I introduced you to Margaret, my inner critic, in the last blog post.
Most likely, you have a Margaret, too.
Let’s get to know her a little, shall we?
Margaret has been with me a long time, probably since my brain could think negative thoughts about myself.
It may have started sometime in elementary school when certain neurons connected enough for me to create conclusions about myself out of situations like…
Situation: a teacher complimented a classmate’s handwriting and not mine.
Margaret: my handwriting is not as good = I am not as good of a student.
Situation: my friends could do cartwheels easily in a gym class. I could not.
Margaret: I can’t do cartwheels = I am terrible with moving my body. There will be NO gymnastics in my life.
Situation: my dad spent extra time teaching my brother English, not me.
Margaret: My dad wants my brother to know English better than me = I am not as talented as my brother.
As you can see, my inner critic readily showed up in situations to make me feel less than, not good enough, unworthy with completely made up assumptions about myself from any situation.
Some of these were repeatedly processed enough that they became truthful in my mind as my identity. Nobody told me that Margaret was just doing what most human brains do = look for problems.
It is well known and well studied that the human brain tends toward negativity bias.
This is part of evolutionary development – and supposedly a good thing for our species to keep surviving generation after generation.
So I can’t blame Margaret when she recently offered all the negative thoughts surrounding my tight shorts and how I was the one to blame.
She was just doing her job.
But now I know enough to not believe her as I used to in the past.
Come back to read more about how I work with Margaret now. And what I think about those tight shorts!
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Curious about how I help my clients unravel their inner critic, get unstuck from negative thinking, and move forward with their life?
Email me at kit@kityoon.com and we can connect. I’d love to help you!
