Silencing Myself

Many people internalise a critical voice. For most people, this voice is the voice of someone from their past; a very demanding parent, an abuser, some sort of important figure from the person's life who has had such an influence that their voice is present and critical of all that they do. I have one of these, and it has very high standards that it expects me to meet, and critiques and analyses everything I experience and try. It has a black and white view of the world: I either succeed, or I do not. There is no try.

It would help me to have this voice go quiet, so that I can do things and be proud of them and not analyse everything I do with intrinsic scrutiny. Unfortunately, it's rather hard to silence yourself consciously without simply causing yourself to be all the louder. Because my critical voice inside me is me - or at the least the person that I think I should be - and so it's not only hugely difficult to shut it up but I also feel like I ought not to do it, like I should be trying to embrace and accept this part of me instead.

Because this has such a huge effect on how I deal with things, nay how I even exist from moment to moment, my psych is considering putting me onto a new form of treatment (on top of my psycho-dynamic therapy) - Mindfulness. Google it and you'll find that it's a meditation-based technique based on a Buddhist teaching. It looks interesting. It also looks like the sort of thing that I've tried in the past and failed, mostly out of trying to learn it myself from a few websites. But I'm excited about it, and we'll see how it goes.