Beyond the Inner Critic: Choosing a New Reality

“To think new thoughts, you have to break the bones in your head.” ~Jean-Paul Sartre

Respectfully, Mr. Sartre, I disagree. This is that story, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

Today Was a Bad Day

Oh no, not again!

The walls were closing in on me, and I could see their faces all flustered and red.

Why are they yelling at me? I mean, are they yelling at me?

I could feel the tension in the room; I just couldn’t hear anything. Well, actually, yeah, I could.

I could hear her.

I could hear Annabelle.

I knew it was my turn to say something. But what if my voice shook? What if they laughed at me? What if I opened my mouth but the words wouldn’t come?

Seriously?! You’re quoting Eminem now? What the hell… What’s wrong with you? Say something, anything, goddamn it!

Meet Annabelle, the charming voice of my inner critic. Unlike my parents, she is always… well, there. Unwelcome, but there.

I could tell it was happening all over again. And I just froze.

Why can’t you get anything right? You’re such a mistake. No wonder you don’t have any real friends!

At this point, my thoughts were beyond saving. Annabelle was leading them. And between us? This twenty-something-year-old just wanted a break!

You better believe that on the ride home, Annabelle kept drilling my mind over and over, like a relentless woodpecker.

Congratulations! You are now the laughing stock of your cute little debate club. Lol, don’t even bother showing up next time!

I hurried to my room and slammed the door shut. Maybe that would drown Annabelle out.

“Okay, okay, start saying your affirmations quick! Maybe that’ll do the trick,” I said to myself, anxiously pacing back and forth around my desk.

I am confident. I am strong. My life has meaning…

But nothing worked. No amount of positive thinking did anything for me. So, I did what anyone in my shoes would do. I gave in to Annabelle and wallowed!

It’s funny how I can almost see her smug face smiling down on me. Good on her. She got what she wanted—a broken plaything.

Self-pity, check.

Self-hate, double-check.

A crushed spirit with no will to carry on? Checks through the roof.

I had hit rock bottom again. And my once-vibrant eyes turned cold, staring into the void.

Before I tell you how I moved past this, let me tell you what really went down with me.

I Was Visited by a Familiar Friend

… dear ol’ anxiety!

I like to think of anxiety as this beast with two heads.

One head always wants to manage other people’s perceptions of us. It craves their thumbs up or nods of approval because it cannot survive without them.

The other is always in a place of no trust—no trust in ourselves, others, or the process of life. It believes that nothing has ever worked out for us or ever will.

Maybe that’s what Annabelle was doing to me that day—jumping to the worst-case scenarios, dramatizing the whole thing in my head.

That’s anxiety for ya.

My Door Went Knocking a Second Time

Of course, it’s not a party without depression.

Depression is like that uninvited guest with a gloom and doom sign stamped on its forehead.

When I trapped myself in my room for hours after coming home from the club, I felt horrible.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel for me. This was it. I couldn’t see the point in anything anymore, and I was convinced that the world would be better off without me.

That’s what depression does.

Actually, Louise Hay got it right when she defined depression as “anger you feel you do not have the right to have.”

It is anger stuffed down in the body somewhere—suppressed anger that seeks an outlet for release.

That’s why, in the middle of my meltdown, saying affirmations didn’t work for me. It was too soon for that.

I guess the best way I can describe my two companions to you is this: If depression were a person, it would be someone who waves the white flag—someone who feels defeated and all given up. Anxiety, on the other hand, would be someone who tightly holds on to the flag and refuses to let go.

Now, if you saw glimpses of yourself in my experience, please know these feelings are very real in the body. Chemically speaking, the body would be in a state of imbalance, running on low levels of the happy hormones like serotonin and dopamine and high levels of the stress chemicals.

These conditions will give anyone the impression that they won’t survive this storm. But that cannot be any further from the truth.

So, how did I make it to greener pastures?

#1: I gave myself permission to feel anger.

Why am I angry?

When was the last time I felt robbed of a right? The right to feel, the right to mess up, the right to express, the right to make mistakes?

Is it possible that I am angry with myself for feeling angry because I learned growing up that it was wrong to feel that way?

Thinking about these things was enough to get me to scream. It was like every part of my soul begged to reconnect with my throat chakra and get my voice back, or at least some of it.

Within the first minute or so, I felt my lungs give in. Who knew that screaming into a pillow could be this exhausting?

But I needed to scream. It felt good. Really, really good.

#2: I accepted my emotions.

There was no fuel left in me to go against the grain anymore. I couldn’t keep denying what I was feeling. I had to name it to tame it.

So I looked in the mirror and unburdened: I feel anxious. And I feel depressed. Okay? There.

But that’s not all I did.

I reminded myself that depression and anxiety are my body’s way of letting me know that there is a dis-ease within me.

Dis-ease means a lack of ease or an absence of harmony. It’s how the body signals to a person that they are far from optimal health. Great!

With that in mind, I accepted these feelings and thanked my body for communicating them to me.

Even though our feelings are always valid, our assessment of the situation—the thoughts behind those feelings—may not be.

This led me to my third strategy.

#3: I observed my thoughts.

Like I said before, this wasn’t my first rodeo.

Thanks to my journal, I went over The List—my list of unshakeable truths I had outlined in times of emergency. And this was definitely an emergency.

That’s when I stumbled upon a quote from Eckhart Tolle:

“Observe your thoughts, don’t believe them.”

Eureka!

It’s very likely that when someone feels depressed or anxious, they will be bombarded with a sea of negative thoughts that ring true for them. Garbage thoughts, really.

But should they believe their every thought?

This is also at the heart of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work. He advocates that not every thought we think is necessarily true.

“Most thoughts,” he says, “are just old circuits in your brain that have become hardwired by your repetitive volition.”

And so, I didn’t fight Annabelle. I didn’t try to reason with the negative thoughts she was feeding my brain.

I didn’t even justify them or resist them.

Like passing clouds, I observed them without judgment. And when I felt ready, I saw them fade into the background.

It’s common knowledge that when we’re calm and relaxed, we make room for magic and healing. It is the quickest and easiest way to build better habits and restructure our minds.

#4: I chose better thoughts.

Thoughts are the mental movies we play in our minds. And the mental movie I was running up there was less than ideal.

Did Annabelle’s useless chatter help me or hurt me? Did her thoughts empower me or keep me small? Did they breathe life into me or slowly lay me on my deathbed?

If I really wanted to change this circumstance, I had to change the thought patterns that made me perceive it in the first place.

Instead of saying affirmations that were lifeless to me, I chose phrases that felt good to say aloud—phrases I had little to no resistance to.

These are some of my favorites!

These affirmations remind me that I am always whole, loved, and supported, even in a moment where I might feel embarrassed or inferior.

This was my rule of thumb: If a thought doesn’t empower you or fill you with love, question it.

#5: I made a promise to myself to stay consistent with my new story.

Consistency is the name of the game.

Once I decided on my new thoughts, I wanted to repeat them daily.

I didn’t force myself to immediately accept these new thoughts. I knew Annabelle would fight me on them tooth and nail.

So the effort was gradual and accumulative. Easy does it!

As always, a relaxed body and a calm mind are much more susceptible to change than a stressful body and mind.

I promised myself that whenever depression or anxiety crept in, and boy, how they did, especially in the beginning, I would feel them without entertaining the thoughts associated with them.

Those were the moments when I’d tell myself: I am capable of change. I can learn new ways of thinking. I am teachable. 

Bit by bit, through consistent repetition, the old, tired thoughts got replaced with new, vibrant ones.

Final Thoughts

Notice how I didn’t say “my” anxiety or “my” depression? How I said, “I felt anxious or depressed,” and not “I am anxious or depressed?”

That’s because you and I are NOT the depression or the anxiety. We are the beings experiencing these conditions.

So no, Mr. Sartre. You don’t have to break the bones in your head to think new thoughts.

You just have to move forward with loving awareness. And the rest will fall into place.

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