Within each of us is a critic that seems to confront us at different levels of our growth. For some of us, this critic is very active and sometimes even attacking—evaluating our every move, telling us when we are successful, “good,” acceptable, and when we are not.
If you are constantly asking yourself: “Do I have what it takes? Does so-and-so really care about me? Am I attractive?,” and so on, then the underlying belief that appears to drive the questions is the idea that you lack something important or don’t have what it takes. The unconscious reality is a lack of contact with your soul’s true nature. This lack of contact expresses itself as a lack of self-esteem.
The bodily experience in these cases is often one of emptiness. Instead of listening to the critic or trying to deny the critic voice, a way to stop the self-attacks may be to allow yourself at first to feel the emptiness—to feel your sadness and emptiness fully—and then to choose to move beyond it. Remember, “the only way out is through.”
It is important to understand that the inner critic has a profound distrust of your ability to handle this very moment. It compares you to the past and measures you against the future. In order to move beyond this judge, it is essential to trust that you have complete power over this very moment and how you live it. Repeat to yourself in your moments of challenge, “Up until now…” knowing that at this very moment, your entire life can change, that now you can choose to.
Our inner judge often asks us to rely on past beliefs in order to exist. Its ongoing saga is that nothing good will happen in the current moment, and it tries to maintain a fixed sense of who we are. Once you recognize that you are giving this judge your power, you can also choose not to give it. Instead of letting the judge deny your soul its potential, you can disengage from it. You can recognize the critic’s voice as one of sabotage and choose not to finance the negative relationship with the critic any longer. And, of course, you can remind yourself of one thing: You are worthy.