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Come on. There we are. Hello. Welcome. Y'all. I am Briar. Harvey.
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This is the Neurodiversity Media Network. Today, we are here with Michelle Pollock for the Voices of Neurodiversity. And this is a show where we take deep dives into one topic for one time. Today, we are talking about your inner critic. And I'm really excited about this conversation because so much of inner critic work for neurodivergent folks is a lifetime's work. It is endless. It will never stop. We will always be doing this work. We will always be having a conversation with this part of ourselves. Later this year, I have a whole series coming with Christiana Herbert around IFS, which helps you have really good conversations with your inner critic and all of your parts, but today, we're focusing on the critic. So, Michelle, welcome. Thanks. I'm so glad you're here today.
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Tell us about yourself. So I am a personal and professional coach for highly ambitious women. I work with them to really own their special sauce and own what they truly want, which is can often be a really hard thing for women to do to go, this is what I desire, this is what I want in the world. And then to really have the impacts they want, so that they can live and lead the way they wanna be in the world. And so much of that is about listening to that, hearing that voice and being able to separate from it so that you are allowed to continue to become for your entire life. Right? Because we're always growing and changing and shifting and discovering and so much of what keeps us kind of in a tight square of what we were as opposed to who we wanna be is that critical voice. So how did you come to this work? So I had a real okay. Hold on. I have a question. Is it okay if I swear? Yes. You are in my spaces. It is absolutely fine to swear. I I have a trucker mouth. Sorry. I had a I have a royal bitch. As an inner critic. Oh, brutal. She is judgey, judgey, judgey, and it ran my life for years and years and years. And so, I guess, I I was I worked in entertainment for many, many years first as a performer, and then when I decided I didn't wanna be a performer anymore, I went the other side of things, and I worked for some big Broadway producers.
0:03:16
And then I went out to Los Angeles, and I worked for the studios. And I was doing these things that, like, were the things I said I always wanted to do, and I was so unfulfilled. Like, I couldn't I just had this feeling eating inside of me that this there was something more. Like, this could not be all there was to life. Right? But I was constantly plagued by comparison, like everyone around me, I was just looking at what everyone else was doing and they were amazing and they had it all together and why couldn't I be like that? And this is especially true. I have to give you credit in film and theater because everyone is doing so much better than we are at the work that we are doing. It's so true, but the other thing prior was like, I was never one of those people who I was only a theater kid like all my people were in theater. So I had my people in theater that were always doing better than me, but then I also had my friends that were like, wires and, you know, entrepreneurs and on Wolf Street. And that was a new unit. And then once I got LA pretty much everybody there was in entertainment because everybody in LA is in entertainment.
0:04:35
But -- Yeah. -- I just kept, like, looking at everybody going, what do they have that I don't have? And why can't I feel satisfied or feel a sense of fulfillment in my life. And I finally, like, got to the point where it just felt shitty to feel that way. And the truth is, I actually went to therapy first to do some work around disordered eating. And that was where I was in a obsessive compulsive overeater, which I didn't know that that's what I was until I went to therapy, but this woman, this therapist who is incredible, taught me about basically changing my neural pathways. She helped me to change my neural pathways around food. And I truly changed the entire way I thought around food and I went, holy shit. My brain is malleable. I can change the way I think. And that started me down a path of x exploration of what do I not know that I don't know? You know, I just started, like, I I loved seeing what was available to me when I opened myself up around my world of food and stopped making it the center of my world. It was like, mind blowing.
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And so I I just started doing more and more work. I did a bunch of workshops and things started changing. My relationship started changing. My relationship with my self changed first. My communication with other people started changing. It was just like, oh, like a whole new world. This is how life could be.
0:06:14
And as I was doing this, I was still working in entertainment, and I started kind of sharing the things that I was discovering with other people and, a, I discovered, oh, I'm not alone. All these other people that I thought, like, they're so perfect and I'll have their ship together. And why can't I be more like them? They feel the same fucking way. Right? Yes. That's correct. Always all times. Yeah. And then the other part was that all these people were like, you should be a life coach. And I was like, what's a life coach? That's like, that's a that's not a thing. Right?
0:06:51
So I I in a very interesting turn of events, I got laid off from the network I worked at when I was eight months pregnant with my first mild. Four months after I'd been promoted when they didn't know I was pregnant, but that's another podcast for another time. Oh, most likely. And I was devastated, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I never would have left the safety and security of that world because the part of me that wanted to explore what else was possible for me was too scared to leave that safety and security.
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And so I spent some time being a mommy and then I knew I was ready to start working again. And my first initial reaction was back to entertainment. And so I did. I went and I worked as a consultant for a little while on a production for Paramount Television. I took my theater and my TV and I combined it and I worked on Grease Live. Oh, it was a good show. Yay. Because I think so too, and I was really proud of it, but I also was really clear that did not wanna go back into entertainment. It was like that time I'd had off got me really clear on my values and what was important and this was not this that culture was not right for me anymore. And so I was like, well, let's check out this coaching thing. So I went and I signed up for an intro course and that was it.
0:08:31
Day one, I was like, oh, this is my thing. I put down the deposit for the entire program to do five more classes and a six month certification program and something shifted in me and it was like, oh, I found my thing. This feels like the more, like, I am fulfilled. Because I get to explore myself and I get to help other people explore themselves to determine, to help them live the life they really wanna live so that we don't all have to walk around wondering, like, isn't there something fucking more? A miserable way to live. And it's a lot. I no longer coach. Because I do not have capacity to hold space for enough people at scale to make it worth my time. And it's a really interesting thing I think. Coaches who are meant to coach thrive on that. Coaches who are not find that to be an energetic weight to be carried and I think it's important to figure that out for yourself.
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But once you're good at it, what do you do next? So that's meaning, like, when I scrubbered that it was my thing. What is it? Where did I go from there? Okay. Yes. Just dove in. And it was something there was that awareness that I learned in coaching of both that inner critic voice There's so many words for it. Saba, you have more than one. Like, we have more than one of those voices. They all have different personalities, but I do find it's easiest to start with that specific inner critic and help and we can talk about we'll we'll get more into that. But once I became aware that I had also had, like, an inner wisdom that I'd basically silenced for many, many years. I kind of just went and, like, it wasn't an option for me to not do it. This was the thing I was gonna do.
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Now, as my business has grown, so I just started coaching people, I mean, I had to have practice clients in my in my during my coaching training and I offered them to come coach me for like, you know, I don't know. I think I did, like, a hundred bucks a month for four sessions. But that's when I got practice. That's how we start. That's how I got practice. And so you know what it is? I let myself be a beginner. Mhmm. Beginner's mind. Yeah. I really let myself be a beginner and fail, like, I didn't worry about failure. I just let myself get messy and get into action and do it because when you're coaching, there's no other way to get better. You can't become a better coach sitting in your house by yourself. Well, I mean, unless you've got Zoom. Unless you've got Zoom. That's how I got better. And that is how I coach as well, but it, like, in a bubble by yourself is what I mean. Thank you. So, yeah, I'd let myself be a beginner.
0:12:03
I didn't worry about fucking it up. And I now, let's be clear. That voice telling me I was fucking it up came in all the time, but I was able to manage my mind. I was a and I had a coach. You know, like, it's we can't see ourselves fully. It's hard for us to see our ourselves fully all the time and to manage everything in our brains by ourselves no matter how long we've been doing anything. Or how much training we've had or support, you know? So I got started and by year two and a half, I had a full client roster. And it was it just it was like and I loved it and I was energized by it. And as I've grown in this business, you know, I didn't always support women. And I I should also say, I still don't just support women. I do have some amazing men that I work with. But the thing that really spoke to me was how our patriarchal systems have created the voices in women's head that makes it even more challenging for us. That and for women to understand that and to understand it's not just them.
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You know, the the fact like that people pleasing aside of you that one or the other most women have. Some have both, but it stems from the fact that our currency in life came from taking care of others for so many years, years, and years, centuries. Right? And being pretty. It's a different shift, but Absolutely. Correct.
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We needed to be pleasing. We needed to be pleasing in the way we looked. We needed to be pleasing in the way we kept house. And that was our survival. We could not own land. We could not have money. Not our own. We couldn't have our own bank account. We it was like, the nineteen eighties before women could have a freaking credit card. We couldn't even have physical strength Like, that wasn't because then it goes back to the pretty. Right? So we our only currency was we are good we survive if we make other people's lives better. And so despite the fact that that was a fair amount of time ago. It wasn't long enough ago. It's still an ancestral memory. We carry that. All in our DNA. And so I became really obsessed might be a strong word, but passionate. Let's say passionate. About helping women to see this so that we start to shift that DNA for our children and generations to come because I believe that when women really step into their power and they really own who they are, we will be the ones to change the world.
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What is happening in our world right now is a function of patriarchy. And old white man. So for the most part, and a few white women that agree with that. But we'll get off the politics. Sorry. At any rate, patriarchal thinking has nothing to do with politics. It's just us men.
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I I wanna be clear about this. Men have gotten, you know, they have plenty of things that they need to deal with because of patriarchal systems too. They are I don't love the word victim, but they are victim of our patriarchal systems as Absolutely. They just have to be willing to do the work for themselves, and it is not our job to drag them along into doing that work. Correct. One hundred percent. So anyhow, that's how we are here today, and that's where I'm at today. And really working with women to empower them to have ownership. Over who they are, over what they want, over the lives that they wanna lead. And that work starts with the awareness of the inner critic. Mhmm. I think it does. So a sick significant portion of my audience is entrepreneurs, but not all of them. And I think that there is enough of an audience for us to start at the very beginning. So let's talk about how we identify the Freight.
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So the inner critic voice, you know, it's it's most people think of it as like nasty and mean. And that is one way an inner critic voice can show up. Right? Judgmental mean things you would never say to anybody else. Right? But there are many, many other ways that the inner critic voice comes up as well. Right? So I have a client whose inner critic voice constantly tells her to avoid conflict. It's not unkind. Sorry, I'm helping my puppy into her bed because she was just gonna sit there and cry with me. If I did not get her up in there. I heard anyhow. So, you know, there's her voice says things like, oh, it's no big deal. You don't have to deal with that. Right? Or or deal with it next time. It was just one time. That's that's a way that an in our critic voice can show up.
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Another way that an inner voice can show up is voice of reason. You know, really going back and forth. Well, are you sure? Because x, y, and z. And if you do this, then this. So you might really want to think about that because I'm not sure if this is gonna end up out for you. Right? It's not unkind. In fact, it actually sounds quite kind. Seems perfectly reasonable. Seems like a protector, someone that we should listen to, and that is why it's such a problem. Correct. So there's that. There's also Another way you can identify an inner critic voice is black and white thinking.
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When you're in curiosity when you're in critical thinking. It's not it's not I always I never or it's always this way. It's not life is not black and white like that for the most part. It's pretty gray. So when you're going, that will never work. That is inner critic. Right?
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As you mentioned, the inner critic often wants to keep you safe. And there's a historical reason for that, which we can get into if you like. But there's often like it's scared for your safety and it just wants to make sure you're gonna be okay. Right? Worring about what will everyone else think. If I do this, what will everyone else think? Right? It could be shoulds. Should is generally an inner critic voice. Comparison. What if well, what if this happens? Well, what if this happens? Well, what if this happens? Well, what if this happens? Also, an inner critic voice will tell you you're too. You're too old. You're too young. It's too late. It's too hard. You're too much.
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Inner critic. It might sound like the voice of someone that was very hard on you at one point in your life. A teacher or a mentor. Could it be a parent or sibling? It might have that kind of element to Right? So those are ways that the inner critic can present. Generally though, the the if you are saying something to yourself that you would never say to anybody that you love, that's inner critic. And that's even true of that voice of reason because the truth is you might say that to somebody you love because your inner critic voice is is projecting onto them because you're nervous for them too. Right? So again, it's not there's no creativity or curiosity behind. It. It's just it really is a lot about keeping you safe, which takes us back to archaic mandates. Right? And we will definitely get to that.
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First, I wanna talk so especially in this space, really important that we're clear about the difference between changing your brain patterns and changing your neurotype. One is a thing that you can do. One is a thing that you cannot do. And if you are neurodivergent, none of this is going change fundamentally who you are. You will still fortunately or unfortunately have ADHD or be autistic or dislike sick or any of those things that make your brain fundamentally different. So when we're talking about changing the way we think. When we're talking about neuroplasticity, what does that mean? Great question. So Think of the the think of your brain like an auto bond.
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Right? So you've got an auto bond in your brain and or let me rewind. Let me do this differently. You have two two roads in your brain. One is like a dirt path that's kind of run over and the others in auto bond. Right? The auto bond is well worn. And you your thoughts have been driving on that auto bond for however many years you've been alive lately after the age of three, four, five. Right? So these thoughts that you have about yourself that you created for all sorts of different reasons in your life, they go on the auto bond. Over and over and over. And so it just feels like it's you. Right? These are my thoughts. This is me. This is my brain. This is how I am. That's just how I am.
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But when we start to pause those thoughts before they actually get too far down the auto bond, and we start to have a different thought that would be going down the dirt road. As we start to travel the dirt road more and more, the dirt road starts to become a more well traveled road. The auto bond, if we're not going down that, nearly as often, it starts to grow over. Right? And so the it's really mental exercise. It's like you build your bicep by doing repetitions, you build your brain by learning tools and strategies and exercises to help to stop yourself from always going down that same Ottoban and starting to build other thoughts that aren't they're not they're weak. They're atrophied in your brain, but they exist. And if you continue to tell yourself, talk through those thoughts and gradually build them.
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You're not gonna go from isoc to I'm the best thing in the world because you don't believe it. Right? But you could go from suck to, I'm a human being. And what a different way to speak to yourself? To go from I'm the worst to oh, I'm actually just a human being. Right. And I think that's an important counterpoint because it's not the opposite of. This is something I learned a lot about when I was doing EMDR and IFS. You are much more likely to be successful, not if you're looking at the opposite. Correct. But if you're looking at an actual thing that's real? Yes. One hundred percent. And that's why, like, this whole power of positivity and toxic positivity why it's become such a big thing.
0:24:59
Because also, the and this is important to say and, again, probably a different conversation, but really important around inner critic. Your feelings are not your inner critic. So there's no like, you don't if you feel angry, It's not your inner critic. You actually have a feeling. Your feeling is valid. It's tipping you off to something. Now, your inner critic might make up a story about that anger and have you go react in a way that's actually not going to serve you in the long run. That's a whole other thing.
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But I want to be really clear that it's not that all feelings are important and valid and I think for a, like, a lot I know for me there was a lot of like, well, if you feel that way, then bad things are gonna happen. You know, that that I had that inner critic was like, don't be don't be not positive. Don't be negative because then well, but I had a bad feeling about something. Mhmm. And actually, when I let myself go into that feeling and discover what it was about, then I actually have the power to do something about it as opposed to ignoring it and letting it fester in sit and, you know. So I just wanted to it's a little bit of a tangent, but I didn't wanna make that distinction.
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So let's talk a little bit about some of the tools here. What are we using to stop ourselves on the auto bond first. So my the the thing that I love doing with my clients that I found super super useful is in order to is separating the inner critic from ourselves. And the most effective way I found to do that is to actually create a character for your inner critic. So is it anxious Is it nasty? Is it judgmental? Does it have comparisonitis? Right? Does it does it worry about what everybody else thinks? Similar to a lot of those, does it tell you you're an impostor? And so starting there with the adjectives you would use to describe your inner critic. And then, is it old or is it young? Is it a woman or a man? Is it is it maybe not a human form. It could just be like a big looming color or monster or there's literally no limitations except Your inner critic doesn't get to be your mother.
0:27:46
Personally, Mine is named Kevin. He's a middle manager. He's got a lot to say. I love it. And so I'm curious for you, Briar, how has naming your inner critic served you? This is a great It's such an effective tool because it's much easier to tell Kevin to sit down and shut the fuck up than it is to tell me to sit down and shut the fuck up. Correct. There's also, like, I wonder, like, what does Kevin want for you? That's an excellent question. So for me, Kevin is very much tied to safety.
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And we will always and forever be exploring safety in this space because so much of what we do is built around preserving a sense of safety that doesn't actually ever exist. Nothing is safe. No one is safe. No where is safe. Your body is not safe. Nothing. So safety is an illusion then that we get to decide how we feel about it. So good. So yeah.
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Exact I mean, there are so many different ways once you've determined, and you can choose a character from pop culture or from history or, you know, from literature, I have someone I have a client who's inner critic is Monica from friends. I have That seems invalid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had someone I had a client who's inner critic Donald Rumfeld. We've got Anna Winter. We have Martha Stewart. A lot of these seem so valid. Oh, my goodness. Yes. We're showing our age. I'm here. She's just like, you know, what ever.
0:29:47
So doing that, when you because it's initially almost everybody I work with is like, no, but that voice is just me. And I get I understand it's felt that way for so long and it's eighty percent of the average human thoughts are negative. So you're hearing that voice more than anyone else. Until you start to recognize it, until you start to notice it. And so one simple way and is to just simply go, oh, that's my inner critic or that's Kevin speaking. What do I think? What do I have to say about this? Another way is to be like, Kevin, You're not welcome here. I'm just gonna you you go sit in the other room. I'm one of my favorites is, I don't know if you've ever read big magic by Liz Gilbert. Uh-huh.
0:30:34
Now she talks about fear and how she told fear it could come along for the ride, but it does not get to sit in the front seat. It does not get to touch the radio or the air conditioning. It does not get to tell her where she's going. It just buckles up and comes for the ride. And that's kind of like that's the same idea. You know, you could put it in a drawer You can also have compassion. You know, you can have compassion for your inner critic and so that you understand that's a great thing to do when the inner critic is scared because the inner critic is often just coming from a place of trying to protect you even if they are a jerk about it. So, yeah, those are it's there's somatic tools for the inner critic. I'm gonna actually, like, take my hands on my heart center and tell my inner critic to go sit over there. Right? Or I'm gonna put them in a jar on my desk or I'm gonna put them in the closet. Or I'm going to walk into another room and my inner critic's gonna stay in this room. Or thank you very much, but I'm not interested in that. In that right now. I'm focused on something else. Right?
0:31:43
It's finding ways your inner critic, as you said, at the top of the show, is never going to go away. But if you so learning to work with it instead of, like, you know, trying and and don't fight with it. Do not fight with your inner critic. You will That is I think key. Yes. Getting into an argument with an with your inner critic Think about it. For everybody who's watching, think about we've all done it. And you will never you can never win. They will always come back and it just makes it louder and louder and louder every time. So that's why I love the opposite side, going to compassion, and tapping into that. You know, and I think there are steps along the path. IFS, in particular, tends towards compassion and everyone belongs and all parts are welcome here. And I think that takes a significant amount of work. There is Compassion for Kevin came last. Much after learning how to tell him to sit down and shut the fuck up, came. Because that's easier when you are just getting started.
0:33:05
So as we are reach training ourselves to go down to this different path. What do we do when we get off onto the side roads and back onto the autobot? Such a good question. Because you will multiple times, especially at the beginning. Because at the beginning, your brain like, it's like it's you are exercising the wrong way. Think about it. If you exercise the wrong way, how much work it takes to change how you hold the weight and and train that muscle to do it correctly. It is so hard. And so at the beginning, your brain is gonna go back to the way it knows all the time. All the time. So at the beginning, you It's frustrating as hell it can be to go feel like you're back in that loop. Oh my god. I'm back there. I this isn't working. Self compassion for yourself.
0:34:16
And the other thing I wanna say is even be like, once you've identified that inner critic before you start trying to build a new neural pathway, spend some time just going, oh, that's my inner critic. Oh, that's my inner inner critic. Training yourself to notice that it's a critical voice takes longer than you would imagine and it's fifty percent of the battle. Yes. So so much of the time, it's really like, a lot of times people go, oh my god, I didn't even realize that was my inner critic speaking. Right? So spend some time before everyone wants to get to the part where they change. Right? Spend some time in the awareness because it's so important in the process. And then my other suggestion, like, a, do not aim for perfection. Do not try and catch your inner critic all the time. When you catch your inner critic, start to try some of these tools.
0:35:24
The most important thing that I have discovered for shifting the inner critic thinking is to pause and get into your senses. Breathe and focus on the breath. Rub your fingers together. Feel all ten fingers on I mean, all ten toes on the floor. Rub your hands on your pants and feel the sensation. Listen. For the sound that's furthest away and then the sound that's closest to you. Do it for one minute, which will feel a lot longer than it actually is.
0:36:06
And what that does, if you were in an MRI and you were in fight or flight having crazy inner critical thoughts and you start to do any one of those things, the machine would show your brain wave switching from the part of your brain, that is fight or flight, into the part of your brain that is creative and curious and conscious and communicative and compassionate and allows you to open up you're thinking so that you can then go, okay, inner critic over there, what do I think? And some of the work I do in my program is also tapping into that voice of inner wisdom. Which is once you start to build that, you have that as a tool to go to. My inner critic says this, what does my voice of inner wisdom say? So that the whole point of all of this is building up your sense of what is best for you because we spend so much time second guessing looking for outside validation and it never works. And when we start to know what works for us and we can separate these voices, that's when we start to feel satisfied and fulfilled.
0:37:22
And I think it's really important to note here how like these techniques are for dealing with anxiety because your inner critic is anxiety. One hundred percent. Anxiety, It's like, I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg. Right? It's just in guiding and her care critic are directly related. And so when you go down the inner critic auto bond, your anxiety just fuels, which fuels your inner critic, the car goes faster and it's just like, you know, it's it can be very hard to stop it.
0:38:07
And when your nervous system goes into when you go into died and your nervous system is reacting to that. A couple techniques for that are put on a great song and dance it out for three minutes. If anyone's familiar with Kundalini yoga, a minute of rapid breath of fire, is great for that. Shaking your whole, like, shake put on, shake it off, and shake it off. And then the other thing is go into nature and do not listen to something. Go in and notice nature. Touch grass y'all. I did say these days, go touch some grass. Amen. Amen.
0:38:51
And those are ways to help you regulate what's going on in your brain and what's going on in your body. And this is not my area of x which is although I'm fascinated by it and I'm I think I'm gonna get trained in it in the next few years because the amount that our nervous system does something different than what our brain is telling it is imperative and it's imperative to be gentle with yourself around it. And disregulation of the somatic variety is more likely if you are neurodivergent because your brain body connection is already different. So you have to be more mindful about how these things feel in your body. And if you are autistic in particular, this is gonna present some problems because we're not comfortable in our bodies. We feel like aliens in our bodies all of the time and awareness is the first step. So despite the fact that people have probably told you your entire life that you were thinking entirely too much about your body and what it's doing, do more.lean into these awarenesses and understandings because that's where starts. The more you know about how you feel in any moment of time is going to give you information that we can then use to process. Now let's talk about that process.
0:40:23
We've identified our inner critic where we've learned some tools to start redirecting What do we do next? The the there's lots of different roads to go go down here. So when you say what do you do next Can you say a little bit more about where around the inner critic? Yeah. I wanna know once we've identified what this voice is saying and -- Mhmm. -- doing with us, how do we start to work with it in positive ways? Great. So the I mean, the first step is just keep practicing. Just keep practicing thing. And when you say, how do we start to work with it in positive ways? I mean, I think we you try all those different tools I mentioned, it's like a big science experiment to see which one resonates for you.
0:41:24
So not There's no I don't wanna say there's no two people on the planet that are gonna No. No. No. We're alright with it depends as a stock answer in these parts. It truly, it depends. And also Yes. So so do a science experiment about what works best for you.
0:41:46
See if you need to walk your inner critic out of the room, and then some people actually need to feel the space with out that voice in it. Some people can just go, that's my inner critic. What do I have to say about this? Some people can just go, that's my inner critic. Okay. Keep going onward. Right? You really have to explore and just Discover. And, no, this is so important. The more especially with all your entrepreneurs, the more you're putting yourself out there in the world. I'm so sorry that the ladder that inner critic is gonna get. That's fact. Yeah. So the more that you and so I've actually taken it now is a sign that I'm on the right path. So that's how you can work with it in a positive way. You can welcome it as a sign that you're on the right path and then help to put it in its place. Right? My inner critic my inner critic is so loud. Okay, great. I'm putting myself out there. I'm gonna phase of growth, it's uncomfortable, it's not gonna serve me because I am scared.
0:43:02
So this idea that you have to be scared, not or you can't be scared to move forward, fuck that. Like, It's not about confidence. It's actually about courage. With the courage to try new things, you will find confidence. And as you grow and grow and try new things and you put yourself into that beginner mindset, you'll you won't be confident. Like, confidence is not this thing that we get that sticks with us. Encourage, though, is can always be present. It's something we have to dig into fine, but we can get that anytime.
0:43:40
Howard Bauchner: So I think there's an interest disting relationship here between the inner critic and our ability to be courageous. How do we cultivate courage? I love that question. I think the first step to cultivate and courage is knowing and reminding yourself all the time that courage is not the absence of fear. It's action in the face of fear. It's it's specific action in the face of fear. And I think what's really important in this equation is knowing your values and what's important to you. So that you have a compass to guide you and it's not just like, oh, I should do everything even if, like, everything I'm scared of is the right thing for me. Now, it's really about getting intentional about how you wanna show up in the world, how you wanna live your life? What's the impact you wanna have on other people? And on yourself, and on the planet. And when you know what your values are and you start to get scared, Bringing a value in to respond to that fear or to help you work through that fear or to find the courage in that fear is a super useful tool, or using a value to say, is this like, is working through this fear really important to me? Not every fear needs to be worked through. So I think when you have a whole other set of tools besides just the inner critic, they support you in knowing if this is they support you in getting to be discerning instead of judgmental.
0:45:50
Discerning. And it feels different in your body. Discernment feels like comfort to me. It is like a blanket that I can wrap around myself and know that I have done the work and it may not be the best decision. But it's the one that I'm making. Mhmm. That is another thing. I think that is difficult to create. How do we build discernment?
0:46:32
So dis sermon another way to think about discernment because one of the things that I often get asked is, like, how do I know if I'm actually hearing my inner critic or if this is a true assessment of my abilities? Like, Like, it makes me think about American Idol all those years ago and the kids that would audition that were so terrible and how did their parents not tell them that they could not audition for American Idol. Right? Or how did they not know that they couldn't audition for American Idol? Maybe that's maybe that's a terrible judgmental example. But Disarmment asks questions, inner critic thinking make statements. Right? So Disarmament gets curious and says, is it possible? How can I do this? Inter critic thinking says, you can't do it. It's not possible. This is never gonna work. Right?
0:47:41
Dis sermon seeks solutions, it doesn't know that there's definitely a positive out come or definitely a possibility, you could be discerning and discover, you know what, this is not the right choice or this is not gonna work. It is true that there are things in life that will not work or that aren't the right choice for you at that time. It's different if you explore it. If you go into exploration around it and you're forward thinking and you get, you know, you brainstorm and you think about how could I possibly make this work versus just the automatic? This won't work. It's never gonna happen. You know? These are all the problems, these are all the reasons it won't work without exploring the other side of the equation.
0:48:30
And actually, singing is a great example because I've had many Karl directors over the years who have said that anyone can sing if they are willing to put in the time and effort to learn, that singing is a skill not necessary. It's talent too. But in fact, singing is a skill and we can learn how to use our voices in a way that is melodic. So discernment then is a skill that requires practice over and over and over again. Yeah. Yes. I mean, all of these two like, if you stop going to the gym for a month, your muscles get weaker. Uh-huh. These things like, I have to coach myself and I have to do these tools after all these years. Often. Here's what I'll tell you.
0:49:29
Sometimes, it's like it's pretty easy when I feel it in my body, when it's somatic, it is not easy. That's And I have to go to I have to That's when, really, the pause becomes important. Because what happens when we're feeling something in our body and it's an there's an emotional attachment and our nervous system is is going through whatever it's going through, our tenancy is to be reactive. And so we need to regulate so that we can actually before, it doesn't mean, again, doesn't mean don't feel it, doesn't mean don't experience what you what is happening for you. In fact, I would venture to say, don't try like, go into it, allow yourself to feel it all. Just don't take any action until you've allowed yourself to regulate. Because you can't come from a place of discernment when you are dysregulated?
0:50:38
I also think that this is a very large part of the capitalistic patriarchal productivity society in that we are instructed early and often that reaction is necessary because everything is urgent. But in fact very few things are urgent. Most things are not urgent. And Almost every decision you will ever make in your life will benefit from you eating something tasty and taking a nap. Amen to that.
0:51:17
If you'll remember that I said I worked on Grease Live and one of the biggest things that made me crazy was that everything was a fire to be put out immediately. Oh. And by the time we're done putting out that fire, That fire like, that didn't even matter anymore. No. Everything was junk. Jump. Hurry up. It's not fast enough. And I got to a place where I was like, this is not a way that I wanna live my life. This does not I mean, it's so interesting even speaking like that. I see it, like, feel it in my body. It doesn't feel good. Right? There's remembered trauma too because that all lives in your body still when everything is urgent, nothing is urgent. And so we just build it up until nothing happens, and then we burn out and melt down and, you know, all the fun things. Yeah. Exactly. So that is so spot and the pause comes into play there.
0:52:20
So one of my favorite tools from my clients is to say to somebody, let me think about it. That's not like an option that has ever been really given to us is I'll get back to you. Let me think about it. And In moments where it feels like there's a response that's needed pretty quickly, like, I had a client who got panicked when a parent after school would ask for a play date because it didn't really work for her.
0:52:56
She felt so put on the spot in front of her kids and For her, this was a thing that really was challenging. So for her, she was like, I need to run to the bathroom. Go into the bathroom and learn it so that she could regulate herself. Because the question in and of itself so activated her people pleaser. And she ended up abandoning herself so much the time. No. She didn't work for her. It didn't work in her schedule that day. Or, oh yeah, maybe this will work, but she couldn't even make the decision in the moment because she was so dysregulated. So in those circumstances, it was let me go to the back. I I got around to the bathroom. Just give me a second. Two minutes in the bathroom to breathe and have space created for herself to be able to go, what's my afternoon look like? What do I need to do? Does this work for me? It's taking that b. And sometimes that let me get back to you is, I'll get back to you tomorrow. But that feeling of we all feel it in our body when we know we're not ready to respond. We've been taught to ignore it. And so to actually know that if something feels uncomfortable, the best response is let me get back to you. That is a natural pause. Mhmm. And if you are autistic in particular, y'all, I encourage you to really lean into this.
0:54:29
We spend a lot of our early childhood, especially if we are later diagnosed, always being rushed to the next thing. That is that is basically my memory of childhood. I was always late. I was never on time, and we were always in a rush to do the next thing. Which means that the answer is for you to be your own regulation here.
0:54:53
And you have to be able to say no, actually, I'm not ready to transition into this yet. Mhmm. I have to be able to do x y z thing first, and sometimes it is the bathroom. Sometimes it's I need to check with my husband first who is by the way, I never need to actually check with my husband. Correct. It's it's such an easy excuse because he's always willing to be the bad guy for me. If I need to say, no. My husband says no. He never said no. Never ever ever did he say no. But I needed somebody else to be the bad guy. Yep. Totally. Well, and that's interesting. I would be interested to explore that more with you. How do you own setting boundaries for yourself without needing somebody else? To, you know, that's a whole other sack of potatoes. Mhmm. That's interesting to explore And as you're learning to take space, it's a great tool. It's a great tool to be able to at the beginning, sometimes fear of being of of what will happen if we say no is so intense that we need to have a reason.
0:56:18
And that was totally me for many, many years. Now I'm like, nope, doesn't work for me. Oh, yeah. No. No. It's the easy and and just no period. The end, that's it. No. I'm not doing it. Not even I don't wanna do it. I'm not doing it. That's not available. Doesn't work for me? Nope. No thanks. Nope. But decades. Y'all.
0:56:44
It took decades of deep personal work for me to get to the place where no was. A complete sentence. Yeah. One hundred percent I am with you. I mean, I am forty seven years old, and I would say, Three years ago. Three and I've started doing this work in my twenties. Mhmm. So yeah. Yeah. And that's okay.
0:57:13
It takes I love that you're pointing to this because all of this takes time. Like, recognizing you it it will one day, you'll wake up and go, oh, my inner critic's not as loud around this anymore. But it will take a lot of time. This is not work that is quick. No. And unfortunately, because it is long, it is very easy to give up on. And I think that's what I wanna talk about to wrap us up. How do we lean into the fact that it is a lifetime worth of work and that we're never gonna get it quite right and that we're always gonna be growing on this path. So I can tell you what's worked for me.
0:58:07
There's a few things. One, allow yourself to take breaks. Yes. Always need to be working on growth. Sometimes things can just be where they are. Sometimes a plateau is important and allowing yourself to just rest in the and the amount of work you've done and being aware of that and knowing when you need breaks is super important. The other thing that I remember is a saying and I don't remember where I heard it, but hard choices, easy life, easy choices, hard life. Mhmm. And it's the same I mean, I liken it to when you know you need to hire somebody to support you or you know you need to acquire the assistant you have because that's not working and you need a new assistant, but it feels like it's so much harder to train somebody properly than to just deal with it. So you end up dealing with it for three years and the amount of time you lose is exponential, whereas if you just took a month to slow down and really train that person, your next three years would be exponentially easier. You ought to talk about hiring people. I got shows for that y'all.
0:59:33
But I think there's a lot here in leaning in and allowing growth to be stagnant for a while. Plateaus happen because we need to go straight, flat for a while. It does not always need to be that pushing the boulder up the mountain. To create the momentum. By the way, if you're hearing a voice telling you you do, it's your inner critic. Absolutely one hundred percent.
1:00:03
And the other thing I would say is patience. I mean, this work will grow your patients like no other and and having and yourself compassion. Having patience with yourself as you shift and you grow and you unlearn mental habits that you've had for years. You don't undo something that you had for twenty five thirty years in six months. You don't you start. You start the process. Right? But there truly, really isn't an end to this. There's always gonna be And and you so take breaks.
1:00:48
Take breaks along the way, decide when you're in a space where growth is important, and decide when you're in a space where No, I need to be a little more status quo right now, but don't lose your tools along the way. Don't let your inner critic beat you up because you're taking a break. I mean, talk about rest and Oh, and and this is a big on because rest is not capital. And so we have heard for our entire lives that breaks are bad. Rest is laziness. Yeah. And that is the word that your inner critic will use. So when you're hearing yourself talk about being lazy, internalize that as, oh, I actually should be taking a break. Right now. Oh, I love that you just said that.
1:01:44
That's so what happens when you flip what your inner critic is when you use what your inner critic is saying as a marker for where you might need to pay attention to something that's really important. You know, if your inner critic is telling you it has to be perfect, it has to be perfect, it's a perfect opportunity to go, What would good enough look like? Mhmm. Your inner critic is going, well, what are they all gonna think if I do that? It's a perfect marker to go. Well, what's important to here. So taking that, you know, you're lazy and going, oh gosh, I'm exhausted and I need some rest. Or even if I'm not exhausted, I just need rest so I don't get exhausted. Right?
1:02:29
Looking at what the opposite is as as the inner critic is an indicator that you might meet the opposite of what they're saying. For me, I've internalized that as because my critic is after safety and it just wants the best for me despite the way that it comes off that I can hear and acknowledge those things that say things to me and do better things with it. I love that. It's so good. Yeah. Yes. It's not there's there might be value in what the inner critic is saying. It's just not necessarily what they're telling you to do. Okay. It was like, you know, it's kind of a hand on hot stove. You touch the hot stove and it gives you an indicator that it's too hot so that you don't burn yourself. You know, if you're being unkind yourself in saying you're lazy, then what's the indicator? You know. And how does listening to those indicators bring us back to that place of safety? Okay.
1:03:47
So we have to be responsible for reminding ourselves that we are safe in our own bodies ultimately. Right? So This is another tool that I use when I feel unsafe in my body or when I'm reeling. Hands on your heart center, it feels almost like a weighted blanket, and close your eyes. And breathe into it, and remind yourself that in this moment, right now, you are safe. You are not running from a bear, you are not being held at gunpoint, that's what your body is doing. It's going back to the cavemen days, where you had to run away from the saber tooth tiger or you had to fight the the opposing people for food. Right? The opposing tribe for food And so your body is going, well, if I give you a false alarm this time, If I give you an alarm, even if it's false, you're still still safe.
1:04:52
But what if I don't give you the alarm and that's the time you die? What if? I'm safe right here and right now. And for me asking that as a question, posing it as a question and expecting a response back from my critic has really changed the dynamics. Mhmm. Because they don't ever answer that question. What if I'm safe right now? Oh, well, what if you are? Like, there's not Because it doesn't want anything to say to that. It's like not because he's less. The physical evidence clearly indicates What if I'm safe right now? Yeah. That's so cool. I love that. Thanks for sharing it. That's cool.
1:05:39
So what if we need to do more work with our inner critic, Michelle. So, right, higher. If you want to dive deeper into your inner critic and that's really just one part of the foundation of tools to really set you up to own yourself. I have a program called back in command. To help you get more courageous, to help you get more confident, and to help you get clearer about what it is that you're really wanting. We talk about values. We dive into values. We dive into the idea of becoming. Versus that box that you're in or that you've put yourself in potentially. We dive into self compassion. We dive into the voice of inner wisdom. We talk about a lot of the other ways that the patriarchy has set women up to be so hypercritical and ways to combat that and we dive into the idea of limiting beliefs and stories we tell ourselves and managing those as well. And getting clarity around when something is really the truth or whether when we're creating an entire fiction story about it that could be, you know, picked up by NBC for their next mini series because so often that is the case.
1:07:11
So my this program is called back in command. And we start our next cohort on May second. And you can go to michelle powlett dot com forward slash group and get all of the information that you might wanna get about it there. And if you have any questions, you can hit the contact form and I will get back to you to see if it's the right program for you. Hi. I'm also leaving this in the comments everywhere. It will be in the show notes. And I definitely encourage folks to check this out.
1:07:52
I think that inner critic work is absolutely the foundation of where I'm at now. This is where it starts. And the more that you do this work, the more you know you need to do this work. So find avenues that work for you. And if I'm Shao is one of those avenues, then please absolutely check that out. This is not an affiliate link. We're just here because I like our work and I like our program. Thanks, Briar. It's been so great chatting with you. And I like your work too. Thank you. You're welcome.
1:08:35
So we are the neurodiversity media network. If you have not yet subscribed, you can find us at the nerd diversity media network dot com. This is what we're building here. In-depth, actual conversations that lead us to something bigger. Not everything can be fulfilled in a three minute sound bite. So this is why we have these bigger, longer conversations. And if you'd like to check us out, to nerd diversity media network dot com, paid subscribers for twenty five years a month, get access to a couple of private streams. And when we are done with all of these programs, this workshop will get an individual page, we'll have some additional resources in addition to Michelle's program that you can dive into to learn more about your inner critic. Thank you all so much for being here today. You've been a joy and a delight, Michelle. Thank you so much. Thanks, Briar. We'll see y'all soon. Bye now. Bye.
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