“You are not good enough.” “The others are better.” “You are making a fool of yourself.”
You know this voice, don’t you? It is always there, commenting on your every step, questioning every decision.
Recently, a client told me: “I can no longer distinguish between my thoughts and this voice. It has become so loud that I can no longer hear my own opinion. I don’t know who I am when it is silent.”
Your inner critic is not your enemy – even if it feels that way. It is an overzealous bodyguard who wants to protect you from anything that could go wrong. From rejection. From disappointment. From the risk of being hurt.
But where does this voice come from? Often, it is not your words that are speaking. They are the voices of your past: “Try harder.” “You’ll never make it.” “Don’t be so sensitive.”
These sentences have been burned into your subconscious and are now running automatically.
In hypnosis, we can separate these voices from each other. Which one really belongs to you? Which one is just an echo from childhood? One client realized: “That’s my father’s voice. He was afraid that I would fail, so he constantly criticized me. Now I criticize myself.”
We are working on transforming the inner critic. The judge becomes an advisor. Instead of “You are too stupid,” it says: “Here you could still learn.” Instead of “You’ll never make it,” it says: “This will be challenging, but doable.”
The key lies in self-awareness. You learn to observe your thoughts without identifying with them. You are not your thoughts – you are the one who perceives them.
One client said after the treatment: “The voice is still there, but it has become quieter. And I now also hear other voices – the ones that encourage me, that believe in me. I didn’t even know that one was there.”
That’s exactly what it’s about: Re-conducting the orchestra in your head. Not silencing all voices, but finding the right volume.
Your authentic voice should set the tone – not the fears from the past.
Do you recognize yourself? Has your inner critic become too loud? Then get in touch with me. Together, we will find out which voice is really yours and how you can strengthen it.
Image by AMIT RANJAN via Unsplash
