Most of us
have an inner critic that tells us that we are somehow flawed/inadequate. It comes from negative things other people
have said or done to us, usually in our childhood. We then believe their opinions of us to be
true. This creates a “voice” in our head
that keeps criticizing us.
What did our
parents/schoolmates criticize/reject?
Things we said or did. In other
words, our ego. Our false self. Not us.
But because both we and they mistook our actions and words to be us, we
misconstrued their opinions to be about the real us.
So our inner
critic comes from two big mistaken beliefs: 1) that other people’s opinions
were accurate, and 2) that the ego that got criticized/rejected was us. In reality, none of those people could
possibly criticize the real us because they didn’t know the real us; all they knew was certain things we said or did,
which in no way define us.
If there’s
one thing we know about the ego, it’s that it is flawed and inadequate. It is a fear-based mental construct, so it
cannot possibly be anything but flawed and inadequate. So the inner critic might be right about the
ego, but not about the true self. Therefore
whenever the critic rears its ugly head, we can agree with its assessment of
the ego, but not feel bad about our true self.
