Why Your Inner Voice Is Such a Negative Jerk
Here’s how to silence the constant critic in your head
The other day, I did one of those random acts of kindness for a stranger. I won’t go into specifics, because I don’t want to be that guy. I’ll just say it was nicer than holding the door for someone but not as nice as donating a kidney.
What was interesting to me, though, was the way my inner monologue played out afterward. When I got back in my car, I sat for a moment and enjoyed the warm, glowy feelings of doing something nice for a stranger. I thought, “Hey, that was a kind thing you did. Good job.”
Harmless enough. And yet my very next thought was, “Come on, dude. It’s not like you cured cancer. Get over yourself.” I’m not embellishing — that was, verbatim, the thought that popped into my head. I think I even rolled my eyes a little. At myself.
The reason I was even aware of this fleeting internal exchange is because of the mindfulness meditation I’ve been practicing for the past six months. One of the main goals of mindfulness is to become more aware of your thoughts and thought patterns, as if you’re a third-party observer. As I’ve noticed firsthand, many of these thoughts aren’t especially productive, or even kind, particularly when it comes to thoughts about ourselves.
