Category: Coaching

Develop your inner coach

 

Help your inner critic become your inner coach

 

Your inner critic is the internal dialogue that tells you:

–          You are not enough

–          You don’t know enough

–          You are not smart enough

–          You are not pretty enough

–          You are lazy – you never finish things

Right now, that nit-picking voice could be stronger than ever and can come out with some very hurtful things, but the job of the inner critic is to keep us safe.  Protecting us from shame, criticism, failure, and feelings you want to avoid.  By getting in before others with the criticism it gives you a chance to adjust your behaviour and learn from your mistakes.  The problem is if we only listen to our inner critic, it can stop us from taking action leading to procrastination, holding ourselves back and staying small.  The trick is to know how to listen and turn them into helpful strategies for growth – allow it to become your inner coach.

There tends to be 3 things that can exacerbate our inner critic – you may have experienced any or all of these lately:

Ø  You may be carrying around lots of emotion – if we are sad, grieving, angry or afraid our inner critic often takes charge, responding to the volatility and uncertainty that comes at times of intense emotions.

Ø  You may have limiting beliefs – like “nothing I every do is good enough” or “I can’t trust anyone to do it right”.  Your inner critic may want to protect you from perceived risk and this then makes things like accepting mistakes, asking for help, or handling criticism from others challenging.

Ø  You may be tired from juggling more than usual recently and when we are depleted our inner critic often takes over. Have you found yourself saying “I’m just terrible at this, I’m hopeless, there’s no point?”

Imagine being able to turn down the volume and tap into your inner coach to improve your self-worth, create empowered beliefs, and live a life of joy.  If your inner critic is consuming and overwhelming you and stopping you from living life fully then now is the time to take action.  

Book a free 30-minute nurturing call with me:

 

Navigating Our Emotions

Our lives are full of emotional challenges currently with the need to ‘keep up’, the fear of missing out, the desire for good relationships, pressure to succeed and work satisfaction which can elicit lots of emotions.

However, we have been taught to not work with our emotions but to suppress and avoid them.  Using screen time, alcohol, or other addictive substances to help us avoid them.  When we do acknowledge them, we tend to whisk them away with phrases like “mind over matter”, “get a grip”, phrases and patterns learned from childhood.  Circumventing our emotions is not good for our mental or physical health.  A bit like pressing the accelerator and brake at the same time in your car creating an internal pressure cooker.

Emotions have energy and we tend to block them by holding our breath or tightening our muscles as they can be overwhelming or conflicting but in doing so it puts stress on the mind and the body causing anxiety and depression and physical issues like heart disease, intestinal problems, headaches, insomnia, and autoimmune disorders.

Do you suffer with feelings of sadness, anger, anxiety?  Have you also got physical symptoms like stomach issues but are not aware that your emotions may be causing them?  Are there emotions that you are ignoring?

Recent neuroscience shows that the more emotions and conflicts we experience, the more anxiety we feel.  This is due in part to the vagus nerve, one of the main emotional centres of the body.  The vagus nerve responds to emotions triggered in the mid-brain and sends signals to the heart, lungs and intestines which triggers our fight/flight mode and increases our stress hormone levels.  So many of us are in this increased state of stress which can cause trouble with almost all of our body’s processes increasing the risk of weight gain, sleep problems and anxiety.

So, if you want to get relief from your physical symptoms, enjoy freedom from your negative thoughts and feel good about yourself then I would love to hear from you. 

Book your free call here:     calendly.com/samanthahardwickcoach

 

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