Everyone on Earth has an inner critic that constantly tells us we’re not good enough—whether it’s not being rich enough, beautiful enough, intelligent enough, or religious enough. No matter our accomplishments, this inner voice always moves the goal post further. It’s never satisfied and never feels like enough. Because we often listen to this nonsense, we end up stuck on a merry-go-round of misery our entire lives.
If you listen to its voice, you’ll notice something important. The next time it’s jabbering away, pay attention to what it’s saying. You’ll find that 90% of it is about what’s wrong in your life. It never tells you what it’s appreciative of. It won’t acknowledge your kindness, generosity, compassion, or love. Instead, it constantly points out your flaws, what you didn’t do, and what you could’ve done better. Because it sets an unreachable destination, it’s always blabbering and whispering in your mind’s ear.
Let’s begin by exploring the nature of thinking itself. There are two main types of thinking: functional and psychological. Functional thinking is necessary for tasks like solving a simple math problem or scheduling an event in your calendar. This type of thinking makes our lives easier, and generally, once a train of functional thought ends, the thought chain concludes, and nothing further follows.
Psychological thinking, on the other hand, is when our thoughts define our sense of self. This type of thinking almost always stems from the ego, with thoughts like I wish I had a better job, I am hurt by what so-and-so said to me, or My children are a disappointment. These thoughts all originate from one belief: I am not good enough. This one thought is responsible for your endless chain of thinking. There’s no end to this type of thinking because your ego needs you to build your stories, infuse more drama into them, and use your stories to survive. It’s this psychological thinking that we need to focus on.
Listening is a subtle art—truly listening requires you to do so without judgment. If your thoughts are unrelenting, it will be very difficult to understand and hear clearly. Now, we come to the experiment portion, where you will conduct an experiment on yourself.
Before we get started, I wanted to mention something important. As I’ve noted elsewhere (link to demonic entities), it’s possible that other entities have gained control over you due to your decision to operate through your human ego. They might be overwhelming you with their thoughts, keeping you in a state of confusion and paralysis. It’s a fact of life that nearly every person on Earth is affected by these dark entities. If Jesus and the Buddha were affected, you and I are no different. Therefore, I highly recommend asking a higher power (link to higher power) to help you become free of such entities.
Most mystical traditions throughout history have referred to God—different names perhaps, but the same entity. Contrary to what many preach, you can reach out directly to God or one of Its representatives for help and guidance. You don’t need to belong to any religion; in fact, not belonging might be better because you aren’t conditioned to believe there is a distance between the Creator and Creation. Just remember that effective prayer requires humility, surrender, and an open heart.
After you have prayed for help and guidance, go into a room free of personal devices—no phone, computer, or TV—to eliminate all potential distractions. Keep only a pen and paper on a table. Then, wait for the thoughts to come. Write down each thought as it arises, starting a new line for each one.
Your initial thoughts might look like this:
I am bored.
This sucks.
Is it going to rain tomorrow?
I hope the Rangers lose so that the Wings get that last playoff spot.
I’m never going to let anyone set me up again – that was the worst date ever.
I wonder how many times she’s has been divorced?
What a terrible guy at the party last weekend! Treated me like shit!
I hope I get that promotion; I know I’m better than everyone else and I should get it. I’ll quit if I don’t!
The downstairs door needs to be fixed, that creaking noise it makes is so annoying.
These initial thoughts might be superficial—about relationships, jobs, etc.—but they are masking a deeper source. We’ll need to wait some time for these deeper thoughts to emerge. Just keep writing down your thoughts with a sense of detachment. You can even note your reactions or judgments to these thoughts. For example, you might respond to a thought with, ‘I shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts. What’s wrong with me!’ Write this down as well. When all these surface thoughts have been exhausted, which can take a while, the deeper, more significant thoughts will come, hitting closer to home. It’ll be something like:
I am lonely.
I am afraid of failure.
I am afraid of being judged by other people.
I feel terrible about myself.
I feel so unattractive.
I am so angry with myself.
I feel like shit.
Once the layers of the ego have been pierced, you can begin to see yourself as you truly are. The key question to ask yourself is: Why am I thinking these thoughts? Keep asking this question repeatedly until you find your answer. Eventually, it will trace back to one primal thought: I am not good enough. This realization is often a sobering moment for most people. This single thought is not only responsible for your personal suffering but also for much of the suffering, judgment, and violence on Earth.
When you judge yourself for not meeting some external standard, you start to beat yourself up for your perceived shortcomings. This self-criticism leads to more judgment, creating a vicious cycle that only stops when you take full accountability and responsibility for your actions and situation. As I often emphasize, you are and have always been responsible for your own suffering. These self-defeating thoughts and beliefs come from your inner critic, the ego that you have empowered. There are two voices within you: the voice based in love, which is your true self, and the voice based in fear, which is the ego. You have mistaken the ego’s voice for your own, but you can now choose to undo this choice.
So how do we go about removing this non-stop I am not good enough?
The tools to defeat your inner critic/ego are not brute force or anger, but compassion and forgiveness. Let me emphasize this again: the greatest weapons against the ego are compassion and forgiveness. The most powerful mantra I can offer you to counter the ego is, ‘It’s okay.’ You need to transform the judgmental self-talk of the ego, which constantly criticizes you, into the non-judgmental, compassionate, and forgiving self-talk of your true self—the self that is an integral part of our Creator.
How does this work in practice? Here’s how:
Your Ego: I feel so lonely.
Your Inner Self: It’s okay to feel lonely. I am doing the best I can and am only human. I know that this thought comes from the belief that I am not good enough and the I believed this because I don’t love myself completely. I forgive myself for making a mistake. It’s okay to make a mistake and I will learn from this. I will try to be more loving and compassionate with myself from this point onwards. I am not upset or angry at my ego at all. I simply didn’t know any better and that is okay.
Do you see the difference here? The ego literally has nowhere to go now. Even if it comes back with something like:
Your Ego: See look what an idiot I am. I am listening to psychobabble on the internet to solve my problems.
Your True Self: It’s okay to be an idiot. To be honest, I have been an idiot this whole time. I never realized that I was beating myself up and judging myself so badly. I did the best I could, and I forgive myself for beating myself up. It’s okay.
Again, the ego has nowhere to go. This is the process that you need to undergo again and again, and again… until the sting and power of the ego has been drastically reduced. I will warn you that this is not a quick fix. You have spent years, decades, maybe even lifetimes giving power to your ego, so it won’t go away in one fell swoop. It may take several years to transform yourself thus in this way.
However, by adopting a more compassionate and forgiving attitude towards yourself, I guarantee that the incessant thinking will decrease by at least 50%, and it can go as high as 90% once this practice becomes second nature. You will find a tremendous amount of mental space and feel that everything is truly okay. Eventually, at advanced stages, you will clearly recognize the fear-based thoughts of the ego and won’t even need to react to them. That awareness alone will be enough to stop the thought train.