Critical, impatient, control freak...and more

Day 9..... Symptoms come and go. I am used to ignore it, except for the instability. I yell myself for this.
It is much difficult to have self compassion. I handled everything in my life like it is a race. No mercy for my self. Working, struggling for everything, trying to satisfy almost everybody, trying to be the best, the perfect, always seeking for something better, always questioning if I am good enough. For my parents, my friends, my little son, my siblings, my boss... It was a matter of time to reach this point. It is an eulogy and a curse together.
Will I be able to change my way of thinking?
Even doing this program, I find myself trying to put me a degree. My inner buly says: Were you good enough applying the program? Are you a good student? Will you be able to overcome it?
I am astonished about how much critical I am about my self.
Anybody who feels the same? Anybody who managed to overcome this?

 

Hi Xara,

I suggest the book Soul Without Shame by Byron Brown as a great support to understand the Inner Critic and to develop skillful means in dealing with it.

Your experience is common, and I understand it myself. Sometimes too, as your awareness increases there is more pain at how stringent and actually mean the superego activity can be. Awareness is very important as a means to work with it. You're seeing how the Inner Critic is using your new learning against you, telling you're not doing the TMS work the right way. This is common.

One bright side is that you can easily see the truth of what Dr. Sarno taught, that there can be tremendous inner Tension. We fight ourselves. We don't allow our impulses or desires to be OK. We're at war inside.

I suggest that your awareness of this is helpful in explaining symptoms. So use what you're seeing to fuel your TMS work. Just knowing the root cause of symptoms is very helpful in resolving them. You don't need to fix the Inner Critic, because essentially it can't be fixed. It is a primitive script, trying to protect us, and get us love.

Working with it, you'll learn to open to more inner autonomy, more outer autonomy also, meaning clearer relations with others. As you see, it can be a very obvious part of the TMS personality traits: giving ourselves up to please others, or to achieve perfection and be "loved." So as you work with it more, you are working directly to free yourself from old patterns, becoming a sort of newer and less "programed" you. Have patience and strength.

Andy

 

So comforting answer.
Thank you.

 

You are in a state of despair. The irony is you have outlined the exact problem with extreme clarity.

you are completely aware that this pressure is wrong and a problem. Now realize it’s not who you are. You aren’t type A or whatever nonsense somebody labels you with. Take the judgement of yourself away. You just went down the wrong psychological path. Try to see these things as they happen in real time through your days, and FORGIVE yourself when you see those dysfunctional behaviors. You have to forgive. It’s nobody’s fault. Not you, your boss, your parent, the person who abused you, etc. As you see the behavior without judgement it dissolves. Life improves. The only thing to force is patience, and even then you have to back off if it’s burning your out.

 

As program goes on, I face various tasks to deal with. They seem to arise on their own. Besides all these personal traits, I realize the huge amount of fear I have in my brain. About everything...
Will I be able to recover ? When? Will I be able to overcome life difficulties until then? Difficulties with job ( money is always a stress factor..), with my son ( I want to be 100% there, to show him love, to support him whenever he wants.
Fear about what is going to be the next second... Will I have dizzines again?
I read the articles of schubiner and ozanich about fear.
Seems so difficult to face it all the time. It is really exhausting.