TAMING YOUR INNER CRITIC

We all have an inner voice. You know what I mean: It's that voice within us all, and boy, does it like to talk. Now, if you could take that voice and imagine it's the voice of a separate person who follows you around and talks to you all day, what would it say?

If you're like most folks, it would deliver a motley mouthful. That voice sizes up the present, anticipates the future, and examines the past. It evaluates other people and the surrounding circumstances.

But it also has a flair for zooming inward, making oneself the focus. And when it does, what approach does it take? It might be celebratory, offering a well-deserved pat on the back, or it could be soothing, encouraging, forgiving, understanding, or inspiring. But it can also be fault-finding, disapproving, and hurtful, even mercilessly so.

What can be especially tough to resist about the self-critic is that it can masquerade as reality. A self-attacking thought that really seems to be a painful reflection of the truth is far more persuasive than a thought that clearly doesn't map onto the way things are at all.

So in this book TAMING YOUR INNER CRITIC, we're going to take a look at that self-critical voice to try to shed some light on what forms it takes, what function it serves, the consequences it can have, and whether there are alternative ways to talk to ourselves.