We read and hear thousands of words about listening to our inner voice from books, social media platforms and many other places. Each of us has two inner voices. One is a positive, helpful and validating inner voice, the other is a negative and destructive inner voice. Our inner voice, which we call positive, represents our true self, that is, our wishes and goals, but our inner voice, which we call negative, is our anti-self inner voice, that is, our critical inner voice.
Just as excess of everything in life is harmful, paying too much attention to our critical inner voice can limit our potential. . That's why we need to keep our dialogue with our critical inner voice in check. When we can keep our critical inner voice under control, we can see the benefit of strengthening us.
In order for our true self to prevail over our critical inner voice, we need to understand very well how our inner voice works. The attitudes, beliefs and behaviors we are exposed to around us from the moment we are born have influenced how we see ourselves and others today. The love, acceptance, or affection shown to us nourished our true self and the positive feelings we had about who we were in the world, but the critical attitudes and negative experiences we endured formed our critical inner voice.
What we learned from our parents and lived with them. We don't have to accept anything we experience as it is. We are individuals different from our parents. Therefore, we may differ in our beliefs and thoughts. At this point, a good first step would be to realize that our critical inner voice shapes our perceptions, emotions, and actions in very harmful ways. Because we often listen to our critical inner voice without realizing it.
“You look so fat/ugly/stupid.”
“You can't succeed with this chance anyway.”
“You can't do this job.”
Do these sentences sound familiar to you? Our critical inner voice tells us sentences like the ones above.
Secondly, remember your experiences that you can call "the best". Things may not be going your way right now, but is it always that way? When we are faced with such situations, we tend to overgeneralize. We are in the mind. Think about all the experiences so far. Are you really failing? Have you had successes in your life? Dwelling on the negative is like coming across a rotten strawberry on your plate, saying all the strawberries are rotten and throwing them all in the trash.
And treat yourself like you would your best friend. If your best friend came to you to vent about his failures, would you help him see the big picture? Do you agree with your friend's assessment, or do you offer a different, more realistic alternative? If so, why do we treat ourselves worse than we treat our friends? If you try to treat yourself realistically, positively, compassionately, objectively and open to mistakes, just as you treat your friend, you will see the difference.
Your critical inner voice, whose purpose is to pull you down, is trying to take you back to an old, familiar learning that aims to limit your potential. When you become aware of the negative guidance your critical inner voice gives to your life, and take control of your critical inner voice with a conscious effort not to act according to its harmful advice, you will see that your quality of life increases.
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