If It's Perfect, Why Can't I Say Yes!?

It was perfect. Everything we've been looking for in fact. Acreage for my extreme yearning for homegrown food and flowers again, A HOT TUB!!, the whole shebang.

But there was this voice inside that was saying, "that's not it, that's not it." Confusing, I tell you!

We've been on this home hunt for a while now. We've been searching and intending. Believing and manifesting. Calling in with faith and hopefully grace. And then, here was this opportunity. On paper it checked out but emotionally it didn't.

And we both felt that way. Something was off but it was impossible to name. It's scary. It's scary to trust my gut on this one. I hear my inner critic coming up with lots of doubt and despair now after I've courageously claimed my truth. My inner critic is having a field day in the midst of my experiment. But I'm committed. I want to see where this journey takes me. Because, if ME, someone who preaches about listening inward, gives up here and now, how can any of us be courageous enough to keep going and listening to the voice in our hearts who have this higher wisdom? So I'll keep going toward my higher self, toward a feeling that is resonant, toward a YES on heart, body and soul level.

I know many of you experience examples like this in your day to day. Where your life checks out so well on paper. All the boxes checked and appropriate. All the should's in place. Everything "should" feel good and be OK. But still it's just not. Something is still off. Something within is working to get your attention and lets you know almost daily or at least weekly that though on paper, it's all good, inside it's not. You're always overwhelmed or forgetting things. Living in a fog or in a state of low grade angst. Regularly living your life by the approval of your never ending, never approving to-do list.

Are you willing to listen in? Are you willing to pay attention? Are you willing to practice courage to find what is your match and your truth even though it's all working out on paper? Are you willing to hear what might be unheard as of yet in your heart?

I'm beginning to see what a sleuth I am. You know how sometimes when you're chatting with a girlfriend you can hear her issues and the solution SO OBVIOUSLY but she can't hear it or see it at all? That's the role I play with people's inner critics. I sleuth them out and introduce them to people who have been living with them forever but HAVE NO IDEA!!! I can tell you inner critic is why you might feel off everyday. Inner critic is why it's important to live what checks out on paper but not necessarily in your heart.

Can you begin to sleuth out a voice inside that's not even really your own? That loves to criticize you for taking care of yourself? For not doing enough? For not making enough? For setting boundaries? For being authentic and vulnerable? When you notice this voice, you clear the way for your gut, intuition, higher self to help you find resonance in body, soul and heart.

So I'll wish you luck in sleuthing out the voice that's keeping you "off" and wish me luck on following my heart guidance toward home sweet home.

She Has Me Living In Fear

You can be such a bitch.
You should have been more accommodating. 
You're going to majorly miss out.
You're just not well.

Yes, yes, yes.  The familiar rhetoric of my inner critic. When I believe it, I feel shameful and shitty.  Wrong and unworthy. 

Let me make sure we're all on the same page here about what the inner critic actually is.  You know that part of you that is saying and thinking things about you that YOU WOULD NEVER think, no less say, to ANYONE ELSE in the world?  Yup, THAT'S your inner critic.  That part of you that LOVES to show you that you aren't worthy of love or having your needs met, that you should be doing a ton more than you're doing, that you have made and will make tons of mistakes.  Sound familiar yet?

Yup, THAT'S your inner critic.

It's fair for me to say that there isn't a client (or really woman) I've met that doesn't have this inner critic voice LOUD and CLEAR in their experience most days.

I can hear it clearly when I hear my lovely clients saying things like "I should have gotten this done sooner but I'm so slow at everything." or "I did everything wrong.  I said the wrong things and acted the wrong way."  or "If I would just stop freaking out all the time, maybe I'd be able to handle this all better."

Why we think being cruel and belittling to ourselves is acceptable is really starting to baffle me.  When we believe the Stories of our inner critics we generally feel anxious, hunched, small, scared, much less than, way not good enough, wrong and unworthy.  

OK after reading that don't go get down on yourself for having this inner critic voice in YOU.  THAT WOULD JUST BE YOUR INNER CRITIC TALKING ANYWAYS!!! We ALL have it.  So let's start making peace with it now. We all carry around this ego that's trying to separate us and show us how much harder we need to try, how much smaller we should be, how much quieter we should tone down our needs.

As soon as I learned my inner critic, her voice and demeanor and the feel of her in my being, I noticed that I didn't necessarily have to listen to her in the same way anymore. 

I stopped taking everything that she had to say about me and to me for face value.  I started questioning her a lot more and I've seen some big shifts in me. Now when I'm feeling low, I actually look around my life for her and generally see what's happened to get me to this low point.  It's usually that some situation has occurred that I don't feel great about and my inner critic is there scaring the crap out of me and then I feel worse and worse and worse. 

This shift has me so at home in my body and my being.  My confidence and love for myself is at an all time high.  My trust in the flow and unfolding of my life is feeling amazing and I'm making many decisions based on what my inner compass says instead of my fears and doubts.

I want you all to be on the lookout for your inner critics this week.  You'll know yours is active when you feel "off," when you feel bad about your words or actions, when you want or need something but feel wrong for wanting or needing it.  When you put yourself down in any way at all.  

Be on the lookout and when you meet your inner critic, know it's just an old friend who you're ready to change your relationship with.  

Awareness is the first step to any transformation!

---

---