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It is common for people to have a harsh inner critic that is debilitating. The inner critic often produces feelings of shame, deficiency, low self-esteem, and depression. It may also cause self-doubt and undermine self-confidence.

How do you silence the voice of self-diminishment? How do you deal with it in such a way that it does not paralyze you, or further amplify the sense of diminishment you may have?

People can tell you until you turn into a frog that you are a really great person and that there is nothing to be ashamed of, or feel worthless about, but these well-intended encouragements only make a difference as long as the conversations last. You can use affirmations and tell yourself that you are a wonderful spirit, but the affirmations do not always work or continue to have a lasting effect, and may give you the experience that they do not truly speak to the essence of your being. It often occurs that the true sense of who you are is wrapped up in a language of diminishment.

In my opinion, it is time for a new approach, a new way of talking about your life that makessense; an approach that lets you recognize your true nature, not an approach that defines who you are and labels your predicament.

In this blog I share with you my own struggle regarding how to silence the voice of self-diminishment. I share with you how I came to realize that what truly sets me free from someone’s opinion is discovering what is true for me.

Unfinished Conversations with Life

When I was six years old, my mother used to buy me clothes from “Maison de Bonneterie”, the most expensive clothing shop in Amsterdam. When she came home from her shopping spree she dressed me up like a doll. The clothes came in a flat rectangular cardboard. The clothes were placed in layers separated by fine transparent paper. I can still feel the texture of the box and hear the sound of the fine paper, each time my mother took out a new set of clothes to show to me. Most of the clothes I did not like. She used to get very upset and angry with me and I remember her saying in an agitated voice:

“Wiet! (my nickname), you are ungrateful!”
“How ungrateful you are!”
“Mummy does not find you sweet”
“I am doing so much for you”
“You cause your mother a lot of grief”
“How could you behave like that towards your own mother!”
“You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“Don’t you see that you cause your mother grief!”

This conversation pretty much sums up how I felt about myself during the period of my youth. This conversation is still what is hanging around in my awareness as a random voice that pops up many times during the day.

What I wanted to say to my mother was:

“I don’t like these clothes!
“I like a cowboy hat!”
“I don’t see myself as ungrateful”
“That is your opinion”
“I stick to what is true for me”
“I just don’t like these clothes” 

The random voice is remnants of real conversations that took place at some point in my life. Part of the space that I call my inner reality is occupied with reactions to snippets of conversations I once had with my parents or significant others and these are unfinishedconversations. They are conversations that take me away from being present to life. They are conversations that are keeping me from discovering what is truefor me. They are unfinished conversations with life.

The random voice comes up for me when:
– I am present to possibility
– I come up with an idea that is new or original
– I undertake an action that is outside the familiar
– I am present to the excitement of exploring something new
– I am about to take a risk
– I have made a mistake
– I am relaxed

Most of Your Responses to Life Are a Reaction to the Random Voice, Not a Response to Life Itself.

My reaction to the random voice has been very debilitating over the years, and certainly has stunted my development as a human being. Unrecognized, the random voice was like a virus that had incorporated itself in my being, and this virus showed its head each time I was about to discover what was true for me, or took initiative towards something that felt meaningful to me. My resistance to the virus made it more part of my being. I felt trapped within the boundaries the random voice set for me, and only seldom did I step outside of these boundaries. Due to the nature of the random occurring language, most of my responses to life were a reaction to the random voice, not a response to life itself. My reactions were futile attempts to either deny the existence of what was already occurring in my awareness or trying to change it. Unbeknown to myself, it was my reaction to the random voice that created a sense of separateness and some of the problems in my life, not the circumstances themselves.

I felt trapped within the boundaries the random voice set for me, which for most of us is the story of our lives.

At a very young age I did not understand the nature of these left-over conversations that plagued me and limited me in my self-expression. I engaged with them, tried to figure them out, rebelled against them, and without knowing started to build up a life that was in reaction to the random voice. Each solution I came up with added more to an inner reality that was unrelated to what was actually unfolding in my life and moved me further away from my truenature. The solutions I brought to the random voice created their own problems. I was courageous, but did stupid and silly things. I ended precious relationships. I undermined people. I threw away opportunities that were offered to me. I closed down futures.I undermined myself in maximizing my potential.

In order to avoid the discomfort these random conversations evoked, I started avoiding parts of my life that I actually really liked exploring. The best I could come up with was to challenge the truth of these random conversations, which in fact only strengthened them, and made them more prevalent and persisting in my life. I often felt entrapped in a reality I had no control over. My life felt like living on a slave ship surviving the random voice and having glimpses of what was possible. Sometimes I just wanted to crawl away in a corner and die. I realized that I had built up a life that was a reaction to the random voice, not a response to what was true for me and was actually unfolding in my life.

The questions that occupied me most over the years were: “How do I set myself free from my demons? How do I silence the random voice? What is the thread that would help me find my way out of the labyrinth? How do I stop sabotaging myself? Why am I here? What is human life all about? How do I find authentic freedom and develop a capacity for intention to manifest itself in my life?

The True Sense of Who You Are Is Wrapped up in a Language of Diminishment

When the child is bullied into taking on what the parent is saying as the truth, it now becomes part of his reality and his daily experience of life. Any defiance to what he is now experiencing as part of his reality will only further entrench him in this reality. He is trapped. The agreed reality will plague him like a virus that has entered his system.

Often the random voice appeared as a hydra that stuck its many serpent-like heads up and for each head cut off, it grew two more. I could participate in courses of personal development in Los Angeles, had great weekend experiences, but when Monday morning came along and something unexpected happened, the hydra head of the random voice popped up again and spoiled my new found experience of freedom and enlightenment. At the core of my being, I was still in the grip of the random voice that displaced my sense of togetherness and had an immobilizing effect on me.

I frequently asked myself the question, “why is it that I am drawn to these immobilizing, condemning and diminishing conversations, while in fact I do not want them to be part of my life?” In my most private moments, when I came to “myself,” I could sense the siren-song of the random voice entering my awareness. It might unexpectedly show up in the car when I drove home after a busy day at work in the hospital, when I was relaxed, or even when things seemed to be going well. I noticed that I was drawn to it and I often felt compelled to engage with it. It brought me to realize that the true sense of who I am is wrapped up in a language of diminishment. I realized that what is true for me is wrapped up inunfinished conversations with life that I adopted at a very young age.

Your Solutions often Amplify Your Problems

The solution is not blaming your parents or blaming the unfortunate events in your life that may have led you to resonate with the random voice. The solution is not mobilizing any form of resentment or sense of outrage towards what has been occurring in your life. The solution is found in becoming aware of what you are doing on a daily basis that keeps feeding the hydra of the random voice to show its head. The solution is found in changing your habits in how you relate to your occurring world, moving away from engaging with the random voice, trying to understand it, figuring it out, or trying to “solve” the problem, towards letting it be and allowing for it. I am not talking about surrendering to it. Allowing does not mean surrendering. Allowing means that you let be and withstand the discomfort the occurring reality may give you, until there will come a moment that you are longer in a place of reaction, and see it for what it is.

The problem with your response to the random voice is that anything you come with up is a reaction. You are not conversing in the domain of your truenature. You are not responding from the totality of your being. You are not in a place where you can see what is true for you. The only way to get the virus of diminishment out of your system is to let be and bring yourself to a place where you can see the truth for what it is. The only way for the fly to find its way out of the bottle is to discover what is true for him.

Discovering What Is True for You Is What Sets You Free from Someone’s Opinion 

When I let be, and I hear the sound and fury of the random voice, I am stunned by its repetitive, random and sometimes tyrannic at nature. In my journey of unwinding myself from the random voice, I came to realize that ultimately what haunted me and grabbed my attention came down to just someone’s opinion that was expressed to me at some point in my life, nothing more and nothing less. In addition, during my journey of allowing and discerning the truth, I came to realize that a person’s opinion expresses an aspect of them, not me. It has nothing to do with me. When a person expresses an opinion, it says everything about them, not me. I came to realize that even if a person is invested in their opinion, really “means” what they say, it is still their opinion and says everything about them, not me. A person’s opinion defines their presence, not mine.

Someone’s opinion only sticks with you when you take it on as the truth, rather than asking yourself what is true for you. The moment you start asking yourself the question whether what someone is saying is true or not, you are hooked in the reality it creates. What matters is letting be, allowing for what was said, and asking yourself the question, “what is true for me?” What sets you authentically free from someone’s opinion is letting it be, and discovering what is true for you.

The only appropriate response to someone’s opinion that still lives on as the random voice for you is:

“Thank you for expressing your opinion”
“I don’t see it that way”
“This is your opinion”
“It expresses your reality”
“I decline to take it on as my reality”
“I know what is true for me”

It is not recognizing that something that someone said is untrue that sets you free, but discovering what is true for you is what sets you free from someone else’s opinion.

You Can Only Discover What Is True for You from a Place That Is True for You

People can talk to you until you turn into a frog and tell you that you are a really great person and that there is nothing to be ashamed of, but until you get this insight in the domain of where you are that you are, the message will never get through to you. This is the universal dilemma of what it is to be human. This is not what psychologists teach you, or what any medical doctor would tell you. It is time for a new approach, a new language that lets you talk about your life in a way that makes sense; a language that lets you recognize your true nature, not a language of description that defines who you are and labels your predicament.

The moment you engage, react to the random voice, you are no longer in a place where you can recognize what is true for you. The moment you make an effort to alter or deny the existence of your occurring world, you no longer are present as the totality of your being, and therefore are not in a place where you can see with a clear vision. What lets you see the truth of what is, is allowing for the totality of your being.

Awakening to your true nature is how you set yourself free from your demons. You are then in a place where you candiscover what is true for you. The only way to take yourself out of the realm of the reactive mind, back into the domain of your true nature is by letting be and allowing for what is occurring for you. You are then in a place, where you can respond with the totality of your being and see the truth of what is. In this act of existential courage, you unwind yourself from the language that had you in its grip for probably most of your life, and you become genuine to life. New and exciting openings will appear that let you discover life in its full mystery and to its full potential.
When I realized that I spent 90% or more of my waking time reacting to the random voice, not responding to life, I was amazed. I was shocked. I felt like I was waking up from a long dream that had had me in its grip. When I realized that I had forgotten who I was, and that there was more to life than the limited reality the voice of self-diminishment spits out to me and the boundaries it set to my experience of life, I decided to no longer waste my talents and reach for my true potential.

By cracking the code of the random voice you will:
– enhance your creativity
– be more present
– end procrastination in your life
– speak the truth without force
– stand your ground without taking a position
– no longer be hesitant in life
– make better decisions
– say “No” when this is true for you
– experience a genuine sense of peace
– feel connected to your true nature
– provide inspiring leadership
– find your true voice in life
– discover a new freedom
– connect with your own deeper motivation to evolve
– awaken to your divine nature