(The inner critic as the primary obstacle to spiritual realization)
Even though it is a thrilling adventure, the inner journey, as with any real adventure, is not an easy one, for it is full of challenges and difficulties, obstacles and barriers.
One of these obstacles to inner work and spiritual realization is the painful and difficult one of the inner critic, the coercive agency within us that criticizes, judges, compares, condemns, blames, and attacks us and others mercilessly and constantly.
But this ego structure of conscience is built mostly through identification with the judging, critical, blaming, and punishing attitudes in the environment we grow up in. It becomes a harsh judge and a cruel source of punishment, instead of being the light of true conscience. It tends to develop into a rigid part of our mind that embodies inflexible rules and commandments, impermeable to understanding and deaf to reality. The superego becomes one of the main sources of inner suffering, through low self-esteem, guilt, shame, devaluation, and self-recrimination. It acts whenever it recognizes in our experience of ourselves, or in the perception of others, something of which it does not approve. Besides the pervasive suffering it causes in our experience, the rigidity and judgment of the inner critic make it difficult for us to go deeply into ourselves. This is because we are attacked by it every time we uncover something of which it disapproves. So in the inner journey, we either unnecessarily suffer, or to avoid this suffering we veer away from parts of our own experience. In both cases, our inner work becomes difficult and limited, and frequently comes to a halt. Because of the greater understanding of the genesis and structure of the inner critic available in modern depth psychology, we can now deal with it more effectively than ever before. We can recognize it for what it is, address it in ways that liberate us from its cruel inner attacks, and henceforth journey inwards with greater freedom and more enjoyment of the thrill of discovery.
Byron Brown’s presentation is useful for any individual who wishes to be free from the inner suffering and coercion of this ancient foe of our humanity, but it is specifically directed to those individuals interested and engaged in the inner journey toward realization and enlightenment.
As a result, this book is not only a study of the inner critic and how to deal with it, but a clear presentation of how this work can be done in a way that actually helps reveal our true and spiritual nature.
I believe the reader will find this book a unique opportunity to deal with an age-old problem, with intelligence and efficiency. The application of its knowledge will contribute significantly to one’s inner development.
Learning to disengage from the attacks of the superego is a fundamental step in early stages of the Diamond Approach.
My heartfelt appreciation also goes to Karen Johnson, Hameed’s colleague and my individual teacher, who has so patiently guided me through the maze of my own psychic reality for many years.
DURING THE MANY YEARS I have been teaching people how to work with self-criticism, I have witnessed a great deal of suffering resulting directly from the negative ways people treat themselves. I have also seen their surprise and concern as they come to recognize how serious this situation is. Perhaps most important, I see their hunger for a sense of personal integrity based on compassion and understanding rather than a belief in deficiency based on self-blame.
You are helpless because the friend sees his actions as the logical and necessary outcome of who he is.
You are a slave to your own ideas of who you are and how you need to be. The ability to defend against the judge’s attacks and disengage from its activity offers you the possibility of discovering who you are independent of ideas.
Disengaging from the judge thus serves two functions: to free you from the confinement of old, limiting patterns and beliefs and, at the same time, to demand that you actively practice living in a way that eliminates the need for the judge. You cannot simply throw off a structure that has defined and supported you unless you have something more effective with which to replace it. You must learn to function, interact, and make choices freed from the standards of the judge, which means living in alignment with the truth and reality of your own life at the present time. This creates a living conscience that is not based on rules. Such a conscience allows the fullness of your living soul to express itself. This happens when you have transformed the self-centeredness of instinctual impulses, the self-destruction of compulsive patterns, and the rigidity of internalized authority. This is not a small task. It is the work of learning to be a responsible, mature human being. You cannot plan how to do it, you cannot only read about how to do it, you cannot simply follow someone else’s instructions. You must learn how to live spontaneously by recognizing and following the guidance of what you know to be true.
This happens when you have transformed the self-centeredness of instinctual impulses, the self-destruction of compulsive patterns, and the rigidity of internalized authority. This is not a small task.
You have the opportunity to recover a fresh and dynamic aliveness at the heart of your life. And aliveness means the presence of passion and spontaneity, two qualities noticeably absent in the world of judgment. It also means the experience of yourself as a life source. Life flows from and through you, taking on both familiar and unfamiliar forms. The soul’s aliveness is the sense of something conscious and unpredictable, awake and mysterious.
(The soul’s inherent drive toward truth and aliveness)
YOU ARE A SOUL. And if you allow it, your life can become a journey of unfolding for your soul. The fact is, you do not recognize yourself as soul. You do not know the source of your own aliveness. You are not aware of the potential for freedom and responsiveness that is your true nature. In order to see your inner critic in a proper perspective, in relation to the totality of who you are, you must have some sense of being a soul. What does that mean?
The soul, in fact, is the true “I.” It is the present-moment experience of yourself as the agent in your life, the sense of a livingness that is here now. Can you say what you are if you don’t refer to who you have been?
When the soul is caught up in rigid identifications with others and the world, it is not satisfied. In every soul there is an inherent drive toward truth, an inherent desire to feel fulfilled, real and free. Although many people are not able to pursue this desire effectively, the impetus toward the realization of the self is in all of us; it begins with the first stirrings of consciousness and continues throughout life whether or not we are directly aware of it. This impetus spontaneously emerges in consciousness as an important task for the psychologically and spiritually maturing human being. As maturity grows into wisdom in an optimally developing person, this task gains precedence over other tasks in life, progressively becoming the center that orients, supports and gives meaning to one’s life, ultimately encompassing all of one’s experience. — A. H. Almaas, The Point of Existence, p. 16
The judge is the force in you that constantly evaluates and assesses your worth as a human being and thus limits your capacity to be fully alive in the present moment.
The superego is a structure that forms the apex of the psychic structure and includes the ideals of the personality and the principles of judgment. It is the seat of what is customarily called the conscience. It develops mainly by internalizing and identifying with the prohibitions, rules, values, and preferences of the parents and society at large… From our perspective, the superego is the inner coercive agency that stands against the expansion of awareness and inner development, regardless of how mild or reasonable it becomes. It is a substitute, and a cruel one, for direct perception and knowledge. Inner development requires that in time there be no internal coercive agencies. There will be instead inner regulation based on objective perception, understanding, and love. The best approach is to decrease the power and influence of the superego and to replace it with awareness as much as possible, all the way to the final and complete dethronement of the superego. — A. H. Almaas, Essence, pp. 134, 137
Negative judgments stimulate feelings of rejection, guilt, doubt, shame, and self-hatred, while positive judgments tend to arouse feelings of self-esteem, pride, excitement, self-righteousness, and superiority. Either way, these results are conditional, and you are left dependent on the judge to reject or approve of you.
(How judgment attacks the body, energy, and emotional state)
Robert is talking to his girlfriend, and she says, “You never buy me flowers. I don’t think you really care about me.” What happens to his energy? His gut tightens up, his face stiffens, his breath becomes shallow, his center of gravity feels up in his throat, and he is no longer aware of the rest of the room.
Common physical experiences of judgment include loss of energy, agitation, tension, depression, anxiety, heat, weakness, restlessness, deadness, spaciness, tunnel vision, and numbness. Notice that these responses occur regardless of the judgment’s content.
The energetic effects limit your functioning and cause frustration, but the emotional effects of judgment often result in pain and suffering.
Remember, however, that you may have completely shut off your feelings in relation to many of your self-judgments. You may only be aware that the judgment activity is a nagging, bothersome habit that you can’t seem to stop and that serves no useful purpose. In these cases, it may take patient and compassionate self-awareness to allow you to reach the emotion underlying your detachment. Until this happens, it will be impossible to understand specifically how a particular judgment works on you.
deficient, guilty, selfish, dumb, out of control, afraid, angry ashamed, hurt, humiliated, ugly, lazy pathetic, sad, helpless, isolated, alienated, depressed, or possibly superior, arrogant, righteous, puffed up, to name but a few of the feelings.
A very important insight arises as a result of this awareness: You dislike and reject yourself for having certain feelings. Whatever the reason, this fact feels like a given, beyond your control. You were never taught that feelings are just feelings, that they are…
assume that there is something wrong with having feelings you characterize as negative. Remember, emotions, like thoughts and sensations, are forms the soul…
Let’s for a moment imagine an interaction between two people in order to observe more closely the effects of judgment: His boss throws the papers on Bob’s desk and scowls, “Bob, that’s the worst piece of promotional writing I have ever seen in my life! What’s the matter with you?” Bob’s shoulders slump, his eyes scan the floor, and trying to catch his breath, he stammers, “Yes, well,…
In this situation, an individual received input from another person and reacted by losing vitality, awareness, and responsiveness. His functioning became distorted in a range from impulsive overreaction to complete immobilization. From the outside, it would appear that Bob had been attacked—a verbal arrow shot him down. Internally, however, Bob experienced his boss’s words as simply confirming his worst fear about himself—that he is a failure. Whether he is aware of it or not, he is feeling humiliation, guilt, and desperation. Now he is caught between the attack…
When most animals are attacked, unless the threat is extreme or overwhelming, they respond immediately with increased awareness, energy, and presence. The resulting behavior may be fight, flight, freeze, or in certain situations, playing dead or fainting. Even when humans are physically attacked, they generally…
necessary action. What we are seeing here is that judgments are a form of psychic attack in which your beliefs about yourself are actively involved. The result is not a heightened aliveness and groundedness but quite the opposite. For Bob, it is as if the threat posed were too much for his…
When you see a sluggish, diminished, or distorted response to attack in an animal like a dog or a horse, you imagine that something is wrong: the animal must be drugged, sick, or maltreated. You may suspect that something in the animal’s instinct for self-preservation is damaged. But you are so familiar with experiencing judgment that when humans…
This is what makes a judgment seem different from an attack. Focusing on judgments as attacks makes it easier for you to respond appropriately, because you recognize an outside…
However, a judgment is usually perceived as indicating something about your inner state—in particular, your sense of worth. You get caught up in your concern about the accuracy of the content,…
His boss throws the papers on Bob’s desk and scowls, “Bob, that’s the worst piece of promotional writing I have ever seen in my life! What’s the matter with you?” Bob takes a deep breath, to keep himself calm in the face of his boss’s energy, and then says, “I see you didn’t like what I wrote. I would…
Here, Bob feels the attack but does not allow it to trigger a negative evaluation of his own worth as a person. He recognizes the…
saying but the way it tends to pull him into reacting emotionally—that is, feeling judged. To deal with this, he stays focused on the matter at hand—the fact that his boss is displeased—and disregards the harsh judgment. By speaking directly to the dissatisfaction with his writing and not the exaggerated insult, Bob is making it clear that he will not get involved in his boss’s put-down. He “…
When you feel judged, you believe you have to change yourself because something is wrong with you; when you feel attacked, you…
in these cases, the content of the self-judgment pushes you into feeling ugly or helpless, and you instinctively move away from those feelings. The problem is that you also move away from any awareness that your judge provoked this self-rejection and the diminishment, disorientation, and paralysis that go with it.
The sense of
invasion, rejection, or hurt caused by the parent’s critical energy was often overwhelming to your sensitivity. So distancing from yourself (self-rejection) dulled your awareness of the attack to help you survive what was intolerable or unstoppable. In extreme cases of abuse and trauma, the only way to survive was to completely dissociate from reality in the moment. In this case, all awareness of the feelings and sensations involved is suppressed: the child leaves her body until it is safe to return and usually does not remember what her experience was. We will see that your engagement with judgment is a mild form of dissociation, in that you lose touch with the experience of being attacked and the resulting damage.
A judgment is an insidious form of attack because it points to a part of you that you are not comfortable with, and thus, you believe the negative assessment is justified. This belief, in turn, blocks your ability to respond to the judgment as an attack because now you are seeing yourself, not the judgment, as the problem.
knew he had been intensely critical about what he felt was wrong, but although he was not terribly pleased with his behavior, he was ready to move on. His wife, however, was not ready to let it go and continued to go on about how insensitive and overbearing he had been with his secretary. George found it very difficult to be patient with her comments, however true they might have been. When he couldn’t listen anymore, he tried to tell her to stop. When she kept
I asked if he would consider letting himself express his anger toward her while there with me. He was hesitant because he didn’t think it would do any good. Nevertheless, he decided to try, and though he couldn’t let himself express the energy of the anger, he spoke out loud the words that sprang to mind: “You fucking bitch, how dare you speak to me that way!” He smiled, enjoying actually saying the terrible words. “And, oh, yes, there’s more. I want you to just take your righteousness and shove it up your goddamn asshole!” Again the smile. George was amazed at how that cleared away his conflict, and he no longer felt in turmoil or felt any anger toward his wife.
The key factor is not whether a judgment is true but whether you believe that it is. The tricky part is that your
belief in the truth of the judgment may be completely unconscious and may even be the opposite of what you think you believe.
This leads to the second principle: Because you believe there is some truth in a judgment, it generates self-rejection rather than self-defense. The judgment rejects you, but you can’t stop it because, on some level, you believe what it is saying. Then you are not only attacked by the statement itself but further betrayed as the judgment turns you against yourself.
The third principle is more of a warning than anything else: If the content of a judgment is in fact true—not just believed to be true—it will be doubly hard to recognize and respond to the attack or negative valuation implicit in the judgment. George felt his wife’s statements were “true” because in fact he had been insensitive in his
reaction to his secretary’s behavior. However, he couldn’t see that the problematic truth was not that he was insensitive but that being insensitive made him a bad person. This was the implicit truth he believed in that made it very difficult for him to allow his feelings of anger (and hurt) at her attack. He never did allow himself to feel the hurt underlying the anger.
An important note to remember: Not all statements that elicit painful feelings are attacks, and not all painful feelings are the result of an attack. In other words, just the fact that you feel unpleasant feelings does not mean you are under attack. Someone may give you the news of a friend’s illness or tell you he can’t accept your invitation to dinner or confront you with her desire to be more intimate with you. These types of statements may bring up uncomfortable feelings such as sadness, disappointment, and protectiveness, but there was no intention to attack in the statements made.
(The four principles of why judgment generates self-rejection)
First principle: A judgment always touches on something you believe is true about you. • Second principle: Because you believe there is some truth in a judgment, it generates self-rejection rather than self-defense. • Third principle: If the content of a judgment is in fact true—not just believed to be true—it will be doubly hard to recognize and respond to the attack implicit in the judgment. • Fourth principle: It does not matter if the content of a judgment is true; what’s important is that it attacks you: it undermines your effectiveness, capacity, and sense of self.
EXERCISE: OBSERVING JUDGMENTS/ATTACKS During the next week, make a list of all the attacks you are aware of—if possible, as soon as you become aware of them. Notice how each attack affects your energy, your awareness, and the physical experience of your body. Also note how the attack affects your emotional state.
Step 1. Write a phrase or brief sentence that describes the incident. Step 2. State each judgment in the second person. This means write the judgments as “you” statements rather than “I” statements. (“You are stupid,” not “I am stupid.”) Step 3. Write down what you observe about your bodily and energetic response to the attack. What sensations do you feel in your body? How has your relationship to the things and people in your environment shifted? How are your alertness and ability to respond to situations affected? Step 4. In as simple terms as you can, note your emotional state. What kinds of feelings are provoked? How is your sense of yourself altered?
You think you must use effort to make yourself aware. That’s not true. Effort always restricts your awareness and you need to see how you are restricting it. It is natural and effortless to be completely aware, but you interfere. It is our nature to be aware. That is why it’s possible for you to see the truth. The truth is our nature. Ultimately we are awareness. — A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book 2, p. 117
“Who did your hair? I’ll make sure never to go there!” “You don’t have to worry because you couldn’t pay him enough to go near what’s on your head!”
“How come you never remember to get me flowers?” “Well, I never know how to choose the right kind, and besides, my sense of color is really bad, and it never seems like a good present because they only last a few days.”
“How come you were a hundred fifty dollars off in balancing your checkbook again?” “I’m a failure. I’ve probably bounced five checks, and I’ll never make enough money to be able to take a vacation!”
Being able to recognize when you engage an attack immediately offers you an avenue of disengaging—simply to stop the engagement activity. This is a real option,
but it is more difficult than it might at first seem. What is perhaps more helpful now is to continue to develop your awareness of yourself and the ways you engage. In addition, knowing which mode is your most familiar style can help expand your awareness.
Recognizing engagement is a refinement and deepening of your awareness of the energetic and emotional effects of judgment that we looked at in chapter 4. You see that the particular effects are related to the way you engage the attacks.
In both your internal and external life, recall some of your recent experiences of feeling attacked and explore which mode of engagement you used in each case. Consider social, work, and intimate situations. Do you respond similarly in all types of interactions? Which situations evoke which modes? Notice if you use one particular mode most of the time.
The next time you are at a dinner party or other social activity, pay particular attention to the presence of attacks and engagements in the conversation. How does it feel to pay attention to that level of the conversation? Do you find yourself participating? What can you do to avoid supporting that kind of interaction?
The moment we say “no” to our experience, we are using false will. True will is simply letting go of the false will that wants to take our experience somewhere else.
So when true will is operating, it enhances our awareness of what is there. It allows us to have a more complete and full perception. Only when we have this complete perception can we truly understand what is there.
Step 1. Choose a familiar self-attack. If a friend is willing to help you, ask her to sit facing you and calmly speak the attack to you as your judge would (no malice in delivery is needed) and then to sit quietly with you as you explore. If you are doing this alone, it is helpful to tape yourself delivering the attack several times and then play back one delivery of the attack and pause while you explore.
Step 2. After listening to the statement, just be with yourself and notice what happens: Did you feel it hook you? How did it affect your body? What feelings were stirred by the attack?
Step 3. Listen to the attack again. Keep noticing. Be aware if you begin to engage, and try to bring yourself back to your feelings only. Notice the tendency to become frozen and keep from being affected. Feel that. You want to learn about what happens to you when you hear this attack. If there are no feelings, notice that. Are you aware of numbness, deadness, emptiness? How does it feel to be that way? If certain feelings or emotions are present, do they remind you of earlier times when you felt the same? Was something similar to this said to you in childhood? Who said it? Are you aware of feeling as though you were in that situation now? Step 4. Repeat the attack as many times as you need to in order to sense as deeply as possible the effects it has on you.
(Disengagement, defense, and the shift out of judgment’s grip)
Common experiences are of a sense of release (the holding, tension, or pressure is gone), space (more room to breathe, look around, or move), quiet (the multitude of voices in the head is gone), energy or lightness (the depression, heaviness, or deadness has lifted), or presence (being extended into the past or future stops, and you feel right here now). On an emotional level, it may be experienced as feeling self-assured, separate, disoriented, or not caring about the voice even if it’s still there. Be aware that not all experiences of the shift are necessarily pleasant, such as feeling alone, expanded, disoriented, or empty. This shift in your sense of yourself is the actual experience of disengagement. Just as it has been important to feel and understand the depth of engagement with the judge in order to truly want to disengage, so it is vital to learn to recognize and value the disengagement when it has happened. This may seem obvious, but it is
GUIDELINES FOR DEFENDING • You must be willing to act on your own behalf. • The statement should be short (no more than ten words), direct, and conclusive. Speak as though you expect to say nothing more. • If you respond to the content of the attack, it is almost guaranteed that you will remain engaged. • Planning a response almost never works.
EXERCISE: THE PRACTICE OF DEFENDING Defending is a practice. You must practice it. Unfortunately, it is difficult to do this by yourself except when real-life opportunities arise. The following exercise is a start at developing a sense of what it feels like to defend effectively. It is best done with a friend who is willing to help. You could also try it with a tape
recorder. The exercise is similar to the one at the end of chapter 18, but it will take you beyond simply accessing your strength in the face of an attack with generic statements. You can now develop the capacity to respond specifically and to be aware of the shift of disengagement.
Choose a familiar self-attack and give the statement to your friend to deliver to you as if he or she were your judge. That person’s task is to support you by simply and clearly delivering the statement to you as if he or she meant it but without exaggerated malice or negativity. The words of the attack will do the work needed. There are four simple steps in working with this attack:
Step 1. Hear and feel the statement. Notice your engagement on an experiential as well as a content level. Step 2. Take a breath. This step is probably the most important, as it will help you connect with yourself in the moment. If you have been practicing sensing your body, that can be an additional part of this step. Experience yourself breathing and being in your body at that moment. Step 3. Respond. Follow the guidelines listed above: short, direct, spontaneous. Remember, what defends you is as much the energy and commitment in your response as the content of your words. Step 4. Check yourself and see if you are aware of a shift from how you felt at step 1. Remember that a shift will manifest as some kind of change in how you are feeling—physically (less tension, easier breathing, more energy), emotionally (feeling lighter, less depressed, more determined), or mentally (thoughts disappear, the judgment becomes silly, the attack loses relevance for you). If you felt a shift, perhaps you disengaged. You can check this by seeing whether you still feel involved with or affected by the attack. If you do, try again. The shift might not immediately feel as if it deals with the attack because it doesn’t provide an answer, but if it shifts your relationship to the attack, this is at least a first step in defending.
ONE CHARACTERISTIC OF DAILY life that increases and decreases in intensity but never seems to disappear is a sense of busyness or constant activity. It is common to experience the nonstop quality of external activity, but equally pressing is the activity of the mind—the agitation, restlessness, preoccupation, dialogue, and busyness of one’s inner world. In fact, the possibility of a truly quiet mind seems like a dream for a future vacation, retirement, or enlightenment.
7. Take definite active steps to defend yourself against the attack. This is the aggressive movement toward the freedom and truth of who you are. When your judge attacks you, let it know you don’t want its presence or input. If someone else attacks you, speak or do something to clearly separate yourself from the judgment.
Follow what arises after disengaging. Be aware of reengaging and your concerns about separation, aloneness, and not knowing. Now is the time to attend to any useful information contained in the attack.