It can be hard to listen for a positive voice over the roar of your Inner-Critic. Our positive, supportive voice inside is often soft spoken. Our inner-critics are often loud and brash.
It is not our fault, we learn to live this way. We create stories that we’ve built our life upon that are based on what other people have told us.
We base our expectations based on what we have been told..
For example, I was told I wasn’t good at math. Being bad at math became part of my story. I took a job in an office counting money and it went o.k. , I had to count 3 times as part of their protocol and I had receipts to make sure it all balanced.
I did my job satisfactory enough. When they fired the accounts payable person they wanted to train me for the job. My inner-critic roared with laughter and cruelty’s over my abilities. I knew the job had a greater margin for error with my math but I took the job anyway.
This gave my inner-critic a powerful platform to run wild with negativity and accusations on a daily basis.
Every day as I worked, my inner-critic told me how stupid I was when I made a mistake.
It constantly chimed in about my lack of skills and understanding with accounting.
I often felt like my company would uncover their mistake at any moment for deciding to train me for the job.
I did that job for several years and the power of my critic had me feeling drained and full of negativity about my life. I was often physically ill and my immune system was low.
This was years before I realized that my inner-critic was not a valid voice to listen to. Awareness is the first step. Now I understand that whenever I feel that fear of being found out, I need to examine the thought behind it.
When I am worried about my lack of skills or understanding it is a good time to ask questions and seek guidance. If I make a mistake I now realize it is just a mistake and I take the time to fix it. The first thing to do when you are trying to create a positive voice is to recognize the voice inside.
Mentally step outside of yourself and listen. Gain awareness of what the your inner voice sounds like,
Is the voice helpful?
Does it sound like something you would say to someone or is it the voice of your parent, teacher or former boss?
How often is it supportive vs. negative?
Creating a Positive Voice
Listen to your inner-voice for a few days. If your inner-critic is polluting your life with negativity, you will want to turn up the volume of your positive, supportive voice.
Cultivate compassion for who you are at the moment. You have gotten this far in life and you are taking steps to make changes. Change is hard but you are seeking help and support. Love that person inside you that wants to find ways to feel better.
Celebrate your strengths. If I didn’t have a knack for organization and attention to detail I wouldn’t have been able to keep that accounts payable job . Which made my math skills less essential.
If you realize that the inner-critic is actually someone else’s voice, LET IT GO. Whatever THEIR critic is telling you is their story not yours.
Retrain your voice to sound more loving. At first you may want to imagine that your inner voice is talking to a child or someone you love. You wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings would you?
One thing to remember, Focus upon what you do want to hear. If the inner-critic speaks up, divert your attention and focus on the outcome you’d like to see.
Creating a Positive Voice can change your life.
When you trade in the voice of your inner-critic for a positive voice it can transform the way you live your life. You will feel happier and have a better outlook even when things aren’t going as well as you planned. Looking for new solutions based on your strengths will come naturally.
You will procrastinate less. The inner-critic has trained you to not try things you may fail at, so you put them off if perfection is an issue. Create some awareness, celebrate your strengths and let the negative voice go . A loving inner-voice allows you to experience the world with joy in your heart.
Being a highly sensitive empath is not easy in a world full of chaos. Highly sensitive people are prone to shyness, anxiety, fearfulness and are most likely to be introverts.
Do you know someone like this? Someone you love? Perhaps a teenager or young adult?
They often withdraw in social situations rather quickly, back themselves into a corner, or stand apart when in a crowd of people. Maybe they react adversely and it seems unnecessary.
Being highly sensitive doesn’t have to hurt.
Highly sensitive people perceive deeply and have a greater understanding of the subtleties of a situation often keeping quiet to hide the depth of their understanding.
They have a six sense that allows them to read the surrounding energy of others. They can sense when someones words and actions are not in alignment.
Often they hide their innate perception to appear normal. This can lead to trouble however, when an individual is not in alignment with their authentic self. When highly sensitive empaths ignore their inner perceptions they often suffer from nu-eroticism, depression, anxiety, inhibitions and addictions.
These become the reactions and responses of a highly sensitive person in their normal state of interacting. The medical community labels people as highly sensitive in the spiritual community it is called empathic, I have come to believe they are one and the same.
Growing up Highly Sensitive
I grew up unconscious that the emotions and mood swings I experienced were not always my own. Extremely sensitive to the energy surrounding me, I would find myself angry, agitated, sad or extremely happy for no reason known to me. This often led to inappropriate responses to life.
I would explode in anger for no reason, feel reckless, withdraw completely or become overly loving towards people or situations with no understanding as to why I felt those emotions.
The radical way I dealt with life often had me labeled as a troubled kid, overly knowledgeable, over reactive. I was ignoring the truth of my own intuitions about people and situations and it led me to unhappiness , depression and anxiety. On my journey I did become depressed, anxious, abused drugs as a teen and alcohol as an adult.
It wasn’t until I got sober that I learned the underlying energy and emotional sensitivity. In reality , I was taking on other peoples moods and emotions as my own. I did not know how to transform them into something more manageable or recognize they were vibes from someone else.
When I became a Reiki practitioner I started to understand what was happening to me. For the previous 6 years I had been working on my personal growth and had developed a spiritual basis for my life which helped balance my emotions and anxiety to liveable state. When I learned what an empath was I finally understood the underlying problem.
I got the book The Reluctant Empath from a friend and everything came into focus. I learned how energy worked. Energy is not just something we expand when we exercise. Energy encompasses our thoughts and emotions as well.
The Authors Steve Wilson and Bety Comford did a wonderful job of explaining the unseen reality of energy in their examples. I learned about myself in this book along with some useful ways to work with the energy I experience. Their book amped up my personal growth and ability to handle adversity. Here are the personal gifts I received from reading this book
Grounding
This was the most important tool that I have learned in my life , sadly it took so long to discover. Being highly sensitive I have consistently tried to numb the pain and escape the emotions that I’ve felt, grounding helps me transform and transmute it all so that I feel stable and balanced. It is also something that I tend to resist and need to work towards consistently.
Planet earth and blue human eye – “Elements of this image furnished by NASA”
Better to be quiet: The Chameleon
I had always lived my life trying to blend in with other people, Consciously readjusting myself to appeal to others. Becoming a people pleaser and a doormat, subject to abuse from narcissist. I did this with boys, friends, adults , bosses, etc. at the cost of losing my own authenticity. Empaths try to fit in, yet the truth of the energy can never conform and feel good to us. I remained quiet at my own expense, Now I am able to give voice to my own thoughts and emotions without feeling I have to conform to the ideals of others. I am free to recognize my unique qualities allowing myself to flourish in any environment.
It’s a purpose not a curse
In this book I recognized that being Empathic is part of my purpose. I am here to help others on their journey, Being highly sensitive allows me to read others energy and emotions more easily. Learning how to use my gift I am able to help ground negative energies that I am surrounded by, making a peaceful environment for all.
Manifesting :Beware of your thoughts
In the book it became apparent that thoughts become things rather swiftly sometimes. Looking back at my life I realized that my thought patterns manifested many of the difficult situations I encountered. The easiest way for me to explain this is the expression “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”.
During periods of my life when I surrounded myself with people who had negative out looks on life I had the negative things happen. The same with spending time with positive thinkers. When I met my husband he was filled with positive thoughts and infinite possibilities . I did have to release my marriage as well, I didn’t realize that the positivity from the beginning masked a narcissist and empath co-dependent situation that unfolded slowly over years.
Making Peace
Taking the time to reconnect with Nature makes peace in my life. Restoring and renewing my inner nature. Peace comes when I flow with the energy of the world rather than resist it. I am an observer of the energy now and watch it harmonize with my environment.
If you are highly sensitive or have a loved one who is, I hope you gain a better understanding outside of what the medical community may explain to you. In any situation their is always the unseen and the not proven. We were not meant to live a life of continuous pain. Pain is an indication there is something we are not addressing.
A Highly sensitive empath in constant emotional turmoil because of energy sensitivity can succumb to many ailments.
We are spiritual beings living a human existence, it is important to examine how the body , mind and spirit connect in any situation to receive true healing and the ability to easily function in this chaotic world.
Examine your life , where is a high sensitivity causing you pain?
Is there a way you could shift this pain by being an observer?
Are all the feelings you have really coming from you?
How do you find peace?
I challenge you to seek the answers to these questions, it is there that peace and authenticity will be found and your pain will diminish.
I had a conversation one day about creating sacred space for Self-Care with a mom who was having trouble getting her self-care practice started because she was waiting to set up a room in her house to do the things she knows will give her relief from all the noise and busy-ness of her life.
It is easy to believe we need a special place to do what we think is necessary to restore the balance in our body, mind and spirit. A Sacred space that when we enter it we will feel the weight of our responsibilities just fall away.
It is a delicious idea isn’t it?
Maybe you are lucky enough to have such a room 😉
Meanwhile she is working almost full time, a mom of busy boys and no time for herself.
If you have been putting off a self-care routine until you have the time to create a sacred space, please remember you need to fuel up your own vehicle before you can drive others.
It doesn’t require a special room or equipment, only a dedication to find the feeling that would most fulfill your needs. Sacred Space can be a place where our mind quiets, our heart fills with gratitude and our body relaxes. There are many places and spaces you can improvise with.
You could, Take a drive to the beach, rail trail, or conservation area. Utilize a corner in your yard, request privacy in your bedroom for a half and hour or use a small amount of time when everyone is out of the house. Keep your special sacred pieces stowed in a small box that only comes out when you have your sacred moments.
Here are some tips for those Sacred Moments.
Find a few moments to take a break from your thoughts.-Write down all your worries and to-do’s and put them aside. Then let your thoughts rest. Imagine yourself at your favorite place. Go through all your senses until you can feel, smell, taste and hear what you remember from that place. When we can allow ourselves to quiet our minds and feel the essence of a place that we allow a powerful calm to come over our mind.
Fill your heart with your breath- Take a few moments to breath in deeply and fill your heart with fresh energy. Let go of any tightness or worry you find in the center of your chest. Then as you breathe in start to picture some of the things you are grateful for, let your heart fill with gratitude and radiate out of your body.
To heal, the body requires you to move any stuck energy and emotions from past experiences. We don’t often recognize how tightly we hold stress, worry and hurt feelings inside our body. Have you ever had a massage and they found tight knots in your back or shoulders? Maybe you have a stiff neck or tight lower back. A chiropractor can certainly help these issues, yet the best way to deal with them is to address the feelings that brought on these ailments. Often feeling unsupported emotional or financially can settle in the lower back. Ask yourself what would help you to feel more supported?
What would most nourish your soul at this time?
Creating a Self-Care Routine can have humble beginnings. The more dedication you have will determine the size and intent of your space. You may start with a small spot to sit and use a few items you already have and eventually expand into a yoga practice with a full altar and an hour a day. The most important thing to consider is to give yourself a place and time to decompress from life. A that practice that will nourish your soul and restore your body.
That little signal in your body that starts to pull at you slowly, drawing you in, your awareness of pain starting to rise, the clue your wellness is fading. Did you know you can relieve pain and find wellness with Reiki?
You’ve been taking care not to antagonize the pain, thinking it would lay dormant, but for some reason today it has decided to engulf you. You down a few of those over the counter pills hoping you can get ahead of the pain, but you can still feel the dull ache building.
You’re probably wondering how long it will last this time. You’re pretty sure your not going to feel up to going to the gym after work. You probably even have accepted the fact you may not sleep well tonight because of the pain.
You become consumed by the thought that pain may ruin your weekend and your enjoyment of life has plummeted. You know you will lack the energy to pursue anything short of sitting on the couch and you’ve blocked any inspiration to seek help for your pain.
The doctors have given you little hope.
So you give up and just accept it as your reality.
But is it reality? Is there some other way to feel comfort from this pain that often sidelines you?
There just might be. You see, in the eastern cultures when someone is in pain the “doctors” treat the mind and spirit along with the body. They look at wellness as the whole person being in harmony. Often when the body is in pain it starts with the dis-harmonizing of the mind and spirit , a disruption of your energy.
You may recognize this as the feeling of distress you feel when you’re in pain. The pain consumes your thoughts and you have difficulty enjoying the simple things in life.
https://EmbracingLifeNow.as.me/DistantReikiThere is a healing technique that originated in Japan called Reiki. It has become common in many countries and is often used in hospitals as a complementary service to treatments for chronic illness like cancer and rehabilitation of the body.
Reiki is used to help patients with pain BEFORE the medication starts working. I learned this as a hospice volunteer and furthered my knowledge when I listened to several doctors and nurses from Spaulding Rehab center in Boston explain that they were all Reiki trained and used reiki before the painkillers have a chance to work.
It also is used to help lower anxiety and create a sense of calmness in patients before, during and after treatments.
The great thing is you don’t need to be hospitalized to receive Reiki it can become part of your sacred self-care routine. I share Reiki in person with clients on in Hudson, Ma as well as provide distant reiki healing over the zoom for clients who live far away.
Here are some of the ways that Reiki can help you relieve pain and restore you to feeling more blissful.
1. Stress
The more stress you are experiencing the more aware you are of pain. Stress causes our body to be on high alert with all nerves firing and creating awareness to dis-ease in our body.
The funny thing is that I have had clients who will rate they have pain, yet have no physical pain to point too, they are referring to stress and emotional pain they are experiencing.
When you unwind in a comfortable setting the worries of the day seem less intrusive and your wellness improves. A Reiki treatment room is often a place set to harmonize the mind and spirit with soft music or silence, your choice, Soft lightning and a massage table set up for your personal comfort.
I provide aromatherapy for clients who enjoy scent to help them release their stress. Reiki creates a comfortable space to unwind those knots that bind you up during the day, releasing the tension and pain so when you go home you are more likely to enjoy your family time.
A woman is sitting on a wooden bench, leg up, knee bent, and resting her elbow on her knee. Her head is resting against her hand. She is deep in thought, tired. In her other hand, she holds water.
2. Energy level
Reiki can help restore your energy when you feel drained. When the body is in pain or if you are running yourself ragged with errands it can often drain you and you become energetically depleted. High emotional states can drain your energy as well.
Reiki allows universal energy to flow gently through you, which raises your internal vibration. Often clients get off the table feeling like they’ve had a good rest, at the same time, any feeling of tension or internal unrest releases.
An added benefit is you tend to breathe more deeply during a session and by default take in more oxygen which raises the energy level of your cells giving you the physical sensation of wellness and restoring the flow of energy to the body. Although some clients have trouble settling in and require several appointments to learn how to relax and accept the energy.
3. Sleep
There is no better self-care than sleep, Insomnia is a problem for most people at some point in their life. Some even experience it on a regular basis.
Do you get at least 8 hours a night? Many women I know get overwhelmed with their to do list and end up planning tomorrow at bedtime, then have trouble falling asleep due to their busy mind .
Reiki can calm the mind and restore your bodies natural sleep rhythm. It helps to release some of the trivial thoughts and tensions that we carry. Reiki can align you with your higher mind and all those thoughts that seemed so urgent can lose some of their power.
Making it easy to release some of those persistent worries so that you sleep more peacefully.
4. Clarity
Another way that Reiki can improve your wellness is to add clarity when you are trying to make a decision or seek change. It can help you to gain insight into what you truly want and opens the path of guidance on how to get there.
You can set an intention at your beginning of your session and often the answers you seek will show themselves within a day or two, if not during the session itself.
It can also bring to light what has been become a block to your success. A memory may come up during your session or later as a dream that gives you insight into what needs attention to be able to let go, make peace with the past and allow you to move forward.
During Healing sessions, readings , and Akashic sessions with clients healing often takes place naturally through our conversation and reiki flows on its own.
5. Body Pain
Relief from body pain with reiki can be life changing . I have had hospice patients who were unable to get up, feel enough relief and energy that they were able to spend the rest of the day enjoying time with their family out of their bed or chair.
Reiki helps speed up recovery time after surgery, gives heart attack patients that receive reiki a shorter, healthier recovery and gives people who suffer everyday aches ease in their pain level and more mobility.
It is perfect to apply to new injuries as well. It can speed up recovery and diminish the amount of pain pills that you ingest if you dislike taking medication.
6. Spiritual Connection
Wellness can be improved by one’s spiritual beliefs and the feeling of connection to something greater than ourself. Reiki can fill you with a feeling of deep hope and contentment that people often find in their faith.
Reiki practitioners set sacred space for a session and are conduits for universal spiritual energy. During a session clients often feel blissful and in tune with something higher than themselves as they feel in touch with their guides, angels, and past loved ones. Many have spiritual experiences with consistent Reiki appointments.
7. Digestion
Modern day science is now pointing to our stomach as the brain of the body, Our bio-dome, which is in charge of controlling how our body breaks down the food we eat. They have found when we follow a poor diet it can cause inflammation in the body.
So those achy knees and body stiffness that so many people feel today begins in our digestion. During a session the most prominent feelings of reiki working can often be felt in the digestion. Reiki clears the energy of the chakra’s which run through the center of the body.
Traditional hands on reiki sessions start by treating the stomach area which releases energy directly through the digestion and main organs of the body.
Many clients who experience digestion problems and chronic conditions like crohn’s disease, etc. find that reiki can help move things along and give relief from internal distress or inflammation of the digestive tract.
Bliss out your Wellness with Reiki
The amount of body pain you feel is often relative to your own personal set point of wellness. If many of these set points rise with reiki you are likely to feel well. Left unbalanced with several of these points deficient, your perception of body pain will be higher.
After a reiki session you will leave feeling more settled, calm and ready to walk confidently into life.
Your wellness is within your control.
Attention to your mind, body and spiritual connection plays a role in your everyday experiences. Reiki can be an easy addition in your sacred self-care schedule and show great improvement in mobility, mental attitude and a calmer more radiant you.
3 Inner-Critic Thieves that Prey Upon Your Success in Life
Have you ever heard your inner-critic whisper these words?
“It doesn’t matter how much weight you lose, you’ll never look good.”
“You are just too old to do most things, so just give it up”
“Why didn’t you just…”
“You could have done better, in fact you should have!”
“You’ll never get that contract completed and on budget for that client’s project.”
“It’s wrong to take time for yourself, your family needs you to be available.”
“He doesn’t really love you, look at how much affection “Kat’s” husband gives her.”
“You’re not worth spending that kind of money on.”
For so many women, these are the kind of things that their inner-critics whisper – or sometimes shouts – in their ears. And believe me, I’ve been there. In time, I’ve learned how to quiet that voice and stand in my own power or at least silence the voice for a while. But here are just some of the ways that your inner critic may be sabotaging you from success as they have sabotaged myself.
• Your body image may be suffering and you constantly compare yourself to other woman.
• Your health is a deep concern, and you find excuses as to why you can’t be successful at staying healthy.
• Your self-esteem is so low that you can’t see how anyone values you as a person or that you are someone worthy of love.
It was True for Me
Until I realized that the voice in my head was being a downright bully who was stealing my chance to be happy or successful, I was left lying on the sidewalk like a victim.
Robbed of all the connection to my inner strengths, past successes and support systems that would keep me at the top of my game, I made all of my choices based on the low thoughts that ran through my mind. It brought with it bad choices in partners, low paying jobs, friends that were more of the frenemy variety, and unhealthy habits like binge drinking and eating instead of healthy living.
If you’re a sensitive soul, a sober women or recently rebuilding your life your inner-critic’s voice can damage you in many ways. It undermines your ability to feel peace within and have confidence to pursue all the goals you’ve set your heart on. It robs you of the confidence to choose the things you really want in your life and feel worthy enough to receive them.
In my deep inner work, I’ve isolated several different ways that your inner critic speaks. Here are three of the most common voices your inner critic uses to keep you safe but stuck:
The Self-Esteem Bandit
The self-esteem bandit constantly sneaks in comments about your physical appearance, berating you for your mistakes and pointing out how you do not measure up to the expectations you have set for yourself. It can rob you blind of your self-esteem.
It separates you from being aligned with your authentic self and seeing the strengths and positive aspects that you embody. At the same time, it hides who you might become in the future, because your potential-self and the one your critic envisions for you may be two very different outcomes.
This can cause you to find a lack of acceptance for the perfectly, imperfect human that you are, and when that happens, you won’t be able to fully use your strengths to create a life that’s satisfying and fulfilling.
If you have a spouse, family member or unsupportive friend mirroring the self esteem bandits comments you have double the work to get it under control. Sometimes we take part in co-dependent relationships that keep us from building our self-esteem.
The Procrastination Pick-Pocket
When the inner-critic picks apart the projects that you work on, it steals any confidence you might have in your abilities to create and actualize your ideas. This is often done so stealth-like that you hardly recognize it for the procrastination promoter that it is because it often hides under the veil of perfectionism.
The critic creates an environment that convinces you that no matter what you do, it will never be perfect. It tells you that it’ll be a failure, so why bother. You begin to put off all the steps you need to take to move forward with your goals and dreams to get those projects done.
Or sometimes, it encourages procrastination out of a fear of success. Well, how can that be? Don’t you want success, after all? Wouldn’t that just make everything wonderful?
You see, underneath a success there can be a fear of being seen or recognized. For some, that leads to the uncomfortable feeling of accepting compliments. For those of use who place high expectations on our accomplishments and expect perfection, compliments can be difficult to accept.
Once we reach such a high expectation successfully, the critic then reminds us how high the bar has been placed and we fear we can never live up to that standard, so we hide by procrastinating.
The Mindset Mugger
The mindset mugger shifts your thoughts of success by praying on your insecurities. You may feel positively about your relationship when suddenly it slips in and flips your thoughts to comparing your relationship to another couples’ relationship or comparing yourself to another person that your partner may find attractive.
Pretty soon, you find your mindset in the gutter. Your mindset only sees the deficiency in the relationship and not the pure love and attraction that brought the two of you together in the first place.
You can’t seem to pull yourself out of it and find confidence in the fact that you and your partner having a relationship worth fighting for. From this perspective, it appears that you no longer have anything in common.
It can be hard to pull yourself out of this mindset pattern on your own once it has settled in as a habit. If you are someone who has trust issues from a cheating partner this mindset can take over and allow your insecurities to rage.
You already have your best defense
There are many voices to the inner-critic and just as many disguises that it uses to undermine your happiness and success. You have the ability to recognize it before it has the opportunity to sneak in and steal your confidence, undermine your positive mindset and destroy your self-esteem. Success and Happiness are within arm’s reach when you become an expert at the inner-critic’s covert operations.
Being observant is the first step
You wouldn’t walk in a dark area in the bad part of town without being observant. Keep your senses on high alert to build some security and protection from the inner-critic. Look for the stealthy ways that it sneaks in and robs you. Watch specifically for times you are looking forward to happiness and success.
Which of these thieves most often visits your mind fortress and scales the walls looking for your fortune? Did one of the descriptions above stand out more to you than another? Stay on the lookout for it’s appearance and be armed to confront it at the door.
It took developing a vigilant eye for the inner-critic’s voice by creating an awareness for when it stepped in to steal my joy. Building upon the skill of observance allowed me to gain more confidence when I recognized that the thoughts that were going through my head prevented me from pursuing my goals and dreams.
When I developed a positive, supportive voice inside, I could see my own greatness. It took a lot of awareness-building and positive mindset work to gain back my self-esteem and find self-love for myself.
So when you hear some of those sentence at the beginning of the post come from within, perk up and take notice, you owe it to yourself to recognize how that voice is impacting your success and happiness.
If you would like to find out more about working with me to put your inner-critic on lock down and develop a positive and supportive inner voice, schedule a free 30 minute Intuitive Coaching Chat.
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