Search Results for: critical%20inner%20voice

The Unselfish Gift of Going on a Retreat

…support of a group, the experience will help you practice challenging your critical inner voices. When you identify this inner critic and make a conscious effort to separate from it, you can actually get closer to your partner, be a better parent to your kids, and achieve more success at work. Once distanced from this self-critical point of view, you are reduced to who you really are, and inevitably you will feel more fulfilled and confident. Get…

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How to be Happy in Hard Times

…a new perspective on life. 1. Be aware of your “critical inner voice” Your critical inner voice is made up of a series of self-attacking thoughts that mentally kick you when your down. These thoughts represent an attitude you’ve internalized that acts as an internal enemy, keeping you from going after goals or feeling confident in your decisions. When something goes wrong in life, it’s easy for your inner voice to take advantage of this misfortune…

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One Surprising Reason We Sabotage Love

…understanding how your past influences your present, for example, how your critical inner voice is controlling your behavior. Just recognizing where her self-critical thoughts originated allowed the woman to take a step back and gain insight into her anxieties and actions. She then made a conscious effort to stop acting jealous. Instead of sitting at home when her boyfriend was on a business trip or out with friends, she would distract herself, fo…

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Combating Destructive Thought Processes

…t W. Firestone sets forth his theory of the “critical inner voice,” a self-critical point of view that people have internalized based on hurtful life experiences. During a person’s most vulnerable state of childhood, the pressures of society and destructive interactions within the family can lead them to develop defenses, self-protective thought processes and behaviors that prevent them from achieving the fullest life possible. The goal of Combati…

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How Having Breast Cancer Taught Me to Live

…d by their reactions. On some level, I was expecting them to have the same critical feelings toward me that I was having toward myself. But instead of being repulsed and pulling away or recoiling from me, they were caring and compassionate, loving. They encouraged me to talk about what I was going through. I talked about everything: my critical thoughts about myself, my fears of surgery and radiation, and even of death. I had cried when I was alon…

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What To Do When a Loved One is Depressed

…be taking the advice of this internal enemy. They can learn more about the critical inner voice and how to combat it here. Participate in activities that help them feel better There are many active steps people can take to fight their depression. However, the lethargy that accompanies their down state may leave them dragging their feet, even when it comes to activities they once enjoyed. Their critical inner voice will actually encourage them to s…

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Three Ways We Make Communication Impossible

…eel critical toward our partner for their weakness in submitting to us and critical of ourselves for acting out in a manipulative manner. Parental or childish styles of communicating It’s important to watch out for ways that you might be communicating from a childish or parental stance. Whether or not we like it, we developed our communication skills in the families we grew up in. Even though we try to relate differently, it is easy to fall into o…

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Depression and Anxiety in Student Populations: Interview with Dr. Daniel Zamir

…ten their predictions actually come true to undermine, you know, this self-critical– or the negative thoughts that come up for people, and then having them really engage with the things that they retreat from. Again, so if it’s in social anxiety, it’s about having people try different things out socially and doing it, like I said, in a systematic way where it starts out with something that feels manageable and then it moves into kind of more and m…

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The Inner Voice in Self-Destructive Behavior and Suicide

…, hurtful or outright rejecting is too threatening. They internalize these critical, punitive attitudes at times that are particularly stressful or abusive, often when their parents are at their worst. In extreme situations of trauma or abuse, parental aggression and death wishes are incorporated into the self and take the form of a vicious internal dialogue or voice, which later, in adolecence or adulthood, results in a suicidal process. The Voic…

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loneliness during pandemic

Coping With Loneliness During a Pandemic

…because the less time we spend with others, the more time we spend with a critical inner voice inside our own heads. This “voice” always has the tendency to get louder when we’re alone. Because loneliness generally has a lot to do with how we think about our circumstances and not just the circumstances themselves, we can ease a lot of our suffering by doing the work of dealing with this inner critic. And what better moment to start this work than…

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