How to Embrace The Inner Voice That Limits You - Week #33 of The Awakening Journey
Most people want to get rid of their inner critic. They try to shut down voices of fear, criticism, and judgment and that’s completely normal. If we don’t like something or feel it doesn’t serve us, we try to push it away. BUT the inner critic will always be there, lurking in the shadows and growing stronger the more we try to suppress it. That’s why in our search for wholeness, it’s important to learn to incorporate and understand all the parts of ourselves. Even the parts we do not like or are ashamed of.
Where does our inner voice come from?
Here’s the thing my friend. As a child, you had a source fracture from an event that your younger self could not process.
As a result, a separate “self” was created, if you will. We call this an ego, sometimes discussed as a saboteur. The saboteur's voice comes out in 3 forms: The Voice of Fear, The Voice of Judgment and the Voice of Criticism.
What is the purpose of the ego and its voices?
It is trying to keep us from scary things in life. It is doing its best to protect us in the way that it knows how.
This might come out as a relentless and consistent litany of judgments, criticisms, and fears often nowhere near the truth.
You might perceive this as a judgment of yourself that you internalize onto yourself. Or, a judgment that you project onto another outside of yourself. For example, you might have worked really hard on that project but instead of acknowledging yourself, your VoJ says, “if you had worked that extra hour, it would have been better.”
The criticisms are next, saying things like “we need to push harder, do more, criticize more because that is what motivates us”.
And underpinning all of this is the Voice of Fear. We fear everything. We even fear fear itself.
What is the problem?
You can see why most people of us are trying to annex our ego, get rid of it, or at least make it bad and wrong.
And it’s hard not to do that when these voices keep us from operating with an open head, open heart and open mind. And these three are essential ingredients to being present, presencing and bringing our limitlessness into our now.
What we should do instead
What we are trying to do here is to learn to incorporate all the parts of the self to be whole. Be present. Be fulfilled and operate as an awakened leader.
To operate as an awakened leader, we must embrace the parts of ourselves, even the parts we do not like, are ashamed of, or are just not proud of.
My story
My [saboteur] voice of judgment is sneaky & often will go underground or morph. One of their favorite things to do is to use my agreements against me and hold me emotionally hostage. I’ve done quite a bit of work on this to simply bring awareness to and notice - and embrace this part of myself.
So now, when I hear the Voice of Judgement, Criticism or Fear, I ask questions like “what are you really afraid of here?” And I listen.
I then express gratitude to my ego/saboteur for that point of view and ask the opposite question of my ego: if the worst-case scenario is x, then what is the best-case scenario here?
Okay, that best-case scenario is what I’m committed to creating! I again, ask the ego-self, what are the steps needed, and what is a baby step that my ego saboteur will accept. One tiny baby step that is a little bit of a stretch.
This way, I am listening and hearing.
I am reframing & giving my saboteur a job.
It’s just like with a young child or a baby, you redirect and give choices. It’s not a choice to not eat vegetables. The choice is either broccoli or carrots.
The saboteur is a little like a child.
I focus on that. And gradually, ever so slowly, the tiny steps become big steps and align to my bigger arc.
Sounds easy right, but really….How?
Instead of pushing away the ego, try embracing it.
Give time & space to your ego/saboteur, to your inner voices.
Journal with them, talk to a coach or a friend about what your voices say.
Then from a place deep within you, that inherent whole place, assure your ego that you have this, you are taking care of this. How do you know this? Because that’s what you’ve done your entire life up until now.
For the sake of what?
When you operate from wholeness, your choices, decisions, and impact are pure and aligned with the natural order of the universe.
Your challenge for this week
Observe your ego and its voices
Create a journal just for these inner voices
Spend 5 minutes every morning “listening” to them by journaling
Observe what happens after you listen - do you feel clearer, calmer, or are the voices louder or softer?
Next, we will talk about Animals, in the meanwhile remember the present moment is where your best life happens.
With love, presence and gratitude,
Darla