Personally I always feel the juice is running down my chin when I'm laughing or smiling...
so, humour is definitely in! Humour helps us to dis-empower the inner critic.
It's kind of difficult to continue wagging your finger at someone who isn't taking you seriously.
Your inner critic, or inner judge, is going to look ridiculous if he or she or it keeps raising the temperature.
Better to join in with the laughter.
The other day I was sitting watching TV.
I thought, 'I know, I'll grab an apple from the bowl in the kitchen.
I could just eat something fresh, clean tasting and crispy.
' A few minutes later, when I came to discard the leftovers, I found myself folding up the paper case of a chocolate muffin! 'How did that happen?' I asked myself! 'How did it happen that I went for an apple, came back with a muffin, ate it and was folding up the paper case before I realised what had happened?' That would have been enough to set off my inner judge at one time.
These days I'm much more likely to laugh at myself! [Memo: Don't forget to talk about mindfulness!] A favourite prayer by don Miguel Ruiz contains the lines: 'I will live my life with gratitude, love, loyalty and justice / Beginning with myself and continuing with my brothers and sisters.
' I've repeated that phrase to myself countless times to help me break a pattern of abusive self talk.
Thank you, don Miguel.
Besides, laughing at the inner critic helps to reinforce the next essential ingredient: 'Beginners Mind'.
By that phrase, I mean developing the ability to see things anew.
We've all probably tangled with our inner critic on countless occasions.
Let's try something new.
Let's smile in the face of adversity.
I first heard the phrase used by a Zen Buddhist monk called Shunryu Suzuki, in a book called, 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.
' That was about 40 years ago.
The book is still in print.
It's a delight.
Looking for a fresh perspective, whether that's about a boss who is particularly cranky one morning, or looking at a lifetime of illness or adversity, listen to the story you are telling yourself about what has happened.
What do you hear? 'I've brought this on myself...
' or 'I'm not taking this personally, there is no need to add blame and drama to what's happening here.
' If your judge has the upper hand, your inner dialogue is likely to be blaming in tone.
Maybe your habit is then to launch into a whole personal diatribe.
You may get a fresh perspective by asking yourself: 'Whose voice is this? This isn't me.
' How do you break the habit of a lifetime? With awareness.
Not introspection.
Not explanation.
But through a direct communication with your own feelings.
Our feelings are pretty good guides to how we really are.
They are so honest that we've had to give up listening to them! Memo: 'I will learn to tune into my feelings; to warm up those parts of me that have learned to become numb and silent because it was too painful to listen to what they were saying.
I choose to experience the true depth of my feelings.
' When we start to listen, we learn to value silence around us and we learn to value a quiet mind.
Just remember, the point is to allow the feelings to be.
To spend time with yourself.
Just that.
Time to simply be is at a premium in our busy lives.
But if you really want to break the habits of a lifetime, the fresh perspective that comes from a quiet mind is invaluable.
Mindfulness (that's the thing I didn't have when I went for the apple and came back with a muffin, but didn't know I had come back with a muffin!).
I don't know about you, but I don't remember choosing - at any point in my life - to sleep through the whole thing.
But that is all too possible a reality.
Mindfulness is paying attention to the here and now.
Mindfulness is an expression of our ability to live in the present.
I'll go back to dealing with the difficult boss, as an example of a short-term personal development lesson.
And let's keep in mind a long-term personal development goal for some: to reconcile themselves with a lifetime of adversity.
What has mindfulness got to offer? Lots.
If we examine that showdown with the boss first.
What we find is that most of the pain and difficulty that we suffer is not due to the raised voices, the bust-up itself.
The pain comes from bringing unresolved feelings left over from past bust ups (all those arguments with all those authority figures that left you feeling dismissed, angry and resentful, for example) into the here and now.
Alternatively, becoming anxious or fearful for a future ('Will I still have a job when the dust settles?' 'How will I pay the mortgage?' 'What will I tell the kids?' ' I knew this was too good to last.
') that hasn't arrived yet! Mindfulness is about being so engaged with the present that the past and the future are excluded.
We simply don't give them the stage.
In time, and with practice, those echoes of the past and the foreshadowing of a mayhem yet to come, are starved of the oxygen they need to survive.
And long-term illness or adversity.
How does that work? Here, I have personal and professional expertise.
I read in another book - I've read a lot of books recently! - that some people come to a spiritual journey through illness, the loss of a loved one or redundancy.
A few years back, I experienced all three in quick succession.
I spent a year not coming to terms with my diagnosis.
I spent a year complaining to myself about the string of illnesses I seem to have suffered.
I spent a year complaining to myself about complaining to myself! I spent a year being fearful for the trajectory of my health, which seemed to be a slippery slope down.
And then one evening, I pulled up outside the house in the car and stood in a pool of warm sunlight.
And at that exact moment, as the heat of the evening sun warmed my back, a blackbird sang out from the roof of a neighbour's garage: rich, liquid notes.
At that moment, the demons of the past and the future were quieted by a blackbird's song...
and the ability - we all have it, it just takes practice - to be, to really be, wholly in the present moment.
Life is simpler, saner and richer when it lived in the present.
In fact, it's only ever really lived when it's lived in the present.
Otherwise, we're haunted by ghosts of the past and phantoms of the future.
I just looked at the blackbird and said to myself: 'You have all you need right here.
You choose: live, experience the life you have...
or daydream.
'
so, humour is definitely in! Humour helps us to dis-empower the inner critic.
It's kind of difficult to continue wagging your finger at someone who isn't taking you seriously.
Your inner critic, or inner judge, is going to look ridiculous if he or she or it keeps raising the temperature.
Better to join in with the laughter.
The other day I was sitting watching TV.
I thought, 'I know, I'll grab an apple from the bowl in the kitchen.
I could just eat something fresh, clean tasting and crispy.
' A few minutes later, when I came to discard the leftovers, I found myself folding up the paper case of a chocolate muffin! 'How did that happen?' I asked myself! 'How did it happen that I went for an apple, came back with a muffin, ate it and was folding up the paper case before I realised what had happened?' That would have been enough to set off my inner judge at one time.
These days I'm much more likely to laugh at myself! [Memo: Don't forget to talk about mindfulness!] A favourite prayer by don Miguel Ruiz contains the lines: 'I will live my life with gratitude, love, loyalty and justice / Beginning with myself and continuing with my brothers and sisters.
' I've repeated that phrase to myself countless times to help me break a pattern of abusive self talk.
Thank you, don Miguel.
Besides, laughing at the inner critic helps to reinforce the next essential ingredient: 'Beginners Mind'.
By that phrase, I mean developing the ability to see things anew.
We've all probably tangled with our inner critic on countless occasions.
Let's try something new.
Let's smile in the face of adversity.
I first heard the phrase used by a Zen Buddhist monk called Shunryu Suzuki, in a book called, 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.
' That was about 40 years ago.
The book is still in print.
It's a delight.
Looking for a fresh perspective, whether that's about a boss who is particularly cranky one morning, or looking at a lifetime of illness or adversity, listen to the story you are telling yourself about what has happened.
What do you hear? 'I've brought this on myself...
' or 'I'm not taking this personally, there is no need to add blame and drama to what's happening here.
' If your judge has the upper hand, your inner dialogue is likely to be blaming in tone.
Maybe your habit is then to launch into a whole personal diatribe.
You may get a fresh perspective by asking yourself: 'Whose voice is this? This isn't me.
' How do you break the habit of a lifetime? With awareness.
Not introspection.
Not explanation.
But through a direct communication with your own feelings.
Our feelings are pretty good guides to how we really are.
They are so honest that we've had to give up listening to them! Memo: 'I will learn to tune into my feelings; to warm up those parts of me that have learned to become numb and silent because it was too painful to listen to what they were saying.
I choose to experience the true depth of my feelings.
' When we start to listen, we learn to value silence around us and we learn to value a quiet mind.
Just remember, the point is to allow the feelings to be.
To spend time with yourself.
Just that.
Time to simply be is at a premium in our busy lives.
But if you really want to break the habits of a lifetime, the fresh perspective that comes from a quiet mind is invaluable.
Mindfulness (that's the thing I didn't have when I went for the apple and came back with a muffin, but didn't know I had come back with a muffin!).
I don't know about you, but I don't remember choosing - at any point in my life - to sleep through the whole thing.
But that is all too possible a reality.
Mindfulness is paying attention to the here and now.
Mindfulness is an expression of our ability to live in the present.
I'll go back to dealing with the difficult boss, as an example of a short-term personal development lesson.
And let's keep in mind a long-term personal development goal for some: to reconcile themselves with a lifetime of adversity.
What has mindfulness got to offer? Lots.
If we examine that showdown with the boss first.
What we find is that most of the pain and difficulty that we suffer is not due to the raised voices, the bust-up itself.
The pain comes from bringing unresolved feelings left over from past bust ups (all those arguments with all those authority figures that left you feeling dismissed, angry and resentful, for example) into the here and now.
Alternatively, becoming anxious or fearful for a future ('Will I still have a job when the dust settles?' 'How will I pay the mortgage?' 'What will I tell the kids?' ' I knew this was too good to last.
') that hasn't arrived yet! Mindfulness is about being so engaged with the present that the past and the future are excluded.
We simply don't give them the stage.
In time, and with practice, those echoes of the past and the foreshadowing of a mayhem yet to come, are starved of the oxygen they need to survive.
And long-term illness or adversity.
How does that work? Here, I have personal and professional expertise.
I read in another book - I've read a lot of books recently! - that some people come to a spiritual journey through illness, the loss of a loved one or redundancy.
A few years back, I experienced all three in quick succession.
I spent a year not coming to terms with my diagnosis.
I spent a year complaining to myself about the string of illnesses I seem to have suffered.
I spent a year complaining to myself about complaining to myself! I spent a year being fearful for the trajectory of my health, which seemed to be a slippery slope down.
And then one evening, I pulled up outside the house in the car and stood in a pool of warm sunlight.
And at that exact moment, as the heat of the evening sun warmed my back, a blackbird sang out from the roof of a neighbour's garage: rich, liquid notes.
At that moment, the demons of the past and the future were quieted by a blackbird's song...
and the ability - we all have it, it just takes practice - to be, to really be, wholly in the present moment.
Life is simpler, saner and richer when it lived in the present.
In fact, it's only ever really lived when it's lived in the present.
Otherwise, we're haunted by ghosts of the past and phantoms of the future.
I just looked at the blackbird and said to myself: 'You have all you need right here.
You choose: live, experience the life you have...
or daydream.
'
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