From the course: Banish Your Inner Critic to Unleash Creativity

Using mindfulness to silence the inner critic

From the course: Banish Your Inner Critic to Unleash Creativity

Using mindfulness to silence the inner critic

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- The next power tool is mindfulness. Mindfulness is our ability to be present and aware of where we are and what we're thinking. Imagine standing outside of your own mind, observing your thoughts and feelings as if they were happening to someone else. You're fully aware but impartial, and therefore, not caught up in the story that your mind or inner critic is coming up with about the situation. This is being mindful. When we're in this place of observing what we're thinking, then this also means that we can choose our thoughts. This is what makes mindfulness a power tool. The ability to choose one thought over another. With mindfulness, we can have the presence of mind to think, "Oh I'm doing that inner critic thing again. "Okay, I'm going to choose to think something different." Or even better, we can even accept that we're having self-critical thoughts while also recognizing that just because we're thinking these thoughts doesn't mean that they are true. That is true mind mastery. I'm going to give you a useful tool to raise your awareness of how you can use mindfulness to dismiss inner critical thoughts so that you can avoid the mental distractions that the inner critic creates. We have a lot of thoughts that we can be thinking during the course of the day. Let's be intentional about which thoughts we entertain through mindful thought acceptance. We can use mindfulness to practice viewing our inner critical thoughts with detachment. Rather than seeing our critical thoughts as the truth about ourselves or a situation, we will think of them as brain events. By seeing our inner critical thoughts as more of a habitual reflex of the mind, we can then begin to dismiss these thoughts as products of misfiring circuitry, and again choose not to react to them. When your inner critic comes up, instead of getting all wrapped up in the thoughts of self-judgment, self-criticism, or self-doubt, you can think to yourself, "Oh my inner critic circuit is running again." And then shift your attention back to what you were doing. By doing this, you can divert the whole thought cascade that used to happen. This simple practice will also prevent you from activating the emotions that had been your typical response to inner critical thoughts and will leave your mind clear for improved creative thinking.

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