The Inner Critic<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few night’s ago, I had a feeling of being unsettled, and I could not quite ‘place’ the feeling in a concrete place. I had been thinking about my expectations for this year and I wanted to write the word ‘goals’ and I then scrubbed the word out. These past few years it has felt impossible to make many plans. Circumstances have circumvented a lot of what I have wanted to do. When I make a plan, it is often paved with potential stress. Whether ‘I think’ it into being, I don’t know. What I do know is that going out in the world can, at times, feel very challenging. How long is the journey? Where are the toilets? Am I physically okay to travel? I have lived this version of life for so many years now and it is hard to believe that it can change. One of my friends said ‘Oh its just a mind set!’ and yet when the body is in pain and begins to spew, it becomes more than ‘I can think myself out of this’. In these moments I cannot think beyond what is physically happening. How I am far from a bathroom and stuff is running down my legs. Or I’m in the car and I get that ‘urge’ and a toilet is two or three junctions away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So this is where I have been and it has been hard. I had to give up my psychotherapy practice because of this, and I have had to dream ‘small’ because the big dreams have felt impossible. And so I have held a lot of anger and rage in this mind and body and it is hard to release it. I have held on to these things for so long and I don’t know how to forgive or accept what has happened. I say ‘I want to be well’ and yet I cannot remember what that feels like. So it appears a really hard concept to allow in. I know I will move forward when I can accept everything that has happened – and that takes faith and trust – things I find difficult to buy into right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are physical reasons that have led me to this condition, and mental and emotional thoughts that haven’t been my friend either. It is difficult to look myself square in the eye and say ‘I love you and I am here for you’ because I have spent a lifetime not loving myself very much. And I have gone to war with myself every time something is not liked by me. I have spent years berating myself for things I did or didn’t do, and seeing myself as wrong. And I am accepting these statements, with a true desire to love myself more, even if it’s just a little. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I said to a friend last night ‘and would you say that to your best friend?’ and they said ‘Of course I wouldn’t!’. So maybe that is my starting point. Any time I’m berating myself, I can stop and say ‘Susie, would you say that to your Bestie?’ and maybe some compassion will begin to develop. I’ve been so good at saying to myself ‘Well you should have done this, or done that’ and I’ve bought into these criticisms for so long. And yet when I stop and evaluate, I usually have a reason. Today, I did stop mid berating, and said ‘why do you need to do this today?’ and I found a point of softening, a breath of freedom coming in and some peace was found. The inner critic was challenged and I am rather pleased with that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Inner Critic A few night’s ago, I had a feeling of being unsettled, and I could not quite ‘place’ the feeling in a concrete place. I had been thinking about my expectations for this year and I wanted to write the word ‘goals’ and I then scrubbed the word out. These past few years … Continue reading “A Slice of Susie”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillbury.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillbury.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillbury.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillbury.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillbury.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hillbury.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144,"href":"https:\/\/hillbury.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillbury.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillbury.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillbury.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}