. Even though you may be afraid, be exhilarated by realigning your life circumstances with the truth of who you really are, rather than with the fiction of the inner critic.

10. Funny as it sounds, the goal is not to do away with the inner critic. Don’t resist it in any way. Make the radical choice to turn to meet it fully with love and understanding, like you would a hurt and lonely child. See it clearly with a laser focus. Even if the thoughts don’t disappear, you will have the objectivity to effortlessly let go of what doesn’t serve and cultivate what does.

The inner critic just might be a blessing in disguise. Don’t avoid it any longer or let it define your reality. Know it, embrace it, love it, let it melt into the whole of you. Then go forth and enjoy!

Does your inner critic control you? Have you discovered freedom from it? I’d love to hear…

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Unstuck

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”
~African Proverb

Congratulations! You’ve done it! You’re sick and tired of suffering. You’ve realized that the struggles in your life are your responsibility. You don’t want to keep repeating the same patterns over and over. You are ripe for transformation. Good for you!

Change must be in the air, as your comments and emails so aptly attest to. I feel a momentum of readers here recognizing how they are blocked, walled off, stuck in a rut – wanting to change, but still finding themselves playing out the same old, same old.

This post is all about, “Now what?” You are willing to get serious about not letting these patterns continue. You are eager to take action, but what do you do? Get out the shovel, the clippers, the fertilizer, and the hoe. It’s time to tend to your inner garden.

As you set the stage for change, be willing to get a little dirt on your hands. Stay conscious so you can discriminate the weeds from the beautiful flowers and plants that bring you joy. Learn to sow and fertilize seeds that support your happiness, peace, and well-being.

As you give your consistent, loving attention to the tendencies that don’t serve, they begin to unravel. And when you cultivate a lifestyle that keeps you from going to sleep and letting your patterns run wild, the freedom you long for shows up at your doorstep.

Are you ready, willing, and able? Here’s how.

Inquire

Begin by asking yourself questions that illuminate every detail of this conditioned tendency that has found a home in you. Identify the roots, stem, and leaves – what drives you, your inner reaction, and your behavior choices. Keep an open heart and mind as you ask yourself:

  • What am I experiencing in my body?
  • What story am I telling myself that is keeping this tendency alive?
  • What do I believe to be true about myself, other people, and the world in this situation?
  • What are my expectations of how things are supposed to be?
  • What am I assuming?
  • How do I go from relaxation to suffering? Exactly how does this pattern develop and manifest?

Receive

You now have a whole lot of information about how these pesky troubles arise. Next, take your time with the answer to each of these questions. Let yourself go from thinking about the responses to a felt experience of them in your being. Walk in your garden and smell every rose.

This step makes the unconscious conscious. It awakens us to the truth of these tendencies, so they can no longer hide. It brings light to the darkness, compassion to what we have rejected or pushed away. It takes us out of the well-worn rut so we can pause, breathe, and observe.

  • Close your eyes and receive the response to each question in silence, in stillness.
  • Feel the sensations in your body, one by one.
  • Tap into your inner wise one, then see the stories and belief systems with clarity. Are they actually true? Do they serve?
  • Review the process of how you go from relaxation to suffering, feeling each step. Get to know this experience with great familiarity.

Open

This step is about breaking the chains from the past. It invites you to be open to new possibilities, to venture out into the unknown. There is an inflexibility to repeating a pattern – the ones that get us into trouble. A happens, then B, then C, and without even realizing it, you are reacting in the same unpleasant, automatic way. It’s frustrating. Your heart is beating, but you aren’t truly alive.

By inquiring, then allowing yourself to receive fully, the pattern just can’t hold up in the same way. The jig is up, and the light has been turned on. As that happens, inflexibility is replaced by openness. New ways of responding become apparent. The soil of your being is rich for new seeds to be planted. You see the same old situations and people with fresh eyes – truly as if for the first time.

Maybe you will walk away. Maybe you will discover the kindest heart ever. Maybe you will discover that silence is golden. Be prepared for the unexpected.

Openness asks us to yield to the mystery, to not know, to make space for sane, appropriate responding to take shape. We behave in alignment with the moment, rather than being propelled by old baggage. We are alive, spacious, and true.

Rinse and Repeat

I can’t say this often enough: True transformation requires a true commitment. You don’t explore a pattern once in a while or only when you’re really hurting. Make your freedom a continual choice. Orient your whole life to wholeness, and the riches of the kingdom will be revealed to you.

Be a dabbler, and your movement is likely to go at a snail’s pace, if at all. Your garden will be overgrown, and your fields fallow.

Create room for stillness. Read inspiring books (and blogs). Spend time with fellow lovers of life. Commit to no longer letting your patterns run you, and the whole world is yours.

Are you stuck in a pattern? Have you found your way out? I’d love to hear…

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Take the Leap and Arc Over Into Freedom

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
~Abraham Lincoln

Do you want to be free of those bothersome habits that plague you? Then try arcing over. It’s an idea I just learned about, and I love the image. Taking off, soaring, and leaving the trouble behind as you expand into freedom that is unconditioned, limitless.

In any moment, we can make the choice to arc over. In fact, if change is to happen, we must arc over at some point. Picture yourself ready to walk forward into a familiar pattern with a familiar outcome that you know doesn’t serve you. You’ve walked into this quicksand countless times before, and you realize that it won’t get you the peace you really want.

You can step into this pattern, again – or you can arc over. Instead of being pulled down by the weight of your well-learned reactions, you look up, take flight, and arc over into freedom.

I’ve done it, and you can do it, too. You can break the ties with your ingrained habits, and arc over. Are you game?

Habits Are a Signal to Arc Over

Everything is useful when it comes to discovering the happiness we all long for. The appearance of a habit can be cause for celebration because you have the opportunity to arc over. It is a signal to wake up, be conscious, and connect with your deepest desire. Then, the choice is clear.

You can arc over anything:

  • A behavioral pattern like overeating, smoking, or drinking.
  • An urge to pick a fight or defend yourself.
  • A habitual feeling such as heaviness when you wake up in the morning or fear that is unwarranted.
  • A moment of being too busy to be kind and thoughtful.
  • A grudge you’ve been holding – for how long?
  • The stress you feel to accomplish too much.
  • An addiction to a substance, behavior, or person.
  • The need for approval.
  • Self-critical thoughts.

The Choice to Arc Over

How do you do it? Arcing over happens in the moment. You are faced with the well-worn groove of your habit that keeps you chained to the past, and you make the choice to launch instead. You say to yourself, “I’m not going to do this. I’m going to arc over.”

You enter the space of the unknown where you are free of concepts, beliefs, and expectations. You are present and alive.

Where you will land, no one can say. Because when you arc over, you open to all possibilities. You are willing to leap into the unfamiliar, you are available and receptive without the constriction of patterns that deaden you.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that arcing over is the panacea that will change everything once and for all. Many habits are deeply rooted and take some time to unwind. But every time you choose to arc over deconditions the habit. You are loosening the bonds and making space for what is fresh and new.

What holds you back from living as your fullest expression of yourself? What keeps you from realizing that happiness is always here? What brings suffering to your magnificent life? See it clearly, then arc over. You will be glad you did.

What do you need to arc over?  How did it go?  I’d love to hear…

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How Do You Resist? Let Me Count the Ways

“No feeling is final.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

Are you feeling stuck, out of sorts, disconnected? Are you plagued by addiction or gripped by compulsions or fear? If so, it’s a guarantee that you are resisting a part of your experience.

How do I know? Our natural state is this: clear, whole, loving, peaceful, and happy. It is the source of all our desires and the truth that we long for. It is who we are, closer than close.

In our natural state, we open to all experiences equally. We don’t avoid or suppress. When we seem to be out of touch with the essence of ourselves, we must be denying a feeling or allowing ourselves to be derailed by a belief or expectation.

When these experiences are met with love and understanding, our natural state shines through unimpeded.

Our Natural State – No Resistance

Have you ever felt completely at peace? Maybe it happened in the arms of a lover, on a walk in the woods on a bright summer day, or over coffee with a friend. Maybe it occurred when you were a child or yesterday. Maybe, like me, these episodes of deep contentment spring forth from seemingly nowhere.

At moments like these, there is no resistance. Everything is welcomed as it is, without pushing anything away. The war has ended, and you have put down your arms.

Unexamined Experiences – Resistance

But if there is disturbance, if there is an unexamined ripple or wave in the depth of you, then you are resisting. You have come to blows within yourself. A feeling or sensation in your body is appearing, and you are saying, “No!”

It’s a kind of violence. You are fighting reality, evading the present moment, cutting off a tender part of you. You are choosing separation out of fear, while turning away from the possibility of peace.

Some of us live a great portion of our lives in resistance. We are in deep – addicted to substances or work or obsessive thinking. We are afraid to be quiet or alone. We wonder why the same problems keep occurring.

Know How You Resist

We begin to untangle these areas of dissatisfaction by first recognizing how we resist, then gradually meeting the fragments of ourselves we have been avoiding.

So how do you resist?

  • Are you defensive, hesitant to take responsibility and admit when you have made a mistake or hurt someone?
  • Do you compulsively drink or shop, text or gossip?
  • Are you too busy or preoccupied to be present with the people in your life?
  • Do you worry, judge,criticize, or blame?
  • Do you need to control or be controlled?
  • Are you living in a mind filled with harsh and negative thoughts?

Think of yourself as an actor on a stage playing the same role over and over. You know the words and feelings so much by heart that you express them automatically without considering their origin.

But if you look behind these roles and defenses, worlds open up.

What Is Your Backstory?

No child is equipped to deal with strong feelings, and many adults don’t know how to honor the emotional life of their children. When we experience feelings as children, we often don’t have the support or know the tools to process and release them.

The most adaptive response is to send the feelings underground. We push them out of conscious awareness because they are too overwhelming to handle.

And, as a result, we develop strategies to keep them hidden. We spin stories in our minds, try to control the uncontrollable, and engage in unhealthy behaviors, all habits driven by these powerful unconscious feelings.

From Resistance to Peace

The end of resistance is the beginning of healing. Little by little, we turn and directly meet these fragmented parts of ourselves. We let go of the story about our experience, and we welcome in the feelings and physical sensations just as they are.

As psychologist Brené Brown says, we find beauty in our vulnerability. We unearth the source of the problem so it can be met with compassion. We let the unseen be seen, the disenfranchised invited in like a long-lost friend. We bring light to the dark places with so much tenderness.

Over time, we begin to notice that we feel whole, happy, and free. We are less reactive and more available. Moments of peace appear.

Find out how you resist. Let the impact of this resistance land in you, then open into yourself. Welcome every tension and contraction endlessly. Your habits will lose their fuel and begin to dissolve. And you will know yourself as the peace that you are.

Are you aware of how you resist? What happens when you let go of resisting? I’d love to hear…

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10 Life-Changing Facts About Habits

happydog

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
~Albert Einstein

A few weeks ago, I published a post called 10 Life-Changing Facts About Fear. I was walking on the beach yesterday with my lovely friend Evan who suggested I write a 10 Life Changing Facts series. “Brilliant!” I thought (thanks, Evan), and what better topic to write about than getting unstuck.

The Pain of Being Stuck

And who doesn’t know what it’s like to be stuck? We find ourselves doing the same unsatisfying thing time after time or looking at situations and people in the same habitual way that doesn’t get us what we really want. Being stuck is tunnel vision, it’s prison, it’s limited and small and frustrating.

It can even lead us to despair, feeling there is no way out.

But here’s the good news: you can get unstuck. You absolutely can. No matter what habit is gripping you, you can find the courage to explore it, to understand how it works, to uncover the feelings that drive it.

Be Inspired to Get Unstuck

Need some inspiration? Here are the words of Deb, who commented on a recent post:

“A little over a year ago, when I first found your blog, I felt exactly as you describe in the first paragraphs. I wondered how I could ever not feel so alone, so unworthy. You are right, you just have to keep acknowledging your feelings and letting them go. I kept it up and one day I thought, hey, I don’t feel bad. I stepped out of my tight little box of unworthiness and insecurity, a little at a time, and it worked.”

Habits can’t sustain themselves in the light of conscious awareness. They thrive on resistance and evasion. But when we illuminate them with laser-like attention, when we are willing to see things exactly as they are, they soften. The momentum begins to slow, and we become aware of space for new perspectives and choices. We realize freedom.

Consider the Facts

Whatever your habit is – busyness, overeating, over-thinking, procrastination, passivity, argumentativeness, shyness – consider these life-changing facts about getting unstuck, then the ball is in your court. What do you really want for this precious life?

1. Moving through habits takes focus, willingness, and perseverance. You are addressing an automatic, repetitive, long-standing pattern that has momentum. Your true desire to be free of the habit has to be stronger than the force of the habit itself.

2. Habits stay in place through unconsciousness and inattention. If you keep doing the same thing, you will get the same result. The radical choice is to enter into whatever you experience rather than avoid it. See how your thought process works, what feelings drive you. Get to know the direct experience of desire and lack that underlies many of our conditioned tendencies. Eventually, the habit will surrender, I promise you.

3. Habits are driven by feelings you aren’t aware of. If you are carrying out a habit that isn’t serving you, you haven’t yet acknowledged the underlying feeling. It might be fear or sadness, anger or loss. Gently explore the deepest places inside you so can be free.

If you are afraid of the pain, meet that fear first. Then welcome the feelings – they have been waiting for your loving attention.

4. Habits are perpetuated by a story that runs in your mind. Look for thoughts that start with: I need, I can’t, I am missing, I have to, if I don’t. These are stories you tell yourself that convince you to play out a pattern that you know doesn’t serve you. Investigate these thoughts to see if they are actually true.

5. You will experience urges and cravings. No matter what pattern you are addressing, the moment of the urge to engage in it, once again, is the moment of truth. Are you going to experience this moment or avoid it? Urges have a physical component, so get to know what that feels like in your body. Go through the fire, and you will come out the other side.

6. Getting unstuck from habits means facing the unknown. When a habit drops away, your experience changes. You think and feel differently, your insights and perspectives change. You see choices you never noticed before. Don’t let your fear of the unknown keep you from the happiness, peace, health, and well being that are your birthright.

7. Dismantling habits takes patience. Your habit has probably been in place for years, so it will take some time to unwind. This means you will keep doing it even when you don’t want to. Be gentle with yourself, but don’t lose focus. Start small, and keep going, seeing each experience as an opportunity for learning.

8. There is no goal. I know you want to change your habit, but don’t turn it into a fight. Rather, be conscious, loving, and aware. Be willing to experience your feelings and investigate your thoughts. Lovingly usher yourself through the moment each time you feel the pressure of the habit. Then your whole relationship with your experience changes, and there is space for your inner wisdom to be heard.

9. The root of being stuck goes back to childhood. Many long-standing patterns start when we don’t have the skills or support to deal with strong feelings. In order to survive, we send them underground, and they stay there fragmented and lost. Then we come up with any number of creative ways to avoid them.

The medicine for this cycle is loving attention. Make a safe space for these experiences to come out of hiding. Integrate them into the whole that you already are. Let go of the effort to manage your inner world. Take a deep breath, let it go, and let everything be.

10. Getting help helps. I just finished eight sessions with a therapist. My friend, Tess, from The Bold Life, speaks about how getting help saved her marriage. Talking to an objective, skilled person helps you clear the fog of your habitual ways of thinking. Do yourself a favor: if you’re stuck, consider getting help, with me or anyone else you trust. Just one session can often make a difference.

Now it’s your turn. Here are the facts about habits. What is your next step? Any stories of frustration or success? I’d love to hear…

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