Why are you so hard on yourself?
The introspective correspondence continues with Iris’ response to Lucia’s question about why she is being too hard on herself. Read the previous e-mail
Hi Lucia,
First, thank you for your e-mail. I have read it with great pleasure because it is rich in content; you raise many issues and all of them deserve to be explored. One of them touched me the most: that of the “inner judge (inner critic)” — the part of us that stands as the supreme judge of all our actions and choices and is much harsher than a court judge would be.
The Inner Judge
In fact, words like “perverse,” “monster,” “humanly unacceptable,” harshly condemn your choices. Moving from the “inner judge” to a good and strict judge of the court, the words would be different — I think “complicated” instead of “perverse”. The same goes for the questions you ask, like the question: “Am I a monster?” It could be “What part of me is seeking this experience?” or “What’s under the mask?”
2 Ways to Solve a Problem
My idea is that when we try to solve a problem or understand a situation, we can ask “fictitious” questions or “intelligent” questions.
The first, the fictitious ones, do not lead to understanding, but to a right-wrong loop in which it is difficult to find a solution — we are stuck in a situation. We create such a loop when we rely on our inner judgement to make choices.
Curiosity is the key to the latter, the “smart” ones; the ones that lead to understanding our inner dynamics.
When we analyze our patterns, mechanisms and intentions, we can evaluate costs and benefits; and then we can choose an action without judging ourselves too much. You don’t have to control everything.
Iris