Episode 18
Inner Critic w/ Katie Ford
The inner critic we all have so many thoughts that are flying into our minds, and we don't always feel like we have control over them, and they can often be quite negative towards ourselves.
This week's episode of Mental Wealth, we have the amazing Katie Ford. Katie is a veterinary surgeon turned entrepreneur, speaker and coach.
Join us, as we talk about nurturing self-worth, practical techniques to reframe negative self-talk, and stories of individuals who turned self-doubt into self-love.
Make sure to give Katie a follow and look out for her new book releasing early October.
https://www.katiefordvet.com/buy-books
https://www.instagram.com/katiefordvet
https://www.facebook.com/katiefordvet
To find out more , or to get in touch:
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Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-blackler-1686a121/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPWMpkuAeRq5qkgrxbZsx_g
Want to be a guest on the podcast?
https://2-minds.co.uk/mental-wealth-podcast-guest/
Transcript
Welcome to mental wealth, the podcast to invest in your mind. Here I will help you make sense of your mind and behaviours, giving you the tools to have your best life there is so much to share...
:: ::So let's get into this episode and explore another great topic.
::So welcome to episode 18. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about the inner critic we all have so many thoughts that are flying into our minds, and we don't always feel like we have control over them, and they can often be quite negative towards ourselves.
::And I'm delighted to say that I'm going to share this space and this conversation with Katie Ford. So welcome Katie.
::Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I've loved listening to previous episodes and this is such an important topic.
::Brilliant. So before we start, please introduce yourself, Katie.
::Thank you. So I spent the last 12 years within the veterinary industry. I spent eight of those working in clinical practise.
::And through my own experiences and quite openly and honestly, many of them through trying to navigate in a critic and understanding that instead of having quite a diverted career path which I never saw coming.
::Which led me down the route of training
::As a coach, I'm just doing a Masters degree in emotional wellbeing.
::At the moment and I've started a number of businesses within the veterinary space, supporting professionals with figuring out what's important to them, amongst other things as well. So this is something I'm really passionate about and I talk about on the ground all the time.
::Brilliant, and it's so important for us to talk about it, isn't it? I mean, that's one of the motivations for me.
::To create this podcast was we need to talk about these things so that we can all be like, OK, it's not just me. It's so important, isn't it?
::Definitely, and that was what opened up my whole story, to be honest. Alison was that I used to think it was just me. I had everything externally that I thought that I'd wanted, that I strived for and.
::Inside, I was listening to the inner critic. I had all these thoughts, but I just saw the highlights reel of everybody else on social media, and it seemed they don't listen to this. And it was when I started cheering up with them my.
::On my own social media profiles, and so I'm posting people and kind of almost unmasking that inner critic to say, hey, we've all got one. It does have many similar stories for us and you are not on your own. And I think how quickly that grew as a profile was testament to just.
::How many of us listen to this?
::Yeah, it's so important, isn't it? OK, so let's just think a little bit about the mind.
::Because I think it's really important for us to get a little bit of a sense of.
::Of how it works.
::Even though it's very complex.
::There are things that if we.
::So it'll help us. So one of the things I think it's important to remember is we do have they say on average, I don't know who sat and counted them 60,000 thoughts a day, so.
::where our minds
::Are constantly busy, but what we also know is that about 90% of those are repetitive and that's partly to do with your routines.
::So you might be doing a very similar thing, getting up, having your cup of tea going for a wee. All these things that are going on, it might be.
::Connected to that.
::But we also know that there's a high chance that a big.
::Chunk of those.
::About yourself? Because the human mind is super selfish. It does only know. There's only me.
::And we are quite likely to be hard on ourselves and quite negative. So I think it's really important that we remember that people often say to me, you know, I'm trying to not have as many thoughts and you know that it's not necessarily a goal, is it to have less thoughts. It's not possible. There are thousands of things. Everything we see will trigger some sort of.
::Or everything we hear, everything that we do.
::So it's important to say that.
::We have a.
::Lot. But what we want to pay attention to.
::It is when it's an inner critic, as we're calling it in this episode, when it's not been kind to ourselves and again, human brain is very likely to go down that default button of be negative.
::Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's one of the things that I see quite frequently is when people understand the concept of the.
::Critic, it almost becomes something that we criticise ourselves about being critical of ourselves rather than what we're going to.
::Talk about and through.
::This episode is as being a little.
::Bit more curious as.
::Understanding the mind a little bit more, bringing some more compassion because once you do raise yourself awareness and I'll share a metaphor that I use within a lot of the businesses that I've got.
::In the veterinary space and in a.
::A book that.
::I have too, but at that moment often we go, Oh my goodness, I'm doing nothing but listen to self critical thoughts, which hopefully with that wonderful intro from Alice and May realise.
::But I'm not alone, and it's very common for our mind to have that negative bias. And I know all touching it more likely go through, but at its root, our mind does want to keep us safe. The inner critic wants to keep us safe. It just has some really warped ways of doing that and it.
::Doesn't feel that way in.
::The moment, but hopefully as we talk through.
::This it's really helpful for people listening.
::I think so. So we can get really stuck in that negative thinking and that can come from the past. It can come from things that you've made-up about yourself. It can come from things that you've been told.
::It can come from patterns and habits of our families, of our parents and teachers. Sometimes I hear people who become aware of their thoughts, and they can almost hear that it's somebody else's voice. It's not even theirs. And I think again, it's really important sometimes to separate that too, that two different things. So the brain.
::Does defer to negative, as Katie said, to keep us safe, so it's likely to be like what?
::If the worst case scenario it's likely to do that and we kind.
::Of need it to.
::Do that, but the bit that we want at home in on today is when it's when you're not being kind, you're not being.
::Let you say, curious about well, why am I thinking this? Is it true? What is it that we need to?
::Do so. Tell us a.
::Little bit more about your experience with that.
::Absolutely. I'd love to and I love everything that you.
::Just shared there.
::As well, so as I would say, one of the things that I've found as I talked more about this concept within my own space than further outside of the battery space too is.
::The idea of.
::Kind of criticising ourselves but criticising ourselves and as time went on and I spoke more about highly evidence topics such as self compassion, which there's a wonderful resource from Doctor Kristen Neff, one of the primary researchers that has put out tonnes of awesome content on that you can find, we can probably pop a link in the show notes to.
::Self compassion.
::Too, there always seems to be a little missing link, so I'll share the metaphor that I view. Certainly it may well help some people.
::It might not.
::Be for other people and that is.
::Absolutely fine and probably very briefly.
::Touching on the fact you've.
::Said. Sometimes we think of this as being someone else's voice for some people.
::Thoughts aren't always words or feel like a voice in our mind. Everybody is different. So we'd ask you think.
::About this in.
::The way that you experience thoughts.
::It's not another point.
::For us to criticise ourselves about if you got, gosh, I.
::Don't listen to.
::Our voice. Yeah. Let's take that pressure off.
::So one of the things that I like to try and explain to people is.
::When we first.
::Start reading our self-awareness which is.
::Is starting to notice more.
::What our thoughts?
::Are how we're feeling and checking in with ourselves. It's almost as if we've been handed the keys to our business. So we started to realise all of the inner workings of what's going on at any one time.
::Now obviously it's been hours the whole time, we just didn't know we were in it. We were just going through life. Things were happening, we were reacting or even responding. Sometimes in certain ways.
::Now what what you imagine is there is one employee that works there and you can't make him redundant. He's there forever. He's been there right from the inception of this business.
::And he actually was head of security at the beginning, but all he can go on is the past. So he can go on just like Allison saying things that maybe he's learned as we've been brought up, perhaps things that he's seen.
::Other people do.
::Things that have happened in the past.
::That he's made some.
::Strange conclusion about that makes perfect sense to him.
::From a safety point of view.
::So let's call him Jim. In fact, we'll call him Germany critic, because that is lines up well with him being the inner critic, one of the biggest frustrations I see is people want to.
::Get rid of it when they understand that.
::It exists like.
::I just need this to be gone.
::It needs to.
::Shut up now and I totally hear you. That is you, because that was me when I first discovered.
::It right I.
::Just need to stop ever having negative thoughts about.
::I'll tell you what that's like playing black.
::And more because that always gonna come.
::Up. So imagine we've got Jim, too many critic, hired a security. He's been there from the start and he can only go off what he's learned previously. He's got his whole set incident logs. Things that have happened in the past things that people have said now he wants to keep us safe but he wants us to fit in.
::As well, because that's safety based too, even going back to ancestry, we wanted to be at a point where we had resources so often as humans.
::So I just compare all the time, taking a little judgement of ourselves to maybe get curious as to.
::Why we might?
::Notice ourselves do that, but again, take the judgement off that it's very normal sometimes for us to have a quick look at what everybody else is doing, so he wants us to fit in. He wants us to.
::Match up and he wants us to stay safe.
::Now, if he thought something dangerous based on the past, he has a big button that he's allowed to press.
::And that is essentially the equivalent of our sympathetic nervous system. Our fight or flight response. And I know we'll touch more on this.
::In a minute, but.
::He says right danger we start to feel it. Maybe our heart rates going up.
::We can start.
::Feeling apprehensive or we can feel on high alert and at that point he felt really loud towards.
:: well, there's a flood in the: ::So in those moments, we can't really.
::Hear ourselves think, and I know.
::That many people that listen to other episodes on this podcast and maybe dive into this before will know that when our sympathetic nervous system, our fight or flight response has been activated. In that moment, our body just wants us to get away from the danger or to fight it.
::There is no space for rationality at that moment because first of all, our blood flow has been redirected to our muscles to get us ready to go. But secondly, in the interest of survival, it would make perfect sense. Our brain does not want us to make a pros and cons list about whether we should run away from the sabertooth tiger or not.
::It would like us to run now. We still have a similarly functioning brain in the world of emails as they had however many years back. So understanding that in that moment actually helps us to realise that was focusing.
::On how we.
::Could turn that alarm.
::Down so we can actually hear ourselves think and bring on some rationality means that when Jim is shouting.
::Super, Super Loud, we.
::Don't start trying to.
::Have a conversation with.
::Them or we don't start trying to.
::Beat ourselves up. Oh.
::My gosh, you always criticise yourself so much.
::And we'll come onto that just shortly. But just remember, he said he's just commenting all day long. Like I listen. You said 60,000 thoughts per day. Imagine that employee. I'm sure we all remember one from somewhere that we worked that whenever someone's having fun pipes up and says yeah, but like this happens or don't have too much fun.
::This is going on, so the important thing for.
::Us to remember.
::In this metaphor is Jim, we can't get.
::Rid of him. He doesn't like change because change brings risk. Change brings danger. Change brings the potential for us not to fit in or not to be included.
::So there are two things that people tend.
::To do to deal.
::With them and.
::The first one is the one that we'd say let's not do this one, but it's perfectly normal that people try it at various points, just like I've said, because when I first understand this concept of the inner critic, I thought.
::Please don't ever speak to.
::Me again, I'm.
::Just gonna not positive.
::Only so much in our knowledge is that.
::Jim is trying to tell you.
::That something is dangerous. Something is scary.
::You're going to.
::Do something wrong.
::When you raise yourself around so at first you go well.
::It's not me.
::So I'm not gonna listen to it and.
::You shut him in a room and you say.
::Jim, I am not talking to you, but.
::He is so sure this is dangerous, and even though it's a.
::Really strange and walked away.
::For him to try and tell you it's dangerous.
::He is shouting anything that he can do. He is going to eventually start causing physical damage to the walls of that room that you blocked him in and eventually he'll burst out and see.
::Oh my gosh, won't you just?
::Listen to me. I.
::Really have to shout loud for you to.
::Hear me and to understand.
::Me so as an employee and bearing in mind he's.
::Going to be.
::With us for.
::The rest of our life. Let's consider how useful that feels, because to me.
::It really doesn't feel like it's going to.
::Be a long and useful relationship.
::But the second option is for us to be what I'd call the the compassionate boss, which is supposed to understand that actually, first of all, we can look at turning the volume down on the alarm, remembering the alarms up, fight or flight response is our Oh my goodness, something scary is happening here and we need you to get away from that. And here's realms of what's.
::I mean, what's not is based on the past.
::Things have been told.
::So this would be a really good point on the touch on some of the things that we can do when we are experiencing fight or fight with, we're feeling like a heightened sense because we're listening to these inner critic type stories that you'll have loads of things to share here as I listen and I'll.
::Add in a couple too.
::I think one of the things I think springs to my mind when you were talking Katie is we've absolutely established and it's so important for us to remember.
::That it's normal for us to have these responses.
::Their human brain.
::The emotional response gets involved five times quicker than any logic. That's our first thing. So.
::When we know.
::That it's like OK, I need to settle.
::That bit first.
::And I always.
::Think if you've had a lot of self talk, a lot of inner critic.
::And a lot of fear in your life, I would think of it like an alarm system in your house. We need it for the intruders, but sometimes our alarm systems become very, very sensitive and they're going off for all sorts of things. When the postman pops.
::Something through the.
::Door or the wind blows the blinds and the alarm systems.
::Going off, if you know that that's what it feels like to you and some of.
::These techniques that I share across all these podcasts help us be able to manage that, because that is ultimately all we're trying to do. We can't stop the thoughts, can we, as we said, if we're using Jim as your metaphor, you can't. He's not going anywhere. But what we can do is manage gym or manage that.
::Inner critic and I think that's what's so important for us to remember here.
::Definitely. And I love the point that you made about the fact that so many of these responses are that to be activated are sympathetic, nervous system is before we can even think about it from coming from a medical background as a veterinary surgeon for years, we know it's part of our autonomic nervous system. And part of that is also things like controlling our digestive system. When was the last time?
::Maybe thought gosh I.
::Need to sleep at my intestinal motility? It's not been going fast enough.
::Or maybe it needs to increase the blood?
::Flow to my liver like.
::These are things that happen.
::Without us having conscious thought to them. So this is just a note. If we do something, feel that come up to take the judgement of ourselves because it's not something we chose to do or that we could have.
::Stepped in and.
::Said I didn't want this to appear. It's more like you've said, Alice another. OK, what helps me? What can I do in this moment? Because if we come back to the gym.
::Allergy. That's almost like him saying there's tonnes of danger. I'm just going to press this button at every single opportunity. So the first thing is how can we try and on board some more parasympathetic in part, which might be this?
::Site's coming back to the present moment with mindfulness type activities. Some people like breath work, everybody out there is going to have the opportunity to explore the things that help them as individuals, and I I know you'll likely have lots of resources in the podcast.
::To add to that as.
::Well, Alison, definitely, it's for me. It's about capturing those thoughts, isn't it without.
::Judgement and however you do that, if it is bringing your attention into the now.
::Looking at things that are around you, listening to a piece of music, anything that's going to just give you that moment to just pause and then we want to think about what is it that we are thinking is it helpful? Is it not helpful? Is it part of the plan? Is it something that's so old it's out of date?
::Now and one of the things that I think is really useful is to be able to observe almost that thought and just think.
::Ohh, there's that thought again. Rather than let it take over.
::Yeah, that's it. Just like you say, curiosity of criticism and with the German allergy is when we turn that alarm system down a little bit and we feel able to create that space and just get curious, imagine it's the equivalent of inviting you into the office and saying.
::What was that all about?
::Ohk OK noting it down. That's interesting. Thanks for sharing that we.
::Don't end up down.
::A rabbit hole, so the equivalent of him saying let me play you all these movies about what happened previously. You know, we don't need those. I just. OK. What you telling me? You tell me that I have to keep everyone happy. OK, that's really interesting. Thank you for that. We might feel comfortable enough to.
::Be able to say.
::Where did this come from or who told you that? Because the way that this analogy came to me actually was because when I started a job years and years ago.
::It was a practise. It was a veterinary practise.
::Actually, that had been.
::Owned by a lovely family, they just got a very set way of doing things and they've got a set of protocols laminated and attached to every machine in the.
::Building they.
::Kept the manager. He'd been there the whole time while that family were there and the new boss had come along and this new boss.
::Have a new way of doing things and wanting to make changes now. The old manager was very set in his ways of these are familiar to me. This is safe and this is what we do.
::Both of them wanted good things for the business, but they didn't communicate to you very well in the middle. So it became our frustration from both sides and I sit in the office and I kind of observed this where I knew the manager.
::Really cared about.
::The new boss and.
::Wanted to make sure that she wasn't doing anything that might jeopardise her or the business.
::But the new?
::Manager was like, why is he?
::Still stuck in his ways.
::And actually what we probably needed to do is just.
::Sit and have an open.
::Conversation. So that's kind of what creating this curiosity for me and the analogy that I use is.
::OK, Jim, what's what's happening? What's got? Who told you that? Because often it's from the equivalent of an old boss, an old caregiver. Something someone said to us at some point. And sometimes we need help from someone like yourself or listening to sit down and just say, OK, I'm almost putting a.
::Mediator in here.
::To speak between Jim and me, this is what comes up for me.
::All the time. This is what he says.
::And he's going to.
::Have lots of.
::Shots. You know you should do this by this point. This is what you should be doing in your career. This is what you should valuable or this is what you should value. It's going to pipe up at certain times. You might.
::Find certain things.
::Make him shout.
::Louder for you as individuals, I.
::Know for me if I.
::Drink a lot of caffeine.
::In a critic for me, it's.
::Like he's got a loud.
::Hero. At this point, somebody has.
::Made him extra.
::Loud and certain responses to certain hormones. I know he's something that affects her. A lot of people at different life.
::Ages and actually was just in that down time when maybe Jim isn't shouting as loud or the inner critic or calling him Jimmy analogy that I'm using here. But getting to know us.
::Like what do we want?
::What's important to us, so in those moments where you shouting and telling all the.
::Things that you should be doing to try.
::And get you to fit in, you can sit back and.
::We I hear you, Jim. We're going to have a better conversation about this. I understand. That's what you'd.
::Like us to.
::Do thank you. I'm not shutting you in a.
::Room and shutting you out of the conversation, but.
::This is what?
::We're doing this is what's going to stay.
::The same just.
::As we would do, this might sound familiar to people that have been part of businesses and have maybe managed teams about general change management.
::As well I've just.
::Getting curious what what are the?
::Worries and what are the concerns?
::OK. Thank you for sharing.
::Those remember all these times where things did go.
::Well, and just creating this into a separate character and a lot of people talk about naming being a critic as.
::Being valuable but.
::Realistically, rather than us pushing it away, it's about us just having more useful conversations and sometimes quite rightly, like you said, I listen, you might say that's absolute and utter rubbish. Thank you for telling me.
::That, but I don't need that.
::Day and other times. Yeah. We just got curious because it might be something that we've heard a few times before. Like you said. Oh, here's that loss again.
::Yeah, exactly.
::This is something that comes up a lot. Where could?
::This have come from.
::Yeah, you told me this.
::I think working out sometimes why we think like.
::You do is where the the worth is. You know the thoughts will come, but if we can don't have to dig massively deep sometimes. But just being able to wonder why you do think.
::That sort of I'm not good enough. What is it that's driving that? And that obviously is a much bigger conversation than this, but I think it's just keeping us in mind of we don't have to believe, you know, as Katie said, we don't have to believe everything that we think we can challenge it. We can say thanks very much, but I don't think that's true. Or is that true?
::So where does that come from? Or sometimes?
::No, no, no. I think you know, just saying to yourself. No, no, no. I'm not thinking that I am not going. There is a strategy in itself.
::Yeah, just not today. Stop saying comes up, yeah.
::Not not going into this one we've covered.
::This ground before and I understand why.
::You know, I used to absolutely hate the anarchistic. I used to hate it when it pops up and I think actually, sometimes when we forgive ourselves for hating, it makes total sense that we would because we've listened to it as an equivalent of someone saying horrible things.
::All the time.
::But actually, to understand they're not the message, they're just the messenger. It's just repeating things from previously at some point. And when we sat to understand that.
::We can start to like you said, bring a little bit more curiosity and sometimes just to say.
::Not today. Yeah, I I.
::Hear you.
::But we don't need.
::To because like you said already, I listened to 60,000 thoughts a day. If we were to sit and have a conversation, a conversation with you and a critic about every.
::Single one I've let.
::3/4 of those are in a critical, so half of them these are not exact figures, yeah.
::Get anything done except that all.
::Day exactly. And that's the thing with the mind it. There's a lot of repetition, and for me actually consciously thinking about having thoughts that are useful, healthy, you know, not so that we're not stuck in these deferred negative thoughts. Let's pause. Let's think about something that brings you joy.
::Let's think about things that make you feel happy, make you go out into the garden and have a look at something to think about, cause whatever we're looking at or hearing or seeing.
::Thing it we will create a load of thoughts, go out and make something like that happen so that you have a nice thought about a flower in the garden or the sky or whatever you want so that you can start to challenge that constant ticker tape, yeah.
::There's a wonderful.
::Phrase that I love, which is be a creator.
::So often we can sit and just wait for something.
::Good to appear.
::Like, come on. Something's going to happen at some point, or I'm going to have this feeling about thinking about this and it's going to come and.
::Actually, let's step to the other end of that and be the creator in that because when we step into that role of like you said, with the analogy that I just be the compassionate boss, OK, I hear you, Jim, I understand what your role is in this, but I'm taking the reins of my business back. I've decided what's important to us, how my treating the team, how am I looking after myself?
::And inadvertently with that, everybody else in that team. What's important to us? What do we love doing? I always think of it in this way of, like, employee engagement, in a way too.
::If you've got.
::Gym and every other member of the business that.
::Have suddenly been opened up to.
::What? What am I doing?
::With them, am I going to work them 20 hours a day and then suddenly wonder why none of them want to do the work that they do? Or like you said, I was in my going.
::To head out into the garden and say.
::No, this is 510 minutes or.
::However long we need.
::To create something to check in with ourselves, and often I don't know if you find something about with this concept when you speak to a lot of people with regard to things.
::Like, what brings you joy?
::It kind of ends up being quite polarised in terms.
::Of where I need to go away.
::For the weekend, but maybe this is a challenge to find something.
::In 5 minutes that brings you joy. Not very nice, wouldn't it? Because again, we don't need it to be something that's.
::Time consuming, expensive. You know, for me, the mind is mind literally is. It's like a torch, you know, whatever you are looking at or whatever you point it at, it will bring you a thought. It's an association making machine. So when you look at something, you'll see when you hear something, you'll see something and it's so important to remember.
::You actually have so much more control with your thoughts than you think you do, and with the analogy that he's around, Jim, you know he thinks that he's in.
::Charge of that.
::Business because nobody's had the awareness to have those conversations or.
::Nobody's ever.
::Said, you know, you're not your.
::Thoughts. You're the person underneath list.
::And and when you start to step back into.
::That world love.
::OK, I hear you. And yes, we've talked about the alarm system in that moment. Let's look at the things that help just bring back on board a little bit more parasympathetic stimulation and calm things down. But after that, where are you shining that hotch? Because Jim's got his heart out and he's always gonna be looking for the dangerous things.
::That's his job.
::Yeah. So we can.
::Take the reins back and say.
::You know what, what, little thing?
::Brings me joy. I remember once we.
::Have a huge fish.
::Tank in our living room. My other half is.
::Obsessed with this? He he.
::Loves them and you know, I walked past it every day for years and didn't even think about it. And one day, when I was looking for just 5 minutes of OK, I'm gonna create some joy here. It's that. And he went. I've got an aquarium in my living room and.
::People pay to go to the aquarium.
::Wherever and they just.
::They're here and it's huge. I mean, obviously I'm.
::A veterinary surgeon, so welfare is on points.
::On that side of things.
::Looking to go. This is such a resource in itself. How calming to sit here and to watch them and there will be little things for everyone that we walk past and we become so normal because we've not.
::Shown that light.
::On those things.
::Yeah. And I think that's it, isn't it? You know, trying to deal with negative, especially repetitive negative thoughts about ourselves.
::People get very overwhelmed with. I can't do it because I've always thought like this about myself. I've always felt this way. But actually what we say.
::Getting right through this chat is it's that pausing, isn't it? It's that finding something just to change that track.
::It's like turning the.
::Track into something else and then consciously when you've got rid of that emotional response, think about what is it that you're thinking? Do you believe it? Is it even true?
::Who might it be? And some of the other strategies that you've shared?
::Definitely like you said, I think that's a.
::Huge piece because.
::When there is information out there with regard to touching on some of these topics, often the normal when people try and do that is that normal when the equivalent of the alarms going off and they can't do it at that point, none of us can, because when you're feeling in that heightened sense of awareness.
::We do have.
::What we call cognitive distortions, we.
::Do have like you've.
::Said our thoughts might align with how we're feeling in.
::That moment and the one.
::Is associated on top of the other because we're scared, we're feeling fear.
::Because whatever responses come up at that moment, our mind is just firing more thoughts about why to be fearful. So that's why it's useful for us to look at, OK, how?
::Can I do?
::The things that.
::Help me and.
::Then maybe have those coming to the office. Jim, let's have a chat.
::About this afterwards, but not in that moment.
::Yeah, yeah, I find that frequently. Things like, for example within the industry that I've spent a lot of time in, mistakes are a hot topic. We know that in a safety conscious industry, mistakes are something that seem even more scary cause it can mean life or death. Yeah. At the same time, we've got messages that come along.
::Say we shouldn't make it.
::Or we should grow from our mistakes. We should learn from our mistakes, and often in that moment, when we've made a mistake, it feels uncomfortable. And what we need is some compassion and some kindness, and to treat ourselves as a human. Maybe speak to a friend, do the things that help.
::Us again, we might.
::Be bringing on some of those things that just bring some calm back.
::And then having the conversation when it feels right about. OK, So what are we going to learn from this? How do we grow? Because often that pressure comes to right. We need to learn something from this because this is what we've been told. And that first moment isn't always the moment whistle learning cause it feels uncomfortable. So I think this is a huge piece for us to covering Jen Millers, actually.
::I've been that that pause checking in with what we need, looking after us in our nervous system as well.
::And then looking and reflecting when and whatever timing that is for some people that might be 15 minutes later. For some people, that might be the next day. For some people, it might be two hours and there's not a set time on that.
::Either is a.
::No, but I think it's important, isn't it, to say that managing it in a critic can only be done all the time.
::It's not something you suddenly just wake up and say, right? I'm going to stop thinking like that about myself. As strange as my mind is, I still have thoughts that are linked to my childhood, to things that have been that I used to believe to be true, and I think that's the other thing to remember, isn't it, that some of these thoughts?
::Are still murky.
::So the just in case, I guess it's the gym, isn't it? It's the just in case we might need to pay attention. Somebody might have told you that, you know, don't be too.
::Show off or something as a child and that that thought of I can't possibly be that it's so complicated sometimes. What and where our thoughts come from.
::Oh, absolutely. And like we said, we've also got.
::To live our.
::Lives too. If we wanted to dig into every single.
::Like initiation of a thought, at which point, wherever.
::They anchor down to we'd never.
::Do anything else as well, so maybe.
::Like you said.
::As we do new things that's potentially going to bring up beliefs that we didn't even know.
::That we had seated.
::There. But just like we would do if we're.
::Working with an employee or a.
::Team member, we don't expect that.
::On the overnight with like a light switch and that relationship has completely changed.
::And when we?
::Sit and think about that with the inner critic.
::But I'm very similar to you.
::Always and I've spent.
::I've done a lot of work. I've started to.
::Work a lot on who I.
::AM and what I choose, but at the same.
::Time it still pops up on a daily basis.
::About various things and sometimes.
::That might shout louder than others.
::But it's just like.
::You said curiosity. Compassion. Am I ever.
::Going to get to the.
::Point where I'm like, yeah.
::Seeing a critic piping up this.
::Is wonderful probably.
::Not because again.
::Jim for me has a job to do. He's got.
::To try and.
::Keep me safe and they.
::Do want him to pop up when the time is right? If.
::He could go back.
::To his security job. Please still.
::Do tell me if there's.
::Danger. But like you said.
::Those things that actually are are hurtful, whether that's a conversation we feel able to have ourselves or whether we want to have someone else on board.
::To help us with that.
::That can be really valuable in.
::Itself, but it definitely definitely takes time and patience, I think as well needs to be added in there if we are going to think about.
::Are inner critic and the thoughts that we have about ourselves.
::Definitely. And also I think with time you'll start to get aware about the times when that inner critic might shout louder. And that helps us just to bring a little bit more compassion to ourselves as well. We might know as we're maybe stepping into a new job role at gym or being a critic, we'll have lots of societal stereotypes that the cross referenced to as well.
::Again have been created.
::All the time, as we've been growing up as we've gone through.
::University for some people, through the schooling system might say, Oh well, the people that should be in your role should look like this in this and actually again stepping back and curiously being able to say who told you that where.
::Does this come?
::From and then maybe.
::Even feeling empowered enough to shine a light on some of the people like you that are doing the things that you want to do.
::The top one was that reeducation of saying I hear you and that you think that I don't know. C3 executive should look like this as this, but we're gonna watch this YouTube video about this really inspiring, ****-*** person that has come from a a totally different background.
::And that can be really empowering in itself for us to start to rewrite some of those things too and.
::Just reeducate but.
::Yeah, let's know when that might pop up and and meet ourselves and compassion and understand, understand why.
::If it does as well.
::And I think just to add and when we are able to notice the opposite. So if you, we've all got that inner critic, we're all likely to be saying I can't or I'm not good enough or only any of the thoughts that we can potentially.
::I think something else is so important as a as a strategy really is that when you have been kind to yourself, when you have actually given yourself a break, make sure you pause to celebrate that too.
::Yes, I love that 100%.
::Because the the way that we change our inner critic overtime is not just to, as we've said, fight it and get cross with it is to pause is to think about maybe where it comes from or challenge it say no, not today. I'm not going down that road but then the opposite to that is.
::All the work, it's the.
::The being kind to yourself, it's treating yourself like.
::You would treat your.
::And if we if we spoke to our friends like we speak to ourselves often, we probably wouldn't have any friends.
::So yeah.
::All this is is to be celebrated. If you are able to make that shift, to actually think something good about yourself, do something that's positive towards yourself and it's not just positive thinking, but it is.
::Partly pausing and going. Do you know what?
::I did good.
::There I actually thought of the good thing about myself and pause to notice because I call that the mind gym. It's like you're strengthening yourself all the time and I think that's so important. Isn't.
::Oh definitely. I almost because so often in life we go through on autopilot almost to an extent because when we are cognitively thinking with those logical, rational, aware parts of our mind that it does take energy. So I'm sure we've all been there sometimes where you've got in the car and you've started driving and suddenly you wake up.
::And you're at your destination.
::And you haven't really thought about.
::It and we've kind.
::Of almost gone into that that automatic.
::State of mind and.
::A nice thing to do sometimes if.
::It feels right.
::Is creating a better time to reflect at the?
::End of the day. Like what?
::Did I do for me?
::Today, because some of those.
::Things we haven't consciously acknowledged and that's just further evidence, isn't it for us to say, OK, yeah.
::I did that for.
::Me and that was something that I did that is evidence that.
::I'm looking after me.
::Even if I didn't shine a light on that at the.
::Time when?
::I did it. Yeah. I'm a big fan.
::Of people pausing.
::And I one of the products that I've got is a journal, a three month.
::Journal and it forces you because you're filling in the questions to think about setting your intentions for the day. So again, helping the inner critic, how would you like it to go? How would you like to be? It's not your To Do List and at the end of each day you pause and you think about what your wins were or what went well. And again it's it's it's written with the brain in mind.
::So that you actually do help yourself if you have got a an inner critic. So that's definitely a product that's available. If people feel like it, they would could do with some direction in terms of managing this, this kind of topic that we're talking about today.
::Oh, I love that I'm a huge fan.
::Of January and Aaron.
::Spending that bit of time just to look back over the day, celebrate the wins. One of the things I love to do is to challenge myself, and I do this without my clients to to find the smallest possible one that you would never have chosen to celebrate previously because.
::Again in our.
::Mind, we've got a set of.
::Things that we're celebrating.
::And to be honest, you know, for me for a long time it was probably birthdays, holidays.
::And I don't know Christmas or weddings or something.
::Like that, but actually we always laughed at.
::One of the companies that I run we.
::Celebrate out the dishwasher.
::Everybody I did wanna do it and I emptied.
::It, and it was brilliant.
::And just finding those little things to shine a light on, isn't it? But actually you might not notice before.
::Yes, absolutely.
::Because from a brain perspective.
::It doesn't know the difference between an amazing massive achievement and you're just doing something. It will go along with it. You know, this is the this is our challenge, isn't it? There's the mind does believe everything that we are focused on. So if you are pleased with yourself because you've emptied the dishwasher, your mind will be like, OK, great doesn't have to be a great big degree that you've just passed or a great big piece of work. And I think this is where we missed.
::Fix with the.
::Mind so often because we're so focused on all the big stuff and actually, you know, you'll hear me say in these podcasts, you know, what's the one small thing that you can take and what's the one small thing you can take action on? And I think that in itself, it doesn't have to be something that's if if in this episode there's just been one part of what we've shared, take that.
::And have a go at running with that.
::And laugh out yet small things make big changes as much as quite often we persuade ourselves that we don't. And yeah, it's incredible. I mean, I know you've certainly done this as well, but there is so much science behind what we're talking about here that backs up how true this is. And similar to what you were saying about our mind, doesn't know the difference between.
::Something that we've imagined and something that's happened often. If for example, we got the inner critic who's playing a big movie about what might.
::Happen we can kind of feel similar to the IT did, so it feels very real and like it might actually happen and it might be true, but that can be where having these conversations and creating a pause can be really valuable because I'll tell you the way that I used to have a conversation with my inner critic without really realising there was an inner critic or that any of these things.
::This seat would be.
::A thought would pop up saying, well, what if this?
::Goes wrong and rather than me saying.
::Which is what?
::I do now. Thank you for telling.
::Me. That thank.
::You for making me aware of that. I understand why you might think that's a risk or why I might have done something wrong, but I did the best that I could with what I had in.
::This moment, et cetera.
::At that point I would have.
::Said. Oh gosh, what if that does go?
::Wrong. No, you're right. And I say and then.
::This will happen and then.
::I'd say ohh that would be awful.
::Wouldn't it? And then this might happen.
::And before you.
::Knew it. You felt the feeling as if I was being hauled up in front.
::Of the Royal College about to be struck off because.
::I watched this whole movie about.
::And sometimes it's just almost like yelling cups in a movie to step back and almost do the matrix like 360 round it. What actually is? Hang on one second, waking up and then saying how do I want this to play out? I hear you. And maybe we might check in with ourselves and see, you know, what actually.
::This is a moment where I do need to pause and breathe and come back.
::To this moment.
::Or perhaps this is a point where?
::We say yeah, no, not today.
::That's not happening. Thank you for telling me that could happen. You always tell me that.
::Could happen, yeah. Might investigate that further, but like.
::You said using an understanding that.
::Our mind is fascinating things, and when you understand how they work, it kind of makes sense how they work and we can harness that.
::Yeah, I'm a big fan of that.
::I think to.
::Me a lot of my realisations were because I started to understand that it wasn't just me, it was part of the patterns. Part of the way that we're why it we're all unique. But we've all still got these patterns and I think it's that's why I share these. That's why we have these conversations in this podcast because I want to help people see that for themselves.
::So important. Ohh, thank you so much for coming and creating this episode with me today. It's such an interesting topic and one hopefully that.
::Everyone can relate to and everyone can take pause and think about how are.
::They going to manage that?
::That, you know, chitchat that goes on who, who, who gave us permission for that chitchat, to just click on whenever it fancied.
::Ohh and thank you so much for.
::Having me and.
::I know there'll be lots of fantastic episodes.
::To come as well, but it's.
::Been such a cool conversation and hopefully if people.
::Realise that's what they.
::Listen to, you know, a little less along with that and realise.
::There are things.
::That we can do and obviously support.
::Out there, if people need that.
::Definitely. Thank you. Brilliant. Thank you so much. So in next week's episode, we are going to talk about success and different types of success. What's success might mean for you and my guest next time is Emma Hine. So I'm really looking forward to sharing that episode with you. But for now. Thank you, Katie, for today.
::Thank you for having me.
::Thank you for listening and sharing in this episode of Mental Wealth. Remember, you can subscribe wherever you get your podcast. My last question to you is, what is the one small thing that you can take action on from this episode? Message me on Instagram.
::Or through our website with questions you'd like.
::Me to explore.
::The links in the show.
::Notes. I'll be back with more tools and tips to make sense of your mind in the next.
::Step of.
::The in the meantime, be kind to yourself. Bye for now.
