The video above shows my co-founder Liya describing a session in which one of her clients resolved a recurring internal challenge related to public speaking. It inspired me to write about inner critics and share a useful resource.
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There were two expressions I heard early and often growing up in East Texas. The first was, “There’s no cavalry coming.” The second, “You’re on your own, kid.”
These expressions were repeated by male authorities in my life—my paternal grandfather, my stepfather, my uncle, and the occasional hombre at cowboy church. They were harsh lessons, no doubt, but the adults (mostly) weren’t trying to scare us. They were trying to prepare us for what they believed to be a pitiless world. They wanted children to be sufficiently spooked and stubbornly independent, so we could figure out how to do things on our own. The view these men pedaled—one of scarcity and extreme aloneness—installed itself deeply into my being and over the next 30 years, dutifully freaked, I figured out how to do quite a bit. In some ways, their teaching was fruitful. The problem was that I had unconsciously absorbed a partial perspective as if it were an immutable truth, and that perspective hardened into a belief. In my mind, it would always be rough “out there.” Resources would be scant, people unreliable. Life would have no mercy. So, how does one make it in a Mad-Max world?
The obvious solution: Kick your own ass.
You know what I mean. Harpoon yourself. Lambast yourself. Thrash yourself into performance. By the time I was 20, I had an entourage of inner critics: a hyperactive Perfectionist, a scathing Judge, an ever-present Doomsayer, a ruthless Taskmaster. This isn’t a vulnerable confession. Liya and I take people into their Inner Worlds as part of our work, so I know I’m not alone. Even people who grew up in what looks like Shangri-La resort to personal ass-kicking for achievement. (Although I hypothesize that W.E.I.R.D. cultures1 are particularly fond of it.)
Do any of these characters feel familiar? You’re likely to have at least one in your inner landscape.
What’s interesting about our inner fault-finders is that we predictably dread their voiceovers, visions, and felt sensations and, at the same time, we depend on them. We believe we need them to belong, to excel, to be seen, to be loved. As my life unfolded, I learned those hombres weren’t entirely wrong—it often was rough out there—but because I was fueled by inner critics, that harshness was amplified in the landscape of my mind.
Hard things actually become harder when we carry charged emotions and burdensome ideas about ourselves and the world.
There is a better way. It involves an inner guiding intelligence Liya and I call ‘Deep Self.’ You may know it by another name.
Deep Self came to this world with you and cannot be taken from you. It’s an innate capacity untouched and untouchable by trauma. Deep Self is spacious and boundless. It is compassionate, centered, and wise.
An ongoing relationship with this “hidden lamp” fuels possibility, creativity, and achievement more than any inner critic could ever hope to.
At first, it can be challenging to accept the notion that you already have a personal resource of this nature. It can feel alien and impossible to summon that resource on our own. Liya and I both worked diligently to soften the views of our inner critics—many of whom carried legacy burdens from culture and family—and unlock their surprising gifts. We were fortunate to find trustworthy teachers who taught us to warm our innermost house and lean into life very differently from the universal default. As it turns out, we can all make moves, take risks, let loose our derring-do, and experience joy, confidence, and ease at the same time.
I can look you in the eyes and promise: It doesn’t have to be so hard.
Sun and Liya
Coaching Spots Opening Up
If you are working with persistent internal patterns, and the fog and friction of your inner landscape makes it tough to resource yourself, Liya provides targeted experiential mentoring and coaching. Click the button below to explore how this offering works.
Also! Workshops and Trainings
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Westernized, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic
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