Your Pathological Critic

Hi. I'm Bill and I'm a blogger. Yes, I blog. After I decided that I wanted to blog I was awaken in the wee hours of the morning by my Superego. That's what Freud called the conscience and Byrn called the inner parent. Flip Wilson called it "de Devil!" I call it the Pathological Critic.
This voice (not audible,of course) is a real turd sometimes. It will tell you all sorts of things that turn your perfectly great day, or night, into a stumbling, fumbling, tossing, turning night or day of self-hate and guilt. The Pathological Critic will criticize every thing about you. "You look horrible. You sound like an idiot. Nobody in their right mind would like you--much less love you. You don't actually think they are going to pick you do you? She hates you. He loathes you. You never win. You are the most unlucky person. How could you think, say, do such a thing? People will be talking about your stupidity for years to come." Everyone, to some degree, has one of these inner loudmouth critics. One of my patients said, "I don't have a Pathological Critic, I have a Pathological Group."
While I was considering the possibility of blogging my inner critic told me that writing a blog would be vain and arrogant. To think that I actually had something to say that was worthwhile and beneficial was ridiculous, he said.
I have heard this terroriser for so many years. I know what he sounds like. And, I also know how to respond. "SHUT UP!!!!!!" I also have gotten very good at not only catching the critic lecturing me or preaching his words of shame and discouragement, I also know how to argue with him. "I am not vain and arrogant. But, so what if I am. A little vanity and arrogance adds spice to life. I would rather be vain and arrogant than guilt ridden and hating myself."
The Pathological Critic is an enemy of self-worth. Remember self-image is how you see yourself. Self-esteem is how you feel about what you see. Self-worth is how you value what you see. If we are going to live happy, content and self-actualized lives, we need to be aware of our inner critic. This critic is not to be confused with our sense of right and wrong, our morality. No, this is our Pathological (sick, crazy) Critic. That inner negative voice that talks crazy about us, to us. Catch the Critic and get good at disputing his/her/their lies.You will be a lot happier when you do. Later.

Don't forget to check out a couple of great blogs that I follow.

THE BIG THREE OF ME: SELF-ESTEEM

Self-image is how you see yourself in relation to everything in your environment. You are not born with an image of yourself. Self-image is discovered, learned and accepted. Messages about you began to come to you while you were still in your mother's womb. After you were born those messages increased, coming from every direction. Parents, grandparents, kin folks, neighbors, friends, television, computer, books, teachers and the list goes on. Your experience with life created some self-messages about how you saw yourself in those experiences. And, you had a lot of feelings about what you saw. Those feelings about yourself are self-esteem.

Self-image is how you see yourself, self-esteen is how you feel about what you see. The mind is a theater and the images your have of yourself are the images on the screen. As you watch that movie you have feelings about what you see, as you would in any theater. Those feelings about yourself are self-esteem.

So, if you have poor self-esteem you generally feel negatively about how you see yourself. Self-image determines self-esteem and self-worth. It would be difficult to feel happy about yourself if you see yourself in a very negative, incapable, incompetent manner. Self-images need to be inventoried and examined in order to know what they are and whether they are true or false.

Your day-to-day emotional state is largely dependent on how you see yourself and how you feel about what you see. Happier people tend to be more happy with how they see themselves. A confident person is generally happier than an individual who sees herself as incompetent and vulnerable. Self-image and self-esteem can be changed for better or worse. A self-confident child can be ridiculed and shamed in such as way as to destroy that confidence. An anxious person can begin to see themselves as competent and capable.

Self-esteem is a critical component of your life and largely dependent on your self-image. It is always a good idea to take a self-image, self-esteem inventory. Making sure that what you see is what is really there and finding if those things about which you feel so negative are actually true. Remember, you can change the way you feel about yourself by changing the way you think about yourself. So, go ahead...do it.

The Langauge of Thinking

Thinking is an excercise of the mind that is both a language and pre-language experience. If you are the curious type you might find the work of Jean Piaget (1896-1980) of interest. This research biologist was interested in how individuals obtain control over their environment through their cognitive (thinking)development.

For a moment become aware of your conciousness. You are now present and you are alert to that presence. If I ask you to think about your presence, what happens? You most likely begin to "speak", i..e. think in your preferred language. And, just what is the content of your thinking? In order to know the answer to that question you must be concious of what you are thinking about. Think about what you are thinking about.

When we practice thinking about what we are thinking about, we become concious of what we are saying internally. This is critical to cognitive management. Language is important because we think in pictures and pictures have names and meanings. These names and meaning are words and words are part of the structure of language.

We can learn a new language, but it not necessary to learn a new language in order to change our thinking. We can change the words we use to discribe our concious experience and using different words changes our perception and interpretation of reality.

So, if you want to change your private world, you can change your vocabulary and use different words to descirbe your experience. Will it change you experience? Yes, because nothing has meaning until you assign meaning to it. No expereince has purpose until you assign purpose to it. And the words you use to assign meaning and purpose generate emotions and behaviors. Think about it.