Hey, welcome back to Day Five of

our seven day meditation challenge.

Yesterday, you got to

explore the negativity bias.

This built in programming we have into

our brain to focus more on what could

go wrong rather than what can go right.

This tendency also seems to show up in

how we talk to ourselves, and many of

us refer to this as our inner critic.

Chances are, you're quite

familiar with your inner critic.

It's the voice in your head that

tends to tell you when you're not

good enough, you can't do something,

why something is going to go wrong

or why you're going to mess it up.

We all have different degrees

of, of an inner critic and some

of us have many different inner

critics that arise in our mind.

So I'm going to share a two part strategy

that you can use to start to work with

with this inner critic when it arises.

The first is to give

your inner critic a name.

Give your inner critic a name.

So since I have a number of different

inner critics, I have a lot of

different names for my inner critics,

but one of them is Cranky Cory.

Cranky Cory tends to show up in the

mornings when there's a lot of work

to do and Cranky Cory's tired and he

might say something like, "Ugh, dude,

this is going to be such a long day.

Just keep hitting the snooze button.

You don't have enough

energy to do this right now.

It's not going to go well.

Just don't do what you're doing."

Sometimes Cranky Cory has a

point and we're not in a good

position to be doing what we're

doing and we actually need rest.

But a lot of times, Cranky Cory is just

being a little cranky and kind of lazy.

And so when I hear Cranky Cory, if I

don't bring him into awareness, if I

don't, if I'm not present to him, then

he sort of operates in the background

and subconsciously controls me.

But if I can hear a Cranky Cory and I

could say," Oh, I see you Cranky Cory.

I see you.

Good morning."

Well, now it becomes a

little bit more playful.

And now Cranky Cory can't be pulling all

these levers in the background of my mind,

subconsciously informing me what to do.

Instead I can hear the voice, maybe

that voice saying like, "There's no way

you're going to be able to do this well

today or do whatever you're doing."

And I could go, "Oh, hi Cranky, Cory.

Good morning.

Yeah, I know, I know.

This is, this is tough.

This is going to be hard."

I can, I can now have an

interaction with Cranky Cory.

And so by, by giving that voice

in this case, Cranky Cory a name,

it allows me to interact with it.

And you can do this in your

own particular context.

Might not be in the morning or there

might be one central voice that

arises for you throughout the day.

Debbie downer pants, whatever it might be.

And you get to be playful

in giving it a name.

Now the second part to this comes after

we've given it a name and we've given

it some sort of identity, and this is

to collaborate with this part of you.

And so when Cranky Cory arises

and he goes, "Dude, just give up.

Stop doing what you're doing.

You're not going to be good at it anyway."

I can go, "Yeah, Cranky Cory.

I know.

This does seem tough.

And I see that you have some strong

thoughts about this, but this is

important and you know, it is important.

And you know that we have this

vision for our life that we're

trying to get to, trying to improve.

You know, if we were to think

differently about this, if we were

to feel a little bit more empowered,

how might we think about it?

What might we be saying to ourselves."

And Cranky Cory might go, "Nothing.

It's going to be awful.

It's going to be terrible."

And we go, "Yeah, I know Cranky Cory.

But if we could think a little bit

more positively or be a little bit

more optimistic, how would that sound?"

And eventually you could get

Cranky Cory to come on board and

start to shift to that narrative.

So the first stage is just giving

it an identity, giving it a name.

And then the second stage is starting

to collaborate with it, meet it

and ask it how it can help you in

service of where you're trying to get.

So have some fun trying this out.

Thank you for your practice.

And let's settle in for our meditation.