Stop Your Brutal Inner Critic in Its Tracks: Encore Episode l S2E081

Welcome to A Call for Love. It is the 2 year

anniversary. I am so grateful to all the

listeners who have been joining in for 2 years. I can

hardly believe it. And if you're new to A Call for Love,

then my heart is full of gratitude to you for joining in here

because A Call for Love is about shifting,

shifting a perspective. And shifting a perspective is actually a

miracle, and you can create a miracle in your life. Because if you are

in the place of fear, stress, anxiety, anger,

jealousy, resentment, any of those negative emotions

is under the umbrella of fear. And love, the highest

vibration with joy, is your higher self. It's the

path of flow. And if you want to shift from those

2, then it's a call for love, and that's the

meaning behind A Call for Love. And I have to

say that I am so grateful that A Call for Love came into my

life because, if you haven't heard the story,

I was initially going to call this podcast 2 years ago

now, Salt Lamp Meditations.

And if you can see behind me, there are salt lamps. I love

salt lamps, but the name of a podcast, Salt Lamp

Meditations, I do not think it would have been anywhere

near what A Call for Love brings to you, the listener, and to

me, the provider of this journey. And I thank you.

I thank you for being here present. Now on this 2

years that I have dove into this podcast, showing

up to try to be the best I can

be in order to support others because we are

all walking each other home, I would like to say the

top listened to of all time episodes was

episode number 4, 3 steps to soothe the

brutal inner critic. And what does that tell you? It means

that we are all suffering from

that brutal chatter, chatter, chatter in our minds

about ourselves, that inner critic. And you know what I say?

Give the monkey a banana. If it wants to

complain, if your mind wants to chatter all these

illusionary, judgmental thoughts about

yourself, then give it something else. And I say give

it self compassion. Self compassion is

my largest tool in my toolbox of wellness

to guide me to living more peacefully

and more in my light. And I invite you to listen to

this episode, 3 steps to soothe the brutal inner critic,

as an encore episode and really relive my

experience. I tell this journey through a story that

happens at the holidays, wearing my beautiful,

warm, cozy pink bunny jacket, but

not quite appropriate for, like, a black

tie holiday event. And so I guide you through this

journey. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for

being here with me at this time and wishing

you so much love and light. Let's get started.

Welcome. I'm so happy you're here. Today, I wanna share with you

a practice that's really close to my heart, and it's called

mindfulness self compassion. If you are into mindfulness,

you will have come across this concept. As a yoga

teacher and mindfulness guide, I really

encounter many people. And throughout the practices, I just

notice how hard everyone is on themselves. We are

just so critical of ourselves. We're so hard

on ourselves. And if we actually wrote out our

thoughts on paper and how we talk to ourselves, if we

were to use those same words, we would never ever have

any friends if we use those words on others.

Our self talk, our inner critic can be just

absolutely brutal. So I always encourage

ourselves and others to really be mindful, to

really offer ourselves self compassion. And

I had a neighbor, Liz, who's so sweet. She said to me, well, she

didn't really understand what self compassion was. She thought,

well, does that mean feeling sorry for yourself? And I said,

thank you for offering that question up to me because

it just goes to show me that I have a clear concept of what self

compassion is, but not everyone else does. So I would like

to really place this into a practical example.

Just before the holidays, I was invited to a beautiful

evening of music and meditation through frequency

and vibration with Cynthia Konopka. And

she had hosted it at her condo building. And

in her invitation, which was very beautiful, it said,

come for this beautiful evening. She's a violinist

and vocal singer. She says, come for this beautiful

evening. You can have pictures around the tree.

And also during meditation, you may get a little cool, so

feel free to bring a blanket. And if you know

anything about me, whenever I hear cold

and blanket, I think cozy. Because my whole

objective in life is to be cozy. I just like being comfortable.

It's just who I am. So when I heard that, I took it upon

myself to ignore the prospect of

picture taking in front of a tree, and I decided to wear

my new pink bunny outfit. And when I say pink

bunny, it's I love yoga attire. And I had bought

a really pretty, cozy warm pink jacket.

So I call it my pink bunny. So I took it

upon myself to wear that to the occasion. I parked. I

walked into the building, and I was

like, oh, this is really, really beautiful.

And I walked further down the hall and I opened the

room to where Cynthia was offering the event.

And it was absolutely stunning, and it was gorgeous.

And my jaw dropped because all around

me were people, women beautifully dressed

in gorgeous gowns, very well

prepared for a beautiful evening. And I, in

my pink bunny outfit, was absolutely

horrified. I know it's not a big problem in in all the

problems that are going on in the world, but what it did to my self

esteem was a big problem. So

I looked around and I

didn't know what to do. I kinda looked down at myself

and I thought, wow. Linda, you really messed

that up. You did not dress appropriately for

this. But because I had just arrived

and the event was beginning very soon, I couldn't really

turn back, and I didn't wanna turn back. I was really looking forward to the

evening. I really beat myself up because I was

not dressed appropriately nor prepared for this beautiful

event. This is where mindfulness,

self compassion really came into play.

I had to dig deep and say to myself,

Linda, are you gonna be miserable? Are

you gonna bring this occasion and the

glorious event around you? Are you gonna allow it to bring yourself down?

And I didn't want it to because I'm a very positive and upbeat

person. So I thought, you know, I can overcome this. I will just

grin and bear it. I will allow my joy to supersede

how I look. And I proceeded in the evening, but it was

really clear that I was not prepared

for the evening for what it deserved, actually. It was

a really beautiful evening and quite eloquent,

and I felt very self conscious. So this

is the components of mindfulness, self compassion,

which is founded on Kristin Neff's work.

And there are 3 principles. They do not have to go in

any particular order, but these are the three core values

of mindfulness self compassion. And the first one is a sense of presence.

It's a sense of mindfulness. So it's

tapping into what your thoughts, emotions, and your

sensations are feeling without resistance or

avoidance. So it's really being present to everything that's going on within

you. And because I was so unhappy with

myself and feeling so self conscious, as I

said before, I wanted to really label all my

feelings. So I decided not only was I all those,

but I also felt foolish. I felt really

actually humiliated and even mortified to a certain

extent. With naming these

emotions, I love what my other sister says. She says name

it to claim it. And I felt like naming and

labeling these emotions will just allow me

to soften into the mindfulness of them.

So I feel self conscious. So I feel

embarrassed. These are my feelings. What am I gonna do

with them? In mindfulness, we can often

blow the situation out of proportion, which was what I was

doing. My ruminating thoughts, which

often whenever we ruminate our thoughts, it narrows our focus and

exaggerates our experience. So my ruminating thoughts

were like, how could you do this? You knew that when they said

pictures in front of a tree, it could mean that you wanted to dress a

little better. You knew this, Linda, and you did

not act upon it. You chose to focus on what you wanted,

and hence, this is where you are right now. And I was going through all

these ruminating thoughts. Now this was what I was wearing.

But for you, you might find another circumstance that you can relate

to in another area of your life where you're in

an event or at a place where you feel embarrassed for

whatever reason. And this is what I was going

through. Everyone else was laughing and having a great

time. No one else seemed to notice or even care about me except

myself. So I acknowledged that I was feeling bad about

myself. And then I love this next core practice of

mindfulness, self compassion, and that is self kindness.

You know, I knew what I was feeling. It was probably

it was absolutely blowing out out of proportion. So I

wanted to offer myself loving kindness. So

instead of attacking and berating myself for being inadequate,

I decided that I was going to comfort myself, my

bruised ego, and to soothe myself with loving kindness.

My mother, who has since passed, she always

was such an advocate of lipstick. And I realized, wow,

I didn't put any lipstick on. I have lipstick in my purse. Why don't

I sneak to the ladies room? I'll put some lipstick on.

It always made my mom feel better, so it'll make me feel

better. So off I went. I applied my lipstick

and I chuckled. Actually, when I looked in the mirror, I just thought of my

mom and that really warmed my heart. So it really softened the edges

of what I was experiencing at the moment.

In any case, I went back to the party. And, of course,

because I had this new outlook, I was starting to really

enjoy myself and I could let it go. But

then we started walking around and we started

mingling more and I started feeling self conscious

again. And the last component is

common humanity. So I had to remind myself

that everyone makes mistakes and dressing inadequately

for the occasion is not the end of the world. There's much

more impressing issues going on in the world than how I was

dressing. And I felt kinda shallow that I was so concerned

about this. But it was just and this is the thing. This is what I

was going through. I was judging myself. I was going back like a

ping pong ball. Why feeling that like this? It's so

shallow to think like this, but then feeling out of place and feeling self

conscious. So I was really ying yanging back and

forth in this mindset. When I had to tell

myself that feeling embarrassed at the end of the day

is is the least concern I should be really worrying

about because no one else is really gonna remember

or care. I am not my body.

I am the soul within my body. It's not what I'm wearing on

the outside. It's the vibration that's resonating

from from within me. So I began

to really concentrate on being

loving, kind, and feeling part of

this experience together. Because

when I recognize that other people may make

mistakes, I can forgive myself. Wow.

Is that ever hard to forgive yourself? I'm

not sure which is easier, forgiving others or forgiving

yourself. That is definitely another topic I will

dive into on another episode because I think

that's just something worth reflecting upon. But in this case,

I decided that with these three components of being

mindful to all my emotions, really offering

myself loving kindness and comfort and soothing myself, and

reminding myself that everyone makes mistakes. It's really

not the end of the world. I was able to move forward

and I actually had such a beautiful evening. The women

were just so invigorating and uplifting.

My dear friend, Maggie Habida from Photography A

Boutique, she says to me she's a beautiful photographer. And in

fact, she has done all the pictures in my website

and on my podcast. She says to me, oh, Linda.

So you look like the pink bunny. Let's take some photos. And we she took

some just some beautiful photos because she has such a big heart.

And it was just such a beautiful evening. Not only was it

a beautiful evening to be in such beautiful

vibration with other women, but it really

was an experience for me. I

went from happy to sad, from embarrassed

to okay, to joyful to

self critical. I was always going back and forth. And I

thought, well, this is just a really safe

place to practice mindfulness self compassion

among women who are going to support me and love

me no matter what. It was a really beautiful learning

experience, but it really gave me an opportunity to put

into practice what I preach, which is not

always easy because I did chuckle a couple times thinking, if

I was across from my friend who's telling me this story,

what advice would I give her? And you're probably

thinking of how you comfort your friends, how you

comfort people who you care about. The challenge

here or the mindfulness practice here is can

you offer those same words of loving kindness,

compassion, and support to yourself

as you do to others. And my friend and

neighbor, Liz, and that's what I told her. Mindfulness,

self compassion is really being the kind

of human being that is

loving, kind, and supportive to others

as to yourself. Because when we fill our

cup up, we have more to offer others. When we

practice self love, we can be more

kind and loving to others. And that's what a call for love

is. This whole example

is a call for self love, which

could be even more challenging than loving others.

As you move forward, are you going to remember

when you are berating yourself or very critical

of yourself to practice self love.

It's a call for self love by

practicing mindfulness self compassion.

Reach out to me. Let me know examples and stories that have

happened to you. And I support you and I

love you on your journey as I learn

and always continue to remind myself to be grounded

in self love. From my heart to yours,