S08|03 - The Inner and Outer Critic: How Not to Judge Those We Love

We all know the inner critic- that mean girl that can be SO loud sometimes in our brain… “you’re sure doing that weird!”, “you should be different”, “you really shouldn’t have said that”… ya feel me?! We all have it. What we might not have seen before is how it’s connected to our Outer Critic, driving our judgment and spreading shame all over the place. If you struggle with judging, and you don’t want to, this one is for you and me both my friend. 

In this episode we dig into: 

• What the inner critic is and why it’s so strong sometimes
• What the outer critic sounds like ie. Judging others and expectations
• How we can stop the judgment and feel the feels, instead of spreading more “inner mean girl”
• What healing is all about… let’s change the world and stop the shame cycle 
• “Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances” Wayne Dyer… how we can see more good in those we love most

Check out the CREATION ROOM HERE: create and achieve intuitive goals through learning more about feminine flow, self-trust, rest and leaning into manifestation and joy. 

--

Coaching has changed my own life, and the lives of my clients. More connection, more healing, more harmony, and peace in our most important relationships. It increases confidence in any parenting challenges and helps you be the guide to teach your children the family values that are important to you- in clear ways. If you feel called to integrate this work in a deeper way and become a parenting expert, that’s what I’m here for. 

NEW TRAVEL BLOG: HERE
Download the feelings wheel HERE
Get the BOOK HERE: www.coachcrystal.ca/shop
Join the next round of PARENT SCHOOL (waitlist): www.coachcrystal.ca/group
Find Your Parenting Personality: Quiz Here
IG: @the.parenting.coach
Join me LIVE in CALI at Mom University: HERE

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hi, I'm Crystal The Parenting Coach. Parenting is the thing that some of us just expected to know how to do. It's not like other areas of your life where you go to school and get taught, get on the job training, or have mentors to help you, but now you can get that help here.

I believe that your relationship with your children is one of the most important aspects of your life, and the best way that you can make a positive impact on the world and on the future. I've made parental relationships my life study; and I use life coaching tools, emotional wellness tools, and connection-based parenting to build amazing relationships between parents and their children.

If you want an even better relationship with your child, this podcast will help you. Take my Parenting Quiz, the link is in the show notes. Once we know what your parenting style is, we will send some tips tailored to you and a roadmap to help you get the most out of my podcast.

 

Hello and welcome to today's podcast episode, The Inner and Outer Critic: How Not to Judge Those We Love. 

I am excited to bring you this episode; this is actually by request. One of you reached out and messaged me and said, "I have this person in my life that I'm really struggling with judging. I don't want to judge them; I want to just love them…I just want to be present with them when I'm around them. But I have a really hard time not judging them."  

And as I started to think about this topic a little bit more and think about what's underneath all of this judgment, this whole topic idea came to me; and I think it'll be really helpful for them and for you as well.

 

What the inner critic is and why it’s so strong sometimes

So, let's get into it. What is the inner critic? This is probably a term that you've heard of before. Most of us are pretty familiar with our own inner critic. It's basically that little bug, that little wiggling in our ear of like, 'You are not enough.' 

Now, this comes in various forms; it can come in business, it can come in life, it can come in home, it can come in parenting…in our relationships, pretty much anywhere in life. 

And it's anything around the mean girl or boy of self-judgment. This might sound like nobody likes you, your hair looks weird, your face looks weird, you're too much, too loud…you have too big of dreams, you want too many things – or you aren't enough, you should play more, you should rest more, you should work more. 

Right, moms? If you ever like doing one thing, your brain's like, 'Also you should be doing something different, you're never doing enough.' Right? 

You should watch TV less. Why can't you change the things about you that you want to, what's wrong with you? 

Sometimes we try and push away or we try to quiet that voice. Sometimes we try to eat more to get out of that voice…to forget about it, numb it out. Sometimes we watch TV to get out that voice or scroll social media or sleep. 

Sometimes we volunteer more or we overwork or we go really into learning or something…but it's still trying to help fill that gap of enoughness or to forget that niggling feeling that's still down there below under the surface; this is the shame. 

Maybe you didn't call it that before, maybe you just called it the inner critic; but the inner critic really is shame. Some people call it self-judgment, but shame is really what we call it. 

Brené Brown says this, "Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed; and therefore unworthy of love and belonging".

I love that quote so much; it describes so deeply what shame really is. We have these core instincts and needs as humans. And I think our deepest need as humans is connection; we want to connect with others, we want to belong with others. 

And we don't get that when we feel shame because we feel like there must be something wrong with me that's making it so that I can't fit in, so that I can't belong…that there must be something deeply flawed about myself. 

Now, this isn't necessarily happening on a conscious level. In fact, I think most of the time, it's not. And so, sometimes I'll talk to people; and they'll be like, 'No, no, no, I feel really good about myself.' And it takes a little bit of us digging into it to really see that shame is under the surface. 

And the reason I know shame is under the surface is because they're human. And so, if you're human, shame is under the surface. 

Brené does say that she thinks that maybe sociopaths don't deal with this, but I don't know enough of them to know, to know if that's true or not. So, under the surface, I would just presume that if you were listening to this episode that you deal with shame also, even if you don't understand that it's there. 

So, I think part of this episode is to understand; how is it driving things? How is it affecting me, even if I don't necessarily know that it's there and I can't see it or access it consciously? How can I still work through things anyways? 

To be human is to have shame; it comes with all of us. It's that story of not enoughness. It's the void we try to fill. It's like a bucket that we're trying to pour water into it, and we're just pouring and pouring and pouring water. Right?

The water is gold stars and stickers and straight As and job promotions and kind words that people tell us, and people saying how beautiful we are or what a good job we're doing…or validation that we are expecting from our partner, from our friends. 

We're trying to fill that bucket with all this water so that we can finally feel like the bucket is full, that it's flowing, that it's like over enough – but the problem is there's a hole in the bucket. In fact, I often think that the entire bottom of the bucket is just empty. 

And those words, that validation, it just flows right through that bucket; it doesn't stay in, it doesn't fill, it doesn't validate…at least not for more than a second, sometimes not at all. 

I remember being at this Tony Robbins conference before – I might have talked about this story before, but he picked out this lady from the crowd. There's thousands and thousands of us, and he was asking about her dreams and her desires; and she wanted to be a therapist when she grew up, and she wanted to help people. 

And he said, "What's the biggest thing holding you back?" 

And she said, "The biggest thing holding me back is that I think that I don't look like a therapist should look." 

And he said, "What do you mean by that? Like, what does a therapist look like?" 

And she was like, "I don't think I'm pretty enough; I think I need to be prettier." 

Which is interesting because shame is going to tell us each a different message, right? So, mine has never been, you should be pretty enough. 

Mine was always like, people won't take you seriously because you're not old enough, because you're too young, because you're not experienced enough, because you don't have enough-- Not only experience, but also like certifications or degrees or education or experience in general or whatever. 

So, this lady's message from shame to her – specific to her – was, you are not pretty enough to be a therapist. 

And everyone, you could just feel this collective, Ah! Like everyone was so sad and felt so much for her. And Tony asked us all, "Who thinks this girl is beautiful?" 

Everybody cheers and raises their hand. And I'm not saying this just because we were all trying to make her feel better, she was genuinely – from a physical perspective – gorgeous. But it didn't matter that everyone else, thousands of people in this crowd, cheered and waved and whatever…nothing in her changed. 

You could tell; nothing in her visage, nothing in her energy shifted or changed with thousands of people telling her that she was – with Tony, telling her that she was…she didn't take that on, she didn't receive it. 

It was poured into that bucket that has an endless hole and nothing stuck there because this is a belief that she had been holding around about herself, and there wasn't any amount of validation that would change that for herself. 

Brené also says this, "Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change".

So, another problem with this is that it stops us from growth. It stops us from the very growth that we're trying to seek. It keeps us at arm's length from whatever it is that we're trying to reach because it's continuously telling us that we aren't enough…it's continuously pointing out the gap. 

And whenever it's pointing out the gap, the gap is going to feel bigger; it's going to seem not only bigger, it's going to seem insurmountable. 

I think that shame is the ultimate lie, that we're not capable of change. That's the ultimate lie. We can see it in other people, right? We can see that they've changed and that they've grown. 

Even if you look back from when you were like a baby or a teenager or whatever to now…even a year ago, two years ago, five years ago…have you changed? 

Yeah, you have. 

We all have changed, right? But shame tells us that that's not true…that that we're not able to learn and to grow and to change. I feel like it often singles us out…for me, at least. 

It's like, and you are the only one that won't be able to achieve this. I can believe in other people all the day long…like I'm around people, and I feel like I'm able to breathe that belief into them because I can believe in them so strongly; yet when it comes to me, I have such a hard time filling this bucket of myself. 

I think it's also the ultimate struggle in our relationships because we are often seeking for validation from the people around us. We are seeking validation from our partner, from our friends, from whoever we're around to then tell us that we're enough and have us really feel that which we're not often feeling because our brain doesn't just tell us that on its own. 

We're seeking validation at work or with our business, with numbers on social media…like, all of us are deeply seeking that and feeling like it's that empty bucket pouring out at the bottom – even if we don't understand that this is happening consciously. 

We want others to tell us we're enough, but no amount of gold stars and badges are going to give us this; our brain needs to have it be given to it intentionally by us, it has to be us. We have to be the one that gives ourself this gift.

 

Hello. Hello. I wanted to pause this little episode for a tiny little announcement that I want to make sure you do not miss; I created a new offer just for you, it's called The Creation Room. 

It's all about this work of becoming into ourselves…of intuition of; what do I want to create? What do I desire? How do I be more myself? How can I be more enough and give myself the validation and love and acceptance that I want? How can I belong more to myself? 

If this interests you, if this work interests you, scroll down to the bottom where there's the show notes and you can find information about The Creation Room or you can email me or Instagram me…it's [email protected]. 

And also, if you are in the California area, the end of April, I will be coming to speak on a panel live with some other really amazing experts like Ralphie @SimplyOnPurpose. She's an awesome parenting mentor. So, I would love to see you there. 

Send me a message. I will also have a link down below about-- it's called University for Moms; you can come join me there as well.

 

Now, back to the episode. This is what my entire life's work is. This is really what I do in coaching. 

When people say like, "Oh, you do Parenting Coaching?" 

And I'm like, 'Yeah, I--' It's not-- It's so much more than like, okay, it's parenting coaching. It's like what is really happening under the surface? Why am I triggered what's happening in this relationship with my child and with my partner and with the people around me? It's my life's work in all aspects of our life. Not just parenting to uncover what's really going on under the surface. 

 

What the outer critic sounds like. ie. judging others and expectations

But today's episode isn't only about that. And yes, we'll get to what will help; I will get to that near the end, but it's also about how it affects what I'm calling our outer critic. 

I just came up with that idea over the last week; that phrase just came to me, and I was like, 'Yeah, that really is what it is.' Our inner critic affects our outer critic. And in fact, they're both two sides of the same coin. 

So, this is what the outer critic sounds like; they should do more, they shouldn't talk so much…why do they do things that way? They should do it a different way. 

Why don't they just listen to me? I know better. 

They shouldn't dream so big. 

Or perhaps, 'They should dream a little bit more.' 

They should parent differently. They should live differently. They should make different choices in their life. They should believe differently. They should look, feel, be different. They should fold laundry differently. They should clean more, they should work less. 

Or maybe, 'They should work more.'

We all have judgments of other people, right? Does any of this sound familiar? You can fill it in with whatever judgments you have about the people around you; we all have judgments about the people around us. 

But there's something that's interesting about this; it's not just judgment…it's this outer critic, and it's connected to the inner critic. So, what is happening under the surface? 

I invite you to ask yourself, why does it bother me so much that they're that way? What about them bothers me or what about them triggers me? What about them being this way or not being the way I want them to be, bothers me so much? 

Every single time that I've ever done this, I have found that my inner critic is under the surface driving the judgment. It's holding the reins, it's driving the car, it is pushing everything that's happening; the inner critic is driving the outer critic.

The shame that I feel under the surface, whether it's subconscious or not, is creating more shame because I am adding to other people's judgment. I'm judging them…I'm adding more shame; I'm like taking my shame, and I'm like picking it up and I'm throwing at other people. 

This is the visualization I actually have now is that I'm like, 'Oh, whoa, I just grabbed that shame from them…Am I going to put it down or am I going to throw it all over the people that I love, and throw it back to them also?' 

It's not happening consciously, but I can guarantee you it's happening. And I have-- Now that I've been so much more aware of this happening, I see it all the time in my life, all day long.

 

Outer Critic examples

I'm going to give you some examples. 

 

Example 1

So, this is literally just last night; all day, pretty much yesterday my mind was just reeling on all of the different things that I wanted, JD, my husband to do differently. 

First, it started with cleaning and just helping out around the house. And for the few days before that, it was more like I felt like I was the only one helping putting the kids to bed…and it was just like all me and I was getting no help at all and, why wasn't he helping? 

And then yesterday, it started more with like, well, also like cleaning and also just taking care of things around the house…and then it kind of developed into homeschooling. 

Like I asked him to do something, and he didn't do it – or, at least, it didn't happen in the way that I wanted it to. And I just got so frustrated. I really just flipped my lid internally. 

I said something, I don't even know what it said, some short phrase that was mean; I'm sure. And then I stormed off; and I came back into the room a little while later and just kind of sat down, and just breathed and didn't really say anything. 

And this is how I kind of uncovered what was happening; because in that moment it was all the outer critic…in that moment, it was literally every single tiny thing that he was doing different or wrong, and how I wanted him to change it – and how he wasn't supportive with our homeschooling and that he needed to be doing more around that, and more to help the kids and more to help me and all of the things. 

There was just so many little things that were scrolling through my head. 

And so, the question I asked myself was, why am I so frustrated right now? Like, what about him doing that way-- If that is all true and good – like, he's not doing what I want him to do – what about that is bothering me so much? Why is it bothering me so much? 

And under the surface, I could tell that I was like, 'Well, I want him to change. I want him to support me more. I want him to do this and this and this.' Like, there were specific things that came up. 

And then under that, I could tell, it's because I am feeling unsupported. 

And if I'm feeling unsupported, I'm also feeling unloved and unseen…unheard. 

And if I'm feeling unsupported, unloved, unseen and unheard, why is that? 

Maybe it's because I'm not enough, because there's something wrong with me. 

There was also some not enoughness that came up with homeschool that I was like, 'Well, if I need more support with the kids and they're not getting what they need, it's because I'm actually not giving them what they need.' 

It actually came back down to a me problem inside. This is unconsciously right underneath the surface…that I'm not actually doing enough for them, that I am failing them and maybe they are failing because of me, and maybe I'll never do good enough in homeschooling or whatever. 

That how they do, how they succeed, what they achieve or they don't achieve has to do with me. This is all under the surface. This is all boiling up into that frustration. 

And as soon as I could dig down to I'm not enough, I'm not doing enough, I'm unsupported, I'm unloved…those were the beliefs that pulled the sadness for me. My frustration immediately diffused. The frustration was gone and the sadness just held. 

I felt it so deeply and so strongly, so strongly that I started tearing up as I was sitting there in the living room and everybody's just doing their own thing. I don't even know if they were noticing me, but I was like, 'That's it, that's the sadness. There you are. Hello, sadness. Welcome. Be here with me.' And I just sat there in the sadness of feeling those feelings, of believing that belief. 

Now I do want to mention that there was still a conversation to be had around expectations or boundaries – or what I wanted and how we could, you know, coordinate and collaborate and make things different so that I could feel more support physically…but that conversation will be completely different because I'll have a completely different energy about it.

It'll be a different energy, a different emotion; and it'll be an entirely different conversation than if I'd gone into it, you know, blazing fire of frustration.

 

Example 2

I'm going to give you a few more examples. My daughter, she is seven, she would totally flipped out – again, last night…this is later on, this is like hours after this other one. 

So, she's freaking out, she's screaming, yelling…she's screaming so much that I can't even understand her. She won't tell me what's-- She won't let me in the room. Like she won't even-- Anytime I even tried going in the room, she was just freaking out…so I just let her be. 

In fact, she never ended up talking to me about it at all. But my husband went in there and was able to talk to her; and eventually, she was able to calm down enough and cry and be sad. And whenever she gets to this space, she always gets sad about lots of other things too…like, 'I'm sad because I miss my friends' and 'I'm sad because I miss this stuffed animal that I lost'. And all of her sadness comes out and she just releases that, which is great. 

But while she was talking to him, what came up was she was-- because all of her madness was directed towards me. She was just thought I was like the worst. And I didn't know what had happened. Like honestly nothing had happened, so I couldn't figure out why it was that she was so mad. 

And I was like, 'Let me talk to her about it because she's so mad.' What had happened was I was hurrying her up to go to bed. I wanted her to go to bed because it was late and everybody wanted to read before bed; so, I was like, 'Please hurry up, come upstairs, let's go, let's go.' 

And I started reading the book that they wanted to read while I was on my way up the stairs. So, they were following me up the stairs as I was reading the book. Well, she had been folding a card for her dad because it was his birthday; it is his birthday today – so she was making this yesterday. 

And she wanted to give it to him and she wanted to be perfect; she really liked it to look the way that she wanted. And as she was folding it because she felt rushed and because she felt pressure, she messed it up. 

And so, she actually felt shame herself. She felt frustrated and mad that she had made a mistake; and that frustration was taken out outwards, right? That outer critic of like, 'You shouldn't have pressured me. You shouldn't have rushed me. You're the one who made me make-- make this mistake, this wouldn't have happened without you.' 

 

Example 3

Last little story here. My son, one of my teenagers, has a hard time with writing – physically writing, typing things out, just really being able to communicate…communicates really well verbally, but being able to like put that down on paper in any form really. 

And one of the things that we do while we're traveling is this journal. We keep a journal of like…this is where we went, and this is what I liked about it, or what I didn't like or what I noticed or whatever. 

And so, we've been doing that process this whole time. And so, he sat down to journal; and he was just so frustrated, and he's often frustrated when he sits down to journal. And I have not been able to figure out a way to help and support him in this way because he just gets so frustrated…and then he just hates it, and it usually doesn't work out well. 

And so, this time I kind of sat down and was just like reading through what he had written and a lot of it is like, 'I don't know what to write' and 'This is dumb' and blah, blah blah. 

But I noticed there was a few phrases in which he had written that I noticed the shame in…like shame towards himself – not just outwardly frustration, but I could tell that was shame towards himself. 

And even though he couldn't consciously understand that that was what was happening, I could see under the surface…oh this frustration is actually coming from shame, he feels bad that he's not able to communicate in the way that he wants to, that he's not able to easily think of what it is that he wants to think about – say it in the way that he wants to say it, and type it out in the way that he wants to type it out. 

And even as I started to talk to him about this, he had a hard time understanding that that's where the frustration was coming from. I still don't think he totally understands, but I can see it so clearly now, every time we sit down to do journaling, that the frustration immediately ensues. But it comes from the space of – I believe – of him not feeling like he's enough in this area.

 

Okay, so, do we kind of see how the inner and outer critic are connected? Right? So, my child that didn't like writing…outwardly, super critical – really frustrated at everybody else around him. 

Same with my daughter when she was freaking out too; it was all outward at other people. 

Same with me; when I was frustrated at my husband, it was like outward towards other people. 

And this can be anybody in our life. Like these are just examples that I gave you to help jog your memory of like, well, who is it that I criticize? Who is it that I judge? Where do I want things to change in my life? 

That will hopefully jog your memory as to like, who it is that you feel like you are judging. 

 

How we can see more good in those we love most

"Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances", that's by Wayne Dyer. And I would add, the good at all.

I don't think it's just physical appearances; it shades everything that we see. It only allows us to see what we don't want to see. 

Another thing that frustrates me a lot and has been frustrating me my entire travel journey, is my kids' reading. Which I know if you're listening to this, you're like, really? Your kids are reading, shouldn't you be happy about them reading? 

No, they do it all the time. We'll be like at the Eiffel Tower and they'll be sitting on the ground – not even like looking in the beautiful view – and they'll just be like reading their freaking Kindle, and it just drives me bonkers. 

It has been four months. And the more I think about it, the more I get frustrated about it…the more I get stressed about it, the more I feel pressure about it, the more I see that that's what they're doing. Right? The more I notice it in all areas where in until I'm at the point where like, 'This is all they do, they don't care at all about what we're doing.' 

Like I'm sure there's lots underneath this too; I have not-- I've not dug down to the root of this one, but I'm sure that there's something there for me. 

But I just want to mention too that it prevents us from seeing the good that lies beyond the appearances of what's happening. 

So, we are out in the jungle for this really crazy giantly wild day – where we saw huge monitor lizards and monkeys were fighting over our heads, and it was just wild…held scorpions, it was crazy. But what I wanted to say about that was we sat down for lunch and we had this guide that was helping us for the day, driving us around and everything. And he was eating lunch with us. 

And as soon as he sat down, he was like, 'Wow, your kids are so good.'

And I was like, 'Okay, what's good about my kids?' 

And he was like, 'They're reading. So many people, I don't see them read…they just sit and lay around and swim and go to the beach – and they don't care about reading, like nobody reads.' 

And he saw it as such a good thing. He thought it was awesome that they were reading. And I just thought it was so fascinating because just that day, it was bothering me so much that they were reading. By the way, they weren't even reading that much that day because we were like gone all day. 

But still, my brain still was like, 'Oh, they take every moment they can to read, why?' 

You're probably listening to this and thinking this is such a silly thing to be frustrated about, but that's what I've been frustrated about lately. So, there's a little insight to my brain. 

But it was interesting because what he saw and what I saw was completely different, right? He wasn't judging them. So, he was able to see the good…because I was judging them, it prevented me from seeing the good, which I know there's so much good in there also.

 

How we can stop the judgment and feel the feels, instead of spreading more “inner mean girl”

So, how do I stop criticizing or judging people that I love? That was essentially the message that was messaged to me was like, I don't want to judge this person, I don't want to criticize them…I just want to be able to love and support them, but I find it really hard to do. 

And if you are finding it really hard to do, they probably know you are too. 

And you don't even need to be telling them that you judge them; they can feel it. 

Have you ever felt that from people? Like, I know-- I know literally every person that's judging me if I'm like around them and I can feel it from them and I'm like, 'Oh yeah, okay, yeah, there's-- there's something judgy there.'

And they don't even have to tell me; they don't have to say anything, there's just something about that energy that we can feel. So, even if this person in your life doesn't know outwardly that you're judging them, they probably still can feel it a little bit within that energy there.

 

Ask yourself, what is bothering you so much?

So, I'm going to give you two tips, number one – this is a journal prompt – what is bothering you so much? What is bothering you so much about that? I want you to think about in a dream world…what would they be like? What would they do? 

Anybody can do this. I want you to pick one person that you can do in your life and then you're going to write it out in a journal; this is going to dig out all of our expectations. 

Expectations always lead to frustration all the time, especially around other people because we can't control other people – and we want to and we can't. So, we're just going to write down…in a dream world, what would that look like? 

Oftentimes, when I've noticed that my clients have done this and they come back to me, there's so much learning just in this alone because they notice, 'I actually have really high expectations of this person. In fact, I might have higher expectations of this person than what I'm actually doing.' 

Which might lead us to the second part where we're going to talk about, what's bothering me so much about this – but also just noticing, what's there? Like, what expectations even are there? What do I want them to be like and do? And, are they like that? And also, is that ever going to happen?

Hey, I want you to also go back through that list when you're done. And I want you to think about looking at through eyes of learning, not eyes of shame. 

So, when I look back through that list of eyes of learning, what do I notice? What sticks out to me about that list? 

What sticks out to me about those expectations that I have around them, the judgment that I have? 

What learning is there for me about this? 

 

Ask yourself, what is under the surface here for me? What would change if they change?

Number two, what is under the surface here for me? What would change if they change? 

So, in that dream world – if we waved a magic wand and they were entirely changed and new and doing exactly what it is that I hope that they do – what would I be able to feel and think about me? 

How would I then be able to show up in the world? What beliefs would I have about myself then? What would be different for me there? 

So, wave a magic wand, they're completely different; and then, what? 

Am I able to be calm and present and loving for them in a different way than I don't feel like I can now? Because maybe that's the frustration, maybe that's where the shame is, but there's going to be something under the surface. Beliefs what I have about myself there.

 

What healing is all about… let’s change the world and stop the shame cycle

What healing really is, it's recognizing our patterns, right? It's just noticing and becoming aware. It's awareness, presence – learning and change comes over time, and being open to that change. 

So, all I want from this episode is for you to understand like; what is really happening under the surface? What patterns are actually there? What's really underlying this behavior for me? 

"Shame cannot survive being spoken. It cannot tolerate having words wrapped around it. What it craves is secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you stay quiet, you stay in a lot of self-judgment", Brené Brown. 

I love that first part – shame cannot survive being spoken – that is why we do this thought work, that's why we dump it all out, that's why we speak it, that's why we write it out…that's why we do what we do in therapy, in coaching, in any of this healing work is so that we can get it out of ourselves. It needs to be spoken. It needs to be written. 

And I'm not saying like spoken as in like let me tell you all the things that are bothering me that you do, that's not the kind of speaking I'm talking about. But going back to the number one and the number two ideas that I gave you, writing those out, you can even speak them out loud – not to them, but just in a room to yourself. 

Speak it, listen to it…let the learning that is there, come in, let it out – repeat it. This is healing. 

The last thing I want to leave you with is; healing is remembering. It's remembering that you are never broken in the first place, you are whole, you are loved…you are worthy of love, belonging, and deep connection by yourself first. 

I hope that helps my friends, see you next week.

 

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to help spread this work to the world, share this episode on social media and tag me – send it to a friend, or leave a quick rating and review below so more people can find me. If you'd like more guidance on your own parenting journey, reach out.