Daily Voice Dialogue - Issue 12

----- DAILY VOICE DIALOGUE -----

a free weekly newsletter about using Voice Dialogue in your daily life

written by Astra Niedra, edited by Mark Belfanti

Welcome to the twelfth edition of Daily Voice Dialogue. This newsletter covers various aspects of Voice Dialogue and gives you ways to use Voice Dialogue in your life on a day-to-day basis.

Best wishes,
Astra Niedra

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TOPIC OF THE WEEK

This week a new series of 'topics of the week' is starting. Each week you will find information on a self and suggestions on working with that self with Voice Dialogue. If you are new to this newsletter, it would be good to go over the previous issues which cover such topics as 'Awareness', 'The Aware Ego', 'Primary Selves', 'Disowned Selves' and 'Bonding Patterns'.

THE INNER CRITIC

Most people are aware of being self critical, either at times or all the time. This self-criticism is actually a self, the Critic, who can be identified and spoken with. This Inner Critic is also very misunderstood. Most people don't like their inner Critic, and understandably so, as it makes us feel terrible about ourselves. However, once you get to know your inner Critic and understand why it criticises you, you will gain empathy for it. And if you gain an Aware Ego in relation to it, you will be able to keep from identifying with what it says. You can even find its information very useful for your own self-development.

It's helpful to remember that your Critic's original purpose was to keep you safe, as was the purpose of all your primary selves. For instance, if you developed a generous nature when you were a child, and your caregivers expected generous behaviour from you, then every time you acted selfishly your Critic would have reminded you that that was not the 'correct' way to behave and might have told you off about it. It probably heard one of your parents chastising you for being selfish and realised that for you to be protected from their disapproval, which might have been painful to you, it would have to get to you first so that you would behave 'properly'.

This kind of motivation (alleviation of anxiety about you being unacceptable) is behind most of the Critic's original behaviour. It's just that over time, most critics become so good at what they do that they just keep doing it ALL the time, even when we've left home and no longer need approval from our caregivers.

The following exercise will help you to lessen the impact of the Critic's criticisms by using the Critic to identify your primary selves.

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EXERCISE

The Critic can be a great help in identifying your primary and disowned selves. Once you have done this, you can separate from them and, as a result, lessen the Critic's impact on you.

Write down the main kinds of things that you criticise yourself for. If you always feel bad about your appearance, for example, it is probably because your Critic is constantly at you about it. If this is the main thing that worries you about yourself, it could be that your family held appearance to be the most important aspect of who you were. Was it important that you looked and dressed in a particular way? Did a parent constantly criticise a particular aspect of your appearance such as your hair?

If that was the case, maybe a primary self of yours is one who values a particular look, which it thinks you should have. If you don't always look that way, your Critic will criticise you for it. And Critics tend to get carried away with doing their job so well that even if you do try to satisfy it, it will still find fault.

Taking the hair example, even if you wear your hair exactly as you were originally expected to, your Critic will say that it isn't quite the right shade or thickness or length, or that it looks scraggly. It's as if the anxiety the Critic feels about your hair is so great (and impossible to alleviate without your conscious help) that no matter what you do with your hair, it feels there must be something wrong.

The best way to alleviate this situation is to identify, meet, and separate from, the self in you who feels it is important for you to look a certain way. Then when you have consciousness of this self and can decide with that consciousness what is important to you about your appearance, you will no longer criticise yourself as you did. If your Critic does say something, you just acknowledge it and say to yourself that even though your hair is important to a part of you, you are deciding not to worry about it that much.

Basically, you need to develop an Aware Ego in relation to the things your inner Critic criticises you for, in order to make more conscious choices about the standards you set for yourself. When you can make these choices consciously, you are no longer the victim of your Critic's attacks and, at the same time, your Critic's attacks will lessen in frequency and intensity as it realises you are taking responsibility for yourself and for the things it gets anxious about.

So look at what you criticise yourself for most, identify the primary self your Critic wants you to be like, separate from this self using Voice Dialogue or by facilitating yourself.

Next week's exercise will be about how to facilitate yourself, which you can do if you are unable to see a Voice Dialogue facilitator.

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ENERGY TIPS AND TRICKS

STOPPING A 'CRITIC ATTACK'

When you're feeling critical about yourself in any way, acknowledge the criticism and say to your inner Critic, 'thank you for that information, I'll consider it'. Then think of a time when you were happy with something about yourself - something you've done, achieved, helped others with, excelled at, or a time when you know you've looked good. Bring in the feeling of how you felt at that time. Let it linger. Breathe in deeply and feel as though you are immersed in the good feeling. Stay with it for as long as you can. This will help you to feel better about yourself.

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BABY DIALOGUE

Examples from my experiences with my 20 month old daughter to illustrate how I try(!) to use Voice Dialogue in my life.

YOUR CHILDREN'S ENERGETIC SENSITIVITY

A few days ago I had knelt down to pick up something from the floor and when I stood up I almost blacked out. I quickly sat down on the sofa. Athena looked at me, ran over to where I was, put her hands on her head and said 'Mama, head, ouch'. I hadn't said anything about my head, or that it hurt.

At first this surprised me, but then I realised that most children are probably very sensitive and advanced in reading energy compared to adults. Athena could probably see that my energy had changed dramatically and that the change had occurred around my head.

The point I'm trying to make is that I think we are all born with the ability to see and manipulate energy. However, very few parents encourage and support this in their children (because very few people even know about it) so children quickly lose this ability. It would be similar if no one acknowledged our sense of smell when we were young. We would smell things at first, but if there was never a mention of scent by our caregivers and no explanation of the different scents and smells around, we would soon come to think of this sense as unimportant and it wouldn't develop much.

I tested this 'energy theory' on Athena later by beaming lots of warm, heart energy towards her as she was quite happily playing on her own with some toys. After a minute or so, she turned towards me, smiled, and said 'hello' in a very sweet manner.

Consider this: we must always be communicating energetically, yet we have little or no awareness of this. And our children are picking up so much of this energetic communication. It makes me wonder how much they really know.

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NEXT ISSUE

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: The Pusher

EXERCISE: Doing Voice Dialogue by Yourself

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IMPORTANT NOTE

This newsletter is not to be taken as psychological or medical advice. If you require such advice you should seek it from an appropriate health care professional. This newsletter is also not intended for you to use in making life-altering decisions without communication between you and the appropriate health care professional.

Copyright 2000-2001 - Astra Niedra. ISSN 1444-6022. PO Box 979, Glebe NSW 2037, Australia. No part of Daily Voice Dialogue may be reproduced, in any form, without the written permission of the author, Astra Niedra, except for forwarding an issue, in its entirety and complete with copyright information, to a friend.