E24: Your Inner Critic

Listen to the episode here: E24: Your Inner Critic - https://apple.co/3CIiMrG

 Hello, it's Dr. Tiffany. I wanna welcome you to episode 24 of Integrative Mental Health Therapy with Dr. Tiffany. I'm doing a series of mini podcasts here that I'm releasing over this week. It is the holiday week for Thanksgiving and it's been a while since my last podcast. This podcast episode is on the inner critic.

And I've just been in this phase of we had, you know, a lot going on recently. There was a, um, the hurricane, Helene, that really impacted my area, um, North Carolina, and then we had the election and it's just been a very intense, um, kind of, um, emotionally tumultuous time and a lot of ways as, um, as a therapist, you have a practice that serves all different opinions and perspectives, and there's a lot of intense emotions. And I really did just kind of hunker down and navigate just kind of what was in front of me. And as the holiday season is upon us, and as I said, these episodes will be released during the holiday season.

Thanksgiving week, I just wanted to offer a little bit. I recently had an appointment with someone as we were working with their inner critic. And we talked about, you know, the different critics, you know, there's the guilt beater, and then the molder, and the perfectionist, and the task master, and the destroyer. And we were able to really work with this person's, boy, the perfectionist and the task master. And so if this is you, because I've been talking a lot about my intensives and how I spend kind of an intense amount of time working through different parts and sessions, or will do working on your future self or will do some work around, you know, if you have parts that are super activated around your parents.

If this is you where you're like, I have some parts that are activated, this is the week of episodes for you. And if you have a pretty intense inner critic, I want to offer you what I offer to this particular client that really shifted them. I want you to drop into after this is for the inner critic. Now, I want you to drop into gratitude. Gratitude is going to be how you activate your inner champion. Being grateful for the smallest and the most significant things. It can be that you woke up that day. It can be that you had an amazing bath or shower or cup of matcha or coffee. It can be that you saw the sunrise or your dog was adorable or that shower or bath was amazing. It can be that your spouse had that happy look on their face or that goofy look on their face. Your child was grateful and hugged you for something. It can be that your legs to do what you needed them to do, your digestion worked, your hair was accommodating, your arms were powerful. It can be that your car was full of gas and got you where you needed it to get to, or your job was ever faithful.

Whatever it is that you need to say thank you for, be grateful for, I want you to close your eyes and I want you to meditate on five to ten, because three ain't enough, five to ten things that are going really, really right in your world that you can be grateful for. And when you expand and you create that expansion in your system, the critic takes up less space.

And then you operate from that expanded, grateful, grace-filled place with your critic and explain to the critic that you are able to accomplish what it wants you to from a place of grace and expansion, and that you don't have to be so contracted and small and dark in the way that it thinks you need to be. Try that out.

I'll be back, I'll hop back on, you'll have another episode soon. We'll be talking a little bit more about the people pleaser part, but try this out to navigate your inner critic. And until then, be well.