Tag: pathological inner critic

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Feeling stuck? Get out of problem solving paralysis

If you’re working on your personal development and trying to change your life in any way, shape or form, you’ll encounter a number of challenges. And a lot of problems to solve along the way.

But while you’re trying to solve each and every problem you encounter, there is no change or development happening. Only stagnancy in what I call “problem solving paralysis.”

You’re so focused on all of your so-called problems, you don’t see the bigger picture.

Trying to fix what are typically minor individual issues without ever addressing the underlying root of the actual problem. This is more often than not, an issue of low self-esteem.

And the reason why you’re stuck solving all those problems is very much the same. If your self esteem is low, your pathological inner critic easily dominates your thoughts and encourages you to push harder, work harder and put yourself under massive pressure. And if you’re not able to rise to its expectations, it tears you down even harder. This keeps you in a state of stress, constantly trying to catch up without ever getting one step closer to where you actually want to be.

Inner mechanisms like your negativity bias, which is our natural tendency to focus on the negative and all our problems, play into this pattern as well. And as long as you are unable to recognize these parts of yourself and see them for what they really are, your self esteem will continue to suffer.

In order to overcome and start making real life changes, it requires you to identify your patterns and inner habits, and replace them with conscious, healthy habits.

This will allow you to deprogram the inner negative and rewire yourself from the inside out – with intention.

As Robert Fritz said, “you can get rid of all your problems and still not have what you want.”

The question is, how do you know you’re in “problem solving paralysis”?

Here are some questions:

  • Do you often find yourself in the “if-then” trap? Meaning, do you often tell yourself: If I only had X, then I could do Y. For example, “if I was more confident, it would be so much easier for me to find a new job.” Or, “if I get a raise next month, then I can ask her out on a date.”
  • Do you catch yourself constantly focusing on just the problems in your life?
  • Are you frequently dissatisfied with yourself? Your work? Your life?
  • Do you often beat yourself up for mistakes you’ve made?
  • Do you feel like you’re always trying to catch up?
  • Are you lacking clarity in your life? Feel like your mind and thoughts are often foggy? Easily distracted?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, you’re likely stuck in “problem solving paralysis.” This prevents you from making any headway in your life. Especially if you’re trying to elevate and evolve onto a deeper life experience. A life with purpose, fulfillment, and meaningful relationships.

You can’t evolve your life if you’re always stuck in your mind trying to solve what you perceive as problems.

It’s exhausting and will only rob you of your energy and motivation. More times than not, it breeds deep frustration to the point of giving up. What’s the point after all? You’re buried in all of these problems with no way out. Right?

No. Giving up is not an option.

The key to escaping this problem solving paralysis is to resolve the issues at their root. This means going inward to your core and building healthy self esteem.

This is your foundation and the root of clearing out a lot of the inner fog that perceives situations as “problems.” Once grounded in a solid, healthy self esteem, these issues tend to become much more in your grasp and controllable. No longer seen as problems, but life circumstances that you can progress through as needed. No stress, no panic. Just parts of life that you can control.

Trying to achieve this on your own can take years, if not decades.

But with the proper guidance of someone who could show you exactly where to “dig” and what to do, you can start seeing improvements in a matter of weeks and/or months.

This is what we do at Feel Different.

We offer you a comprehensive and effective system to build healthy self esteem. We’ve tried and tested every single method we teach, with thousands of successful participants who have transformed their lives in ways unimaginable prior to our programs.

Start making a difference today. Escape your problem solving paralysis and explore our program “Self Esteem for the Rest of Us” today.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Your inner critic is your greatest ally

When trying to change anything in your life, there is one common obstacle that never ceases to confront you.

Whether you are trying to find a better job, overcome issues with the opposite sex, remove drama and stress from your relationships, or become more self confident.

One part of yourself will undoubtedly fight you each step of the way: Your pathological inner critic.

Your inner critic is a built-in mechanism that we all have. No one is exempt.

If you want to know more about how to identify and devalue your PIC, visit our article “Exposing your pathological inner critic.”

For the purpose of this article, all you need to know is that your pathological inner critic is 100% conditioned and trained. It is part of your psyche and learned its behavior from forbidding gestures of your parents, teachers, peers, and others throughout your life. It feeds on your deepest fears and darkest memories and replays them in your mind whenever you seemingly need them the least.

Its original purpose is to motivate you and to help you avoid pain. But its methods are questionable at best and at worst, purely destructive.

As long as you continue to heed this inner voice, you’ll be stuck exactly where you are now and growing worse each day.

But there is hope. Since your pathological inner critic is conditioned, you can learn to reprogram it. With the proper tools and guidance, you can transform your pathological inner critic. First, into a more neutral critic, and over time, into a trusted guide and advisor. Back to its original purpose.

This process is not optional if you seek real change in your life. Your inner critic will always attempt to sabotage your plans unless you make intentional actionable changes.

But how can you transform your inner critic?

There is no quick fix as it isn’t something that can be accomplished overnight.
It can take some people years to cultivate a healthy relationship with their inner critic and reverse it into becoming a companion rather than a burden.

Your inner critic can be seen as the director of your inner dialogue. This is what controls your everyday thoughts, habitual patterns and behaviors. Most importantly, it’s directly connected to your self esteem.

What we need to do is untangle all of the unhealthy connections, get to the root of the issue(s) and resolve from where it originated. Removing your internal chaos and emotional blockages is crucial to moving forward and making real life changes.

Typical self-help tactics won’t help you achieve this. The common off the rack affirmations, forced positive thinking, motivational quotes and psychotherapy are surface solutions at best.

The pathological inner critic lives deep within and requires an equal level of depth when working to transform your inner self.

What works best to help you reach this deep emotional layer of yourself is a unique combination of methods used in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), deep weaving trance, as well as specifically targeted emotional release exercises. As complex as this may sound, it is actually very simple once you have been guided through it. It is made to be simple enough that anyone can do it without requiring an excessive amount of time or commitment.

This is what we teach at Feel Different. In each of our programs, we implement this customized method which has been proven effective by thousands of people around the world for over 15 years.

The connectivity between your inner critic/inner dialogue and your self esteem and confidence is evident once you do the work. And the deeper you go into the work, the closer you move toward your true, authentic self.

The more grounded in your true self you become, the more your inner critic becomes your ally. Your friend and companion. Helping you rather than hurting you.

As noted above, it isn’t optional when you are seeking to make real life changes. Self transformation requires transforming your daily actions, thoughts, and behaviors. It all starts with your inner self.

To start changing your life for the better and overcoming your fears, “Your Fate is Not Sealed” is an ideal program to help you begin your journey forward.

Feel free to explore the other articles in our blog and listen to our podcasts. This is all free content to begin your journey to your greatest self. However, our programs are where the actionable work begins. Each of the tools and practices mentioned above are included.

Real life change requires deep work. Are you ready to make a change?

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Exposing Your Pathological Inner Critic

As you navigate through life, there is a common obstacle we all share. It’s an antagonistic part of ourselves which can easily be mistaken as an inner guide and protector from harm. An inside assistant to help us avoid pain, prevent humiliation and to help motivate us.

But its methods and intentions are quite the opposite. This inside voice is actually a hindrance and only serves to limit our life experiences through fear and disempowerment.

Psychology calls this part of yourself your pathological inner critic.

As long as you don’t know how to deal with its destructive nature and how to turn it from your worst enemy into a level-headed friend and advisor, you’ll never find true fulfillment.

WHAT DOES YOUR PATHOLOGICAL INNER CRITIC DO?

It commonly blames you for everything and anything that goes wrong in your life. It compares you to others, their achievements and abilities and will always leave you wanting and yearning for what you don’t have. It sets unrealistic standards and baseless perfectionism, and will continually encourage you to beat yourself up for even the smallest mistakes.

Your pathological inner critic keeps track of all your failures and reminds you of them at any chance it gets. This happens most often when you’re thinking of taking on something new, for example, an opportunity to try and improve yourself. Your pathological inner critic will take this moment to discourage you by keeping you insecure and low. It’ll work its way into triggering you with dark thoughts and feelings of you being inadequate, unfit, incompetent, incapable, ugly, selfish, dumb, weak, etc. And the list goes on.

In addition, your pathological inner critic is an accomplished mind reader and know-it-all. It’ll have you convinced that it knows what your friends, family, lover, colleagues, and even strangers think about you. Once again making you feel inferior, unworthy, unwanted and unloved.

YOUR PATHOLOGICAL INNER CRITIC IS ALWAYS UNDERMINING YOUR SELF WORTH.

For something this commonly domineering and destructive, you’d think it’d be a known crisis among the majority of us.

But the fact is, many people are completely unaware of their pathological inner critic. It is so insidious and woven into the fabric of our thoughts and inner being, many of us are oblivious to it and live in our suffering as if it’s all just a part of life. To a degree, it’s true, it is part of life and is a part of all of us. It’s a part of our subconscious that lives in our weaknesses, in our darker energies, in our lower, subpar selves. It is all still part of us, but our will to accept it and settle for continual suffering is a choice.

And where we have a choice is how we choose to manage it. This is a lot easier said than done.

The self-attacks typically have some underlying truth and justifiable reasoning to them. Just like certain fears we learn come from an underlying wisdom. We learn at a young age not to jump in fire so as to not get burned, for instance.

But your pathological inner critic is persuasive and persistent. It will make you believe that it’s there to protect you. To keep you safe from harm, from getting hurt, or from making a fool of yourself. In truth, and in the long run, adhering to your inner critic will only turn you into the very things you fear. Fear will become you and your basis for life. This is extremely dangerous and limiting to living a quality life experience.

If you want to start living on your own terms, you need to start working toward dismantling the amount of control you allow your inner critic to reign over your mind and spirit. The first and most important step in exposing your inner critic is to become aware of it.

CATCH YOUR INNER CRITIC IN ACTION.

It is most active when you’re facing challenges. When you make a mistake, when you’re being criticized, when dealing with people who are disapproving, when you’re feeling depressed or when you are just simply out of balance with yourself.

Become aware how you feel in these situations. Especially how you feel about yourself. Then carefully listen to how you’re talking to yourself in these situations, or immediately after.

What are you saying to yourself? Most likely it is your pathological inner critic talking.

Remember, its goals are to fulfill basic, primal needs of yours. Either to avoid pain or to motivate you.

But its methods are counterproductive and are far from supportive.

Stop the downward spiral.
Stop your thoughts from spiraling further down by controlling your inner dialog.

To unmask your inner critic, you need to drain it of its purpose and learn to fulfill your own needs in a conscious and intentional way. This requires building healthy self-esteem, as this is your foundation.

And this will allow you to develop a principle vision for your life to function as your motivation, and to drive you through purpose rather than through fear and doubt. This is all fundamental to self-empowerment and to living a life of fulfillment and true potential.

How long can you keep listening to this inside voice as if it’s your truth?

All the while, it continues to rob you of any happiness and peace of mind you can only hope to attain.

How much of your life have you lost to your inner critic so far?
How much more can you withstand?

To learn more about how to start overcoming your pathological inner critic, take a look at our program “Your Fate is NOT sealed”.

Warmly,
Orlando Owen