What if some of the things I most criticize about myself are actually my greatest strengths? Maybe I need to re-evaluate my perspective more than I need to change.
Continue readingRe-considering my self-criticism
criticism
The encroaching darkness
The broken places in our lives often come creeping in more like the darkness that encroaches on the light this time of year than like a sudden hammer blow, but that doesn’t change the way we experience that brokenness or how we heal.
Continue readingThat voice in your head
When I am around people who see good things in me and encourage me with kindness that I am more likely to do the kinds of things that I want to do and to be the kind of person that I want to be than when I am being criticized. That observation is radically changing how I talk to myself.
Continue readingThe observer as gold in ego’s broken shell
The brokenness that shattered my life also shattered the shell of ego enough to help me get in touch with my inner observed, that curious but detached part of myself that runs deeper and truer than my ego ever will.
Continue readingYeah, maybe so: My Aikido practice of the mind
Aikido, a Japanese martial art, is the best image I can imagine for what I have learned to do with my inner critic. I step forward and engage it, but I use the motion of its attack to redirect it instead of engaging it head on.
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