Fire The Mean Voice in Your Head

You know that little voice in your head?

The voice that is always berating you, nit-picking and finding fault with everything you do?

Would you be surprised to know that that voice started off as a way to protect you?

As soon as we are born and begin to develop, we are reliant on others for our survival.

If we were to be rejected by our mother or our "pact," it would mean sure death.

To keep ourselves alive, we subconsciously learn to pick up on negative cues from others that we think could lead to our abandonment.

These cues come from any perceived rejection, whether the threat is real or not.

As babies and small children, we see the world and everyone in it, as revolving around us. We see life from a "self" centered viewpoint.

If adults are acting in a "negative" or threatening manner, we can't chalk it up to a bad day, or their limitations. We think we are solely responsible for any less than stellar behavior from others.

We then do everything in our power to stop ourselves from causing their unwanted reaction.

Our nervous system couples with our survival instinct to constantly scan our environment to find any personal "flaws" or "weaknesses" that could lead to our demise.

Our inner voice likes the "better safe than sorry" approach, so it will scold, demean and reprimand us, whether our perception or the threat is real or not. It's a poorly designed, negatively biased, self-radar system.

As we get older, we carry this outdated model into adulthood. Not only do we not need to rely on others for our physical survival, our inner-critic believes that a threat to our ego is a threat to our actual life.

So how do we change this behavior that is so ingrained?

The good news is, after reading this, you can check the first to steps off of your "to-do list."

1. Become aware of what is happening.
2. Acknowledge the reason it is happening.
   
   The final step takes a little practice and a bunch of repetition. The next time you notice your inner critic having a go at you, use the "DARN" practice to get a handle on things.
3. Distance-yourself from your initial reaction to the voice in your head.
   Assess-the quality of your thoughts and the real reason behind them.
   Respond-make a conscious decision to respond to the inner critic instead of blindly reacting.
   Negate-any initial self-doubt or loathing that instinctively occurred, by acknowledging what is going on, thanking your one-time protector and then sending it on its way.