Hi, and welcome to this special conversation with Mark Coleman. My name's Cory Muscara. You may have already seen me in the Mindfulness.com app as one of your daily guides. My role in the app is to be your daily mindfulness coach, or I like to think of it as a friend. Someone who walks by your side on a daily basis, helping you develop the habit of caring for your mental and emotional health.

And today I'm thrilled to be hosting this conversation with Mark Coleman about his seven day course entitled Freedom from the Inner Critic. Mark's been a student of mindfulness for three decades and has offered retreats and training in over six continents. He's a senior meditation teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Google's Search Inside Yourself leadership Institute. And he's the founder of the Mindfulness Institute where he brings mindfulness training to Fortune 500 companies and the nonprofit sector. Mark is also the author of many books, including From Suffering to Peace: The True Power of Mindfulness, Make Peace With Your Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Help Free You From the Inner Critic, and Awake In the Wild: Mindfulness In Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery.

He is an unabashed nature lover. And through his organization, Awake In the Wild, he leads wilderness meditation retreats from Alaska to Peru. And while I've never been on one personally, I have many friends who have been on them and they just say the most remarkable things about these experiences. So if you get a chance to check one of these out, I highly encourage it. Here's what a few people have said about Mark's work.

There's pro football hall of fame quarterback, Troy Aikman, who said, "Mark provides an easy to follow roadmap to understanding and defeating our inner critic." Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge has said, "Mark's book reveals how mindfulness enables us to manifest our full potential for living from an awakened heart and mind. Mark Coleman's writing is fresh and engaging deep and inspiring." And then there's former director of executive education at Google, Rich Fernandez, who said, "Mark Coleman offers life-changing tools that promote flourishing, lasting peace of mind and freedom." Norman Fisher, also to round this out, he's the author of Training and Compassion said, "Mark Coleman does as good a job as I have seen of explaining deconstructing and working with the inner critic." So there's a lot of praise for Mark Coleman. I've been familiar with Mark's work for years. And one of the things I love about Mark is he just has this balance of depth and practicality. And you'll, you'll hear during our time together the amount that Mark cares.

His, his heart is really aligned with his work. And it's coupled with this deep understanding of how to navigate the complexities of being human. So I'm really excited for you to hear this conversation, and I know these ideas can really impact your life in a powerful way. So without further ado, let's get started with this conversation with Mark Coleman. All right, Mark.

Well, I'm really excited to take a deep dive with you here and for folks on the app to get to know more of you, your heart, your work. I, I've heard your story a handful of times, and then it always makes me smile. And so I I'd love for you to share just more of how you, the unique path that has brought you to this work and anything about your journey that feels relevant for someone wanting to get to know you and looking to learn from you. Yeah. Well, great to be here with you, Cory, and I'm looking forward to exploring these themes.

So I'm English. I was raised in Northern England in a working class culture. And somehow made my way to London and there at the height of the punk rock scene, which appealed to my sort of anarchic, wild self at the time. And was very much drawn also into the political dimension of that, with anarchy and with as really sort of railing against the, the prevailing establishments, and punk offered a really good conduit for that. And I was clearly cognizant of the suffering in the world.

And I think partly what I had been doing was projecting my own suffering onto the world and looking for something to blame. And I was angry with the government and corporations and power structures and thinking that that was the source of my unhappiness. And when I looked back at my journals from those times, a lot of suffering, a lot of unhappiness, some mild depression, anger, rage, self hatred. But I didn't really, and I didn't have self-awareness tools. I had never heard of meditation or mindfulness.

And, but I started to kind of look more deeply than just being involved in politically. And I started to look at really what was, you know, troubling me and I started seeking out different spiritual practices. But clue, but somewhat clueless, just dabbling in whatever I could find., And I was squatting this house in East London and actually ended up squatting, which is sort of a way of taking over empty housing stock, which was preva, prevalent at the time in London. And I ended up squatting a Buddhist housing association house that had no, but didn't, weren't doing anything with this. So that's empty.

I'll just take it over. And then being Buddhists and, you know, they didn't kick me out. They just said, Hey, look, you know, let's work this out. And then you might, you know, I think they could tell I was an angry young man. They said, well, yeah, you might want to check out the, the meditation center around the corner, which I did.

And that was my way. I walked into the door of this meditation center in East London, Bethnal Green, very unusual than in the Eighties to find any meditation centers. And, and I looked at the power. How old are you at this point, Mark? I'm 19. This is 1983, I think.

And you know, I've got this wide Mohawk, I have big earrings. I make my own clothes out of curtains that I've taken down from empty houses. Like I'm pretty a wild thing. And I sure they thought what, what is that walking through the door? And and it was interesting that what, what pulled me in was not, you know, there was Buddhas and there was all these beautiful things around, but I noticed people and they were just going about their day. They were doing office work and cleaning and doing the flowers.

And, and I could tell they had a quality of presence. And I didn't, I didn't have that language back then, but I just knew they had, they were onto something. I could feel it, I could see it, I could sense it. And I thought, I want to know what they know. I want to know what they're experiencing that seems so present, presence full and dignified.

And so I took up some classes and immediately resonated with that, that introspective orientation, where instead of looking out externally at the world, whether it's for solutions or to blame, you know, is to turn that lens of awareness inside. And it was illuminating, as it is for all of us who do this practice to actually go, Oh, I can actually study my mind. I can observe it. I can know it. I can see its patterns.

I can see its habits. I can see when it's beautiful and beneficial. And I can also see when it's destructive and painful. And one of the things that became most apparent was how critical I was, how harsh that inner voice was, how mean, how deprecating, how self judging was just, just some part of the fabric of my mind. And it, not that that noticing eradicated it, but it, it, it was kind of a wake up call to, Oh, I need to tend to this garden of my mind.

It was like overgrown with bushes and weeds and was, you know, kind of really unhealthy. And that's kind of what lit the fire in me. And I ended up dropping out of college. I moved into a Buddhist, basically like a monastery, like of a retreat center. And really began a lifelong study of meditation, of mindfulness.

And it was the tool of mindfulness combined with the practice of loving kindness, I learned both of those at the same time, that really lifesavers for me. And we can talk more about how those practices interweave, but the awareness, the mind, the awareness that comes from mindfulness was clearly, you know, helped me understand my mind. But it was the loving, loving kindness that help provide a counterpoint to all that negative self judgment. And that was very healing for my heart. Yeah, that, that I think starts to address one of the curiosities that came up for me in your journey here, which is, you know, you, you acknowledge that there was a lot of anger or suffering, suffering beneath the surface that sort of pushed you, maybe out of just sheer looking for relief to find some sort of practices that would help.

But the interesting thing, right about these practices, they, they tend to bring you more intimate with the experiences that are there. And I'm, I'm curious about those early turning towards, those moments of turning toward yourself. We're they just filled with excitement and wonder of like, Oh, there's a path here? Or was there some initial resentment and fear about taking steps further into that space? You know, I think I was a very naive young man. I was very gung-ho. I was very gullible.

I was very influenceable. And I was very idealistic actually, which is why I took to anarchy and to punk and to you know, social transformation. Cause I, I think I was moved by possibility. And even though I had a lot of suffering inside. I could see, I was moved, I was pulled to the possibility of, and I didn't know what the possibility was, but the potential of, of, of whether it was happiness or peace or, you know, social change.

And so and, and, and Buddhism is very idealistic. And so I resonated with that, that the, the, the ideals of humanity, you know, of, of, of being able to be free, to be loving and compassionate and to be awake. And so I was more, less fueled by fear, more fueled by, by passion and curiosity. And, and simultaneously, even though I had a lot of mental, emotional, psychological suffering, when I meditated it was actually like a cocoon. I actually accessed, for the first few years of my practice, a lot of bliss in the meditation.

When I could, when I, when the mind would quiet enough, you know, in the chatter and the self-talk and the judging and all that, when that quieted down, I actually, was actually able to access a lot of deep bliss. And it was also very rare, very different than what I'd known in my life. And again, that was kind of like, Oh, this is, this is a possibility of, of, of joy that I hadn't known before. And so that pulled me, like pulled me to drop out of college. It pulled me to move into the country, into a retreat center, pulled me to really devote my life to understanding the mind and the heart and, and finding ways to grow as a, as a human being.

Wow. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. And I think this really will, your, your journey and that transition will really speak to so many people who can resonate with that inner torment. And one of the first, you know, what we're going to go through the five key principles of your course, but one of the, the first one is just this modern pandemic of self judgment, which I think is a nice segue from what you were just discussing.

Could you speak more to to that aspect of your course and what that's pointing to? Yeah. Well, you know, both from my own experience, looking at my family, looking at my friends and social media, looking particularly at my students. You know, I've been teaching for 20 years and just see how prevalent the inner critic is. And whatever, whatever, and I say inner critic, but we could call it different things. We could call it the judging mind.

Some people call it the tyrant or the bully or the task master or that perfectionist voice inside of ourselves. And we see it in the media. We see it in social media. We see it in the way people talk to themselves and talk to each other that, and I come from England where there's a, there's a cultural norm of putting oneself down, of self-deprecating. But it's also not just English, it's, you know, global.

And so I, you know, it's somewhat ubiquitous, I think in most cultures for most people. And then I think the certain factors that have exacerbated, social media being the obvious one. You know, we now have this platform for the last 10 years and certainly, you know, teenagers and, you know, younger folks who've grown up with this external reference point for, for wellbeing, for approval, for self image, for identity, for social inclusion. And so social media particularly has, I think, dramatically impacted how people look at themselves, compare themselves unfavorably, see the perfect Instagram life. And so I think it's become more of a pandemic because it's been reinforced by social media, reinforced by media and images of how we should be living the perfect life.

Whether it's through Hollywood or whatever, you know, the latest fantasy, idealized character is. And the, the bottom line is it's really painful. Like the, the net effect of the critic. I can feel myself getting emotional as I talk about it. You know, it's just deeply painful.

Like it's caused deep pain in my own life. Deep pain. I watched my father and how he's carried his self judgment and his shame. He's now 81 and was fostered until he was seven. Has, you know, very, very lot of deep judgment about that as people often do when they're fostered and adopted.

And and I see it in my students and I see how these beautiful, unique, wonderful, healthy, intelligent, kind human beings feel terrible about themselves, put themselves down, feel shame, feel unworthy, feel low, self-esteem, feel not good enough. And and if it wasn't so painful, I don't think I'd be teaching about it. But you know, there's many things that are ubiquitous, but because this one piece is so painful, it causes depression, causes suicidality, causes, you know, many things that I've shared, that it it behooved me to both do my work on myself, to learn it, to understand it and to try and help other people. Because what I do see is when we do start to bring attention to it, we can, you know, find some space from its grip. We can find some ease with the pain that it's caused.

And even if it's, you know, long lasting, you know, you know, I have people on my courses that are in their eighties and seventies and fifties and twenties and whatever it is. And no matter how long that voice has been with us, we always have the potential to mitigate its impact. That's the good news. Right? We never know, and no matter how long a pattern has passed, has been going on, it doesn't, it doesn't mean it's going to go on for the same period of time as we work on it. So, so I also want to, I think the reason of this course was to share the good news that as painful and as difficult and as pervasive as this pain can be, we can really do good work with mindfulness, with compassion and with some of the other practices that I shared.

Hmm. Thanks Mark. Yeah. It's I mean, hearing you talk about it and the emotion that it brings up in you. Sort of reminds me of the Buddha's awakening and being at this inflection point of, you know, I kind of did my work on myself and I could stay here and live out the rest of my days in this deep peace and then the, the motivation of compassion toward others and wanting to help others free themselves of suffering and pain and stress.

I get that, that sense in hearing your story coupled with what you just shared of the turning into your own experience and the pain that was there. It's like, yeah, it, it, it helped you navigate your own journey and find a certain peace, but it also seemed to awaken really profound seeds of compassion that I think are the foundation for, yeah, for powerful teachers in the world. So I just, I feel really excited for everyone to get to experience all the, yeah, the journey that you went through to come to these insights. And I just want to thank you again for, for your work and your heart. You know, you, you mentioned that there's a function of the critic, right? So we've talked about this, this pandemic of there being self-judgment, which I'm sure a hundred percent of people listening, go, yeah, I know what that is like.

But the, the, the next key part of your course is there's a function of the critic. Could you speak to that? Yeah. So different, I mean, there's different people, psychologists and writers over the, over the years have had different views about this. Basically the simple way of understanding it is the critic is a misguided ally. So Freud talked about the critic in terms of the super ego.

And the super ego's role was to help the young infant navigate social norms and customs, customs and familial cultures and society, and to manage those powerful impulses that we have as children. As inference, powerful forces of anger and desire and hatred and, you know, just strong emotions. You know, we come in as emotional beings and which is all well and good, but every family in society and religion and culture has norms about what's okay and what's not okay. And we quickly have to learn as a child what's okay because if we don't and we're doing things that are not okay, what happens? We get reprimanded. There's a withdrawal of love.

There's a withdrawal of affection. There's potential violence or rejection or worse. And so we quickly have to learn how to navigate this, this thing that we've taken birth and called a body and heart and emotions and mind and feelings and wants and needs. And, and so the super ego's role, in the critic's role is way of managing that. And sadly, sadly, one of the main ways it does that is by sort of shutting us down, shutting those impulses and drives down.

And it does so mostly through shame, through judgment and shame. And of course we might. And so that's one way the, the, the, the critic arises is through just learning to shut that down, which is not acceptable. And the, and just to sort of backtrack a little bit. Prior to the shutting it down, what it's trying to protect us from is vulnerability.

Right? If we're at risk of doing something that's going to cause the disapproval, dislike, loss of love or connect, contact, connection, or whatever it is from loved ones, that's vulnerable to an infant. That's life or death of an infant. And so the super ego's role, the critics role comes in as a way to protect us from potential vulnerability of loss of love, loss of connection. And that that carries forward. So, you know, so that's one way it happens.

The other way is when our parents or caregivers or whoever significant people in our lives, when they told us things like you're stupid, you're ugly, you're unlovable. You know, you're never going to get your life together or, you know, you're selfish or you're a spoiled brat or whatever it is we we're told. You know, as children, we're sponges, we're impressionable. And we take those messages on as if it's true. And then we usually start to tell ourselves we're unlovable.

You know, we're not enough, we're not as smart as our brother. We're never going to be as successful as the Jones or whatever it is. And so those two ways, I think, form some of the key foundations of the critic. And what happens is we internalize those messages and we internal, internalize the ways that we tell ourselves not to do things because we're going to be told off or reprimanded or lose love. And so in any situation where that vulnerability arises, then those old mechanisms that get sort of entrenched and reinforced over time resurface.

So simple example. You're, you're driving to work. You're late for a meeting. It's an important meeting with your boss and your team and your colleagues, and you're, you're presenting something and you had difficulty getting out of the house because of the kids. And then you hit unexpected traffic and you're late.

That's a very vulnerable moment, cause your, you know, your boss is there. It's your livelihood. It's, you know, has risk factors. And what happens? The critic sensing the vulnerability, lashes out, tells you how stupid you are, how foolish, how didn't you plan for that. You should have anticipated traffic.

You really are never going to get your life together. You're always failing. You're always late. And then universalizes and, and exaggerates the, of the, the, the, the criticisms, trying to, with the view or the belief or the habit that if it does that enough, it just shames you enough. The next time you'll be on time for work, right? Yeah.

And the, the, the, you know, there's a lot to unpack there, but, you know, and I talk about it some in the course, that the problem with that is if that worked then do it. But it doesn't, it just makes us feel bad and we feel stupid. Like, yeah, of course I should have left early for work. How did I not know there was going to be traffic? And then we also circumvent the, the possibility of, of inquiring, well, how come that happened? How, how come it is? How come that I cut my time fine? How come that I kind of played that risk when it's a vulnerable situation? And so we short circuit that ability to understand, and therefore we don't learn. And therefore we, we both repeat that pattern and we also feel worse about ourselves because we repeated it and we've taken on more views that we're always late and we're never going to get a life together and on and on.

So that's sort of how it builds and ending up in, you know, you know, maybe, you know, you, you know, your friend doesn't remember your birthday and suddenly the critics says, you see, you're just unlovable. Right? That's the net result of this long chain of events. And again, it's a misguided, as trying to help, but the way it does so is not helpful. And there's other ways to learn and grow without judging and shaming ourselves. Whoo.

I might say first, this is the best description I've ever heard of the function of the inner critic and where it comes from. And what is so apparent to me is just how social the, the social foundation of its arising. It makes me think of Carl Jung's work on the shadow. And we often think of the shadow as this part of our personality that we despise, or we, we just cast into the background of our awareness. But that he really emphasized, it's not your shadow, it's culture's shadow.

Right. It's these, these aspects of you that were true and organic and part of the full human experience, but culture added or said no. And as you say, we layer shame on that. And, but, but it's that moment of this desire for acceptance and love and fitting into the tribe that I have so much tenderness and compassion toward. That the inner critic is really stemming from from that place of trying to protect you and care for you.

Yeah. And you can see that. Yeah. And again, you can see that in young children, when they do something that risks social disapproval, or you see that with teenagers even more so. They do something, you know, like, you know, it can be anything.

Like it could be that parents showing up at an event, right. That it's going to wreak social disapproval and the critic will shame them so that doesn't happen again. At least the hope it doesn't happen again. And as I say, it leads to two things. It leads to deepening the habit, relying on the critic to navigate our world and increasing the sense of shame or whatever impact we have from that judgment.

And then the third thing is the lack of learning. Like, Oh, let me see how I can navigate that better. I have conscience and I have, you know, my cognitive functions and I have other ways to reflect on how I can improve that situation rather than just beat myself up for it happening. Yeah. Yes.

Wow. So, well, we're going to continue to deepen into, you know, how we work with this as it's arising. I think this is also just a good point to name, because I know a lot of your emphasis and work in the world, Mark, involves a collectivist view and activism and making purposeful change which seemed to start in your teenage years but carries over into your mindfulness teachings. And I think this is just a really important reminder, especially for those who are new to this, these practices of mindfulness and meditation, and see them as isolated things that we just do on the cushion that, yeah, there's an importance to developing autonomy and agency and being able to see the thoughts moving through our mind and not get consumed by them, but also to create spaces as a culture that aren't instilling or perpetuating this inner critic by shaming certain ways of being or a person's expression in the world. Yeah, so that, it just feels like an important thing to insert here.

So yeah, let's go into the next piece, which is moving from judgment to self-compassion. So this is a third piece you talk about in your, in your course. This feels like an important bridge. Yeah. And so in the, those two qualities, mindfulness and compassion, you know, it's often referred to as the wings of a bird, right? Without one, you don't fly so well.

You fly around in circles. And the reason I emphasize compassion so much is because, you know, this whole field of the critic is painful. Painful in the beginning, you know, the loss of vulnerability. Painful in the middle, being shouted at, being judged at. Painful in the end, the net result of being criticized over time is shame and worthiness, et cetera.

So it's important that with all of that, that we're kind. You know, that were just as, you know, like whereas maybe we're, you know, if you're with a friend or a loved one who's beating themselves up. And we know that they're a lovely, good, kind person and we, and we feel the pain for them of how could they even think of themselves as stupid or ugly or unlovable or, you know, whatever the many things people tell themselves. And so now, of course, it's harder to do with ourselves. And, but I find again, as I mentioned, having learned the practice of loving kindness.

And the way I was taught it was about when using phrases that express a wish for ourselves. You know, may you be, well, may I be happy, may I be safe, may I be free from harm, may I be loved or whatever those words are. Those words were a direct counterpoint to the yeah, but you're stupid. Yeah, but you're ugly. But yeah, but you're unworthy.

Yeah, but you're useless. And so that, the attitude of turning towards ourselves with this caring, kind, compassionate attitude is just the opposite of what the critic does. And it's orienting loving kindness practice, compassion practice is orienting to our basic goodness, our basic good heart. We come into this life. Every, every young being comes into this life, you know, good, whole, pure.

And then with conditioning stuff happens and, you know, things get distorted and, you know, pain and whatever, you know, can cause a lot of distortion. So, so just, it's so important that we are tender with ourselves in all the ways that we, we feel pain and suffering. And as I said, because, you know, if the critic was just a bunch of thoughts, which it is on one level. It's just a bunch of thoughts and that's an interesting awareness. But because those thoughts lead to views and feelings like unworthiness, like hopelessness, like shame, like, you know, and all the other things that are very painful, that it's really, really essential that we hold ourselves just as we would a friend, a loved one, a child who was feeling sad or lonely or upset with kindness.

And, and and to, to show ourselves there's another way to be with pain other than judging it and shaming ourselves. And, you know, it's the love really that heals this. You know, there's other work to do with mindfulness and, and strategies to work with the critic and the voices and the ideas and the views, but turning to ourselves with kindness and love, which of course isn't easy in the beginning if we've been beating ourselves up for 20, 30, 40 years. That is really what ultimately brings about the transformation and they're practices. And I share some practices in, in, in the course that help bring this more heartful attitude.

Hmm. Great. Yeah, I don't want to go too deep into the course because I know there's a ton there. And we're giving people just a taste of it. I'm just curious for, you know I'm sure you've seen this where some people go, yeah, I know I'm supposed to be self-compassionate.

I get the phrases, may I be happy, but every time I say may be happy there's another thought that says you don't deserve to be happy, or may I be loved, you don't deserve to be loved. If someone is really like it feels just like a wrestling match within them, between what they're trying to do, what they know they should do and what keeps coming up as a strong expression. Do you have any insights for someone struggling with that? Yeah, that's a great question. Well that was certainly me, you know. I, I said, you know, in the beginning I felt like my, I, my heart was like an iceberg, frozen solid.

Hard, impenetrable, and cold and lonely in a way to itself. And and, and I would say the words, and actually my first teacher used to say, just say them as quick as possible, get as many phrases out as you can. Now, just, you know, like. I don't think that's really going to, I'm not a metta phrase factory. I'm not loving kindness phrase factory.

So but you know, I that was true that for many of those times I would wish those things for myself and I wasn't really feeling it, you know. But and what my teacher and dear friend, Sharon Salzberg used to teach, taught me was that it's, it's, it's the intention and the energy that you put behind each phrase each time you say it. Like, so for me, it's not about whether you feel it it's about whether you can find any inkling of genuineness in that. So it might be that you hate yourself or you judge yourself or you think you're unworthy, but there's probably somewhere inside that wishes you to be happy, that wishes you to be free, that wishes you to be safe, wishes you to be healthy. And you start with the most, most basic accessible thing.

Like maybe may it, may I have a healthy body. Like most of us, you know, will want some version of that, you know? And may I be free from suffering? You know? And, and yes, we might have the other, you know, the counterpoint phrases from the critic. Yeah, but you don't deserve blah. But that doesn't matter if you can say one phrase meaningfully. Yeah, I want you to be safe.

May you be safe. Right? That has power, you know, and it's sort of a, it's hard to quantify, right? But it reverberates in the being. And then the other thing is try to re recollect people or beings who like you or love you or appreciate you. It could be your cat. Could be, you know, your grandmother.

It could be, you know, good friend. It could be somebody, you know, in the world, looks at you with some kind of positive regard. And you try and put yourself in their shoes, through see-through their eyes, some quality of goodness or some way that they wish you to be happy. And that can also be another way of turning around to it. It's a way of tricking the critic to it.

And then making a space to allow some goodness in. Yeah. Beautiful. I feel something in me soften just as you speak about this. And I think this is also a nice segue into the next next quality I would talk about of moving from feeling not enough to enough.

And I know so many people struggle with this feeling of not being worthy, not being good enough, not being enough on the ultimate level. So, yeah, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Yeah. Well, I call it the not enough mantra. And it, you know, it's it's, and it's pervasive, you know.

It's as ubiquitous as the inner critic and they kind of go hand in hand. They're like cousins. You know, the critic, the net result of the critic is you don't feel enough. If you listen to the critic, you don't feel enough. And it's a self fulfilling sort of prophecy, creates the imposter syndrome and there's all kinds of, in my book.

I quote all kinds of famous people like John Steinbeck who didn't think he was good enough writer. Einstein didn't think he was smart enough. You know, Maya Angelou didn't think she was a good enough writer. And just, you know, and you ask anybody who's well-known who you think, Oh, they clearly, they made it. But you know, most of them have got critics.

And if they listen to their critics, they'll feel like, well, yeah, but I'm not Shakespeare. Yeah. But I'm not, you know, Isaac Newton. You know, I'm not whatever, whatever it is. And so, and of course we live in this culture, materialistic culture that the, the, the, you could say the, the premise of, of materialism is not enoughness.

Right? You know, that if, if we all felt like we had enough, we were enough, materialism would die out as, as a, as a sort of a paradigm for capitalism. Right? So the whole culture is built on this premise of whatever we have, whoever we are, whatever we look like, whatever we accomplish is never enough. And so we live in this hungry ghost culture of, Oh, it's gotta be more, like that famous phrase from what's his name? Rockefeller, when you know, richest man in the world. How much money is enough? And he said $1 more, $1 more. Right? And so that's true for us.

You might, you might have three PhDs. You might have a lot of money. You might have, you know, I don't know, massive social media following. It's never enough. Social media is a good place to look at that cause that's clearly not enough because it's bred by compare, the comparing mind and the ego is never content.

And so, and of course, as I talk about in the course, the critic follows us around. So if we, if we have this belief that we're not enough, when we go to the gym, we're not fit enough. When we go to work, we're not smart enough. When we go to, I don't know, shopping, we're not healthy enough. When we go to the library, we're not well-read enough.

When we go to a spiritual meditation center, we're not mindful enough. Right? So it's, it breeds this pervasive. It's like a, it's like a mushroom like this, they are sort of mycelium roots of, of lack and not enoughness. And so, you know, the, the, with mindfulness, we can begin to see where these views, and this is a view surface and where we believe them. And then we can bring some, as well as mindfulness, we can bring some inquire, some investigation, like, what does it mean that I'm not enough.

Like, and maybe it's good to write it out. As I suggest people to write it out. Write out the ways you think you're not enough. And then go okay, let's just take one of them. Okay.

I'm not smart enough. Or what does that mean to be smart? What does that mean to be not smart enough? And to really like tease it apart and you're often you've, it's like Oh, I can't think of the metaphor where you peel something away like the, like a Banyan tree. You peel away all the layers and there's nothing there, like an onion. There's no, there's no core there. And the thing with a lot of these views, it's their ideas that when they're not challenged, they have a lot of weight.

But when we look at them and say, who's deciding that I'm not enough? Oh, it's my critic. And why am I listening to the critic? Why am I giving the critic authority and the voice of objective truth about saying whether I'm enough or not? Why don't I listen to something else like my heart or my conscience or what my dear friends who know me and love me for 20 years think about me? That might be more useful an objective reference point than my skewed critic. So we get to the look of these with mindfulness. We also feel the painfulness of them with compassion because you know, to not feel enough and to go round as I did, a feeling a basic root unworthiness is a terrible, painful state to be in. I mean, it's really, really painful.

And again, the loving kindness practice I used to do these practices called, not affirmations, but like positive appreciations. Like a gratitude practice also. Like I would just, you know, at the end of the day would think about one or three things. I was either grateful for in myself or one to three things I would appreciate. Like I appreciate I cooked a good meal today.

Or, I appreciate that I had a really meaningful conversation that someone, you know, really thanked me for. And so we, or, I really liked the way that I was generous with my time today with this homeless person. Whatever it is, we start to skew the negativity bias of the critic to actually looking at well, what's actually true if I don't look through that negative lens. And we start to see, Oh, there's many ways that I am enough and sufficient and okay as I am. Yeah, that feels really important because it, it takes it from what some people might perceive as a fake it till you make it, or just positive affirmation ourselves into some sort of new distorted thinking to know you're actually nurturing what's there.

And it's a skillful shifting of your attention to just something else that you could focus on that is real and true and needs to be highlighted. What would you say, because we started this section off with like mentioning some big names, like Einstein's inner critic and Maya Angelou. What about like some of our high achievers out there who are hearing that is like, well, it worked for them. Does that mean, am I like, why not? Shouldn't I use that or do I need that to reach these high levels? Right, right. Well, that's yeah.

That's the first question I always get asked. I'm a lawyer, I'm a doctor. I'm whatever. And I'm a trader on Wall Street. I need to, that judgment mind to make those quick decisions or I'll never get out of bed in the morning.

I might, I'd, I'd be a slob and my house would be a mess or, you know, I'd never wash. And it's true. There's a feeling that the critic you know, implies or likes us to think that if we couldn't do without it, it's what I call loyalty to the critic. And we get loyal to the critic because we've listened to it for, you know, decades. And we believe it is the thing that gets us to get out of bed, to get a job, to work hard, to clean our house or whatever it is.

And, and that may be true to some degree. And I'm not denying that it, it, it can push you onwards, you know, sometimes quite far. But I would say, a few questions about that. One is, is that, is that a very happy state? Like if you're listening to this bully that's a taskmaster, that's tryannical, critical, nitpicking, judgemental, and you're living your life sort of bowing to that voice. It's not going to be a happy life.

You might get successful in some way, and you might be driven in some way, but you're not going to be a very balanced, happy contented full human being. And so what I, my counterpoint to that is it's true that can work to some degree, just like anger can work for limited times, but it's not a sustainable driver for change that we have many other ways to motivate ourselves. Right? Whether it's inspiration, whether it's or we have, you know, we have conscience to help us decide ethical decisions. We have, you know self-love that might desire us to have a nice clean home, you know, and just, it's kind of like gives us self respect. And there's a lot of qualities like judgment.

For example, discernment, assessment, evaluation that we use that are similar to judgment, that we need to navigate life, make decisions, deal with complex problems that it's different than, than the judging mind. When I say the judging mind, it's the it's, it's the, it's the mind that creates thoughts that lead to a feeling of a sense of worthiness, unworthiness and not enoughness or shame. Right? So in an, I often give this example, like we'll review our meditation. If we're using discernment, we'll look back at the meditation, go, Oh, you know, I started off really, you know, balanced and bright and I kind of got drifty and sleep in the middle and then my energy picked up and I got more focus at the end. The critics view would be like, well, I mean, it was okay in the beginning.

Yeah, but you kind of just lost the plot and you really blew it in the middle. I mean, I don't know why you bother, I mean, the end was yeah, it was okay. But you know, it's kind of a waste of time. And you know, you would never really good at this anyway, you know? I mean, you tried yoga and I mean, you know, who do you think you are meditating? Right? Same data, different perspectives. Right? So Yeah.

So we, so we, we want to use all these healthy qualities we have - cognitive discernment, assessment, evaluation, all of that stuff, and, and unhook the, this pushing voice that's driving us in a way that lead, will lead, anything that's sort of unwholesome in the beginning will have a kind of unwholesome end. It can't not. Cause, cause the thing is, if you listen to the critic, you strengthen the critic. And that's the fundamental thing you don't want to be. You want to be noticing the critic and then maybe understanding what's going on and then acting from a different place than the critic, critics judgment.

Yeah. Well, very well said. Yeah, it it's you know, I think you had mentioned this early on, but it it's like a bit of a science experiment. And I guess for those who are really committed to their inner critic, it's like, yeah, try it out. See how long you can go that way if that's how you want to live your life.

But I think that if someone's listening to this conversation, if they've come this far, they're probably disillusioned to some extent as that being a sustainable path. And, and I really love that there's an offering of an alternative for wellbeing and what we might call traditional success. So yeah, that brings us to our last point, the power of forgiveness. I think that's a nice way to punctuate these five. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The power of forgiveness. Well, you know, there's a quote, I think it was from Jack Kornfield, who said forgiveness is, is letting go of all hope for better past. And the, you know, one of the many things about the critic, it sort of, from one perspective, when we look at the critic, it's kind of comical at, at how this part of our mind operates. Tells us to do one thing and then we do it and then it beats us up because we didn't do it the way it was supposed to be done. And then another comical, but painful part of the critic is it has 20/ 20 hindsight.

It looks back at yesterday, last year, 10 years ago. And says, why did you do that? Why did you, you know, say yes to that person? Why did you take that job? And why did you invest in Palm pilot or in, you know, whatever it was that tanked the next day? Or why did you buy that house just before the housing market crashed, as I did. And and then, and then it chastises us, beats us up. Things, tells us we're stupid and we can't be trusted and you should only listen to the critic. And of course, which may have been telling you to get your finances together and buy something at the time.

And so, you know, it, it just shows the folly of that. Again, it's a negativity bias, looking at the past, thinking what we could've, would've, should've done. And, you know, again, coming back to sort of the, some of the fundamentals of, of being human, of our basic goodness. We try to do the best we can with the resources we can in any moment. And of course we can look back and go, well, I could have tried harder.

But actually could we? We can only do what we can do in the moment. And and so, so forgiveness plays a really important role because so much of our judgements, and I count myself in this because one of my stickiest places is regretting. Regretting choices, regretting things that I've done or said, regretting things I haven't done. And and again, the critic is coming from this view of 20/20 hindsight. And you yeah, you know, and again, so that's one level just around decision-making.

But another level is around our interpersonal dynamics. And of course, you know, we're human. We get tired, we get triggered, we get reactive. And it's not uncommon and we might say something, you know, harsh to our loved ones, to our kids, to our parents, to our family, to a stranger. And then the critic comes in.

It's like, you know, it's just, you know, hell and fire and brimstone with, you know, telling us what a terrible person we are for shouting at our parents on the phone or our kids or whatever. You know, we got triggered and we were tired and we, our buttons were pushed and we were vulnerable. And next that comes something. And, and so it's important, you know, the, what the critic doesn't value or see is, or recognize is our humanness, right? That we're human. We have foibles.

We have vulnerabilities. And, and, and so the opposite of the critic, the critic is basically not wanting to accept our humanness, our foibles, our idiosyncrasies. And when we bring mindfulness and compassion to ourselves, we bring that forgiving quality, which is really an accepting quality. And it's like, yes, I accept all of you and your beautiful parts, your fearful sides, your selfish, contracted sides. And it's all of it.

We, we, we have, you know, we heaven and hell. We span a whole range as human beings and we do the best we can and we mess up and we start again, just like with mindfulness. You know, you can see that, you know, we sit down, we follow the breath for a few breaths for the yeah. And then we space out. And if, and if, and if the critic is in control, it's like, pathetic.

You're thinking again. Versus, like Oh, of course, minds think. That's what they do. Come back, start again. And so it's, so forgiveness can be an attitude, just like kindness is an attitude, which is just, you know, it's welcoming our humanness.

It's not letting ourselves off the hook, you know, still applying effort and, and, and, and dedication and perseverance. But, but allowing for our humanness. Yeah, you've left me with at least two tweetable takeaways. Mark forgiveness can be an attitude and nature never judges us. There you go.

Thank you. So we have to wrap this up, we have a, micropractice something really simple that folks can do throughout the day. It doesn't have to be part of a formal meditation practice. The three point check-in. Would you mind sharing that as a, as a teaser for folks for more of the micro-practices that you have inthe, in the course? Yeah.

So what I love about this micro-practice two point check-in, which I started teaching, I don't know, 15 years ago or something is, you know, we think about mindfulness practice in many ways, and there are many beautiful practices, techniques, tools, retreats you can do to develop awareness. And we can also do it in any moment. And what the three point check-in is just a way of tracking the three main domains of our experience, body, heart, mind. These are interior experience and just simply bringing attention to them and just coming to one word that expresses in the general sense of that, that domain of experience. So I'll guide us in it and and then we'll we'll see how it goes.

Great. Okay. So just take a moment wherever you are to settle yourself. You might close your eyes. Doesn't matter whatever posture you're in.

And then just take a slow conscious breath. And bring awareness to your whole body and just think of one word that describes your physical experience. It could be like relaxed or restless, calm, hungry. And then to take another conscious breath. And sense your heart, sense your emotional landscape.

And what is one feeling quality that's present now? Happy, anxious, curious, quiet. Just naming one word for the emotional state that's present, however subtle. Take another breath. And then becoming aware of the climate of the mind. One word that describes how your mind is in this moment.

Busy, thinking, focused, scattered. And then just reviewing, just saying those, those words for each of your centers. Word for the body, word for the heart, word for the mind. And like, so. And of course we could do that again now.

And those three areas, those three domains of experience may change. You may come up with a different word. So just, you can do this at any moment. You know, the moment you wake up, you can do this at the beginning and at the end of a meditation. You do it standing in line, waiting for, you know, taxi.

You could just, it's just a way to bring, to light up the, the domains of our experience in a very immediate way. Hmm. Yeah. I really liked that. I feel very.

Well, my three words were grounded, calm and still. Yeah. If somebody does this and they, they note, let's say ungrounded, eratic, and chaotic. Is there still utility for that? Yeah. Great.

Yeah. It doesn't matter how you are, what you're feeling, what your mind is like, what your body. You're just giving, you know. Mindfulness provides information, right? It illuminates our experience. So we're clear what we're experiencing and it's like, Oh, I had no idea I was really feeling agitated.

Oh. And then, so, so from that, from the springboard for going, Oh, so how, what's needed? How do I respond to that? I need to, I might just take some deeper breaths here. I'm really, really rattled by something. Let me just kind of feel my belly and, or, you know, wow. I'm exhausted.

You know, I need to lie down or I'm hungry. Oh God. No idea I've been just driving on caffeine. I need to get some food. You know, so it's really just welcoming whatever's here with that open, curious attitude and mindfulness.

Yeah. Beautiful. Mark, this has been really amazing. And it's felt like a meditation in itself. And for all of you listening, you're probably just wondering, you know, how do I go deeper into these ideas because this has all been obviously packed with information and practices and insights.

But it's just the tip of the iceberg of what Mark has created. And so everything that we have here at Mindfulness.com is really designed to, to implement these tools in a practical way while maintaining the depth and integrity of the teachings. And Mark has a handful of different options that we've been alluding to for how to go deeper into this, including a seven day meditation course, which is titled, Freedom from the Inner Critic. And this is designed to really go deeper into the ideas we've talked about. He has a number of different micro-practices in addition to the three point check-in.

And I think one of the things I've always appreciated about working with the teacher is that you can ask questions and hear how they would respond in real time to a commonly asked, answered ask questions. And so Mark has taken those, like some of the more common questions around these topics and provided in-depth answers. So you'll be able to take a deep dive into all of those as well. Mark, before we go, is there, is there anything you'd like to add? Anything we didn't get to or any final wishes? Yeah, well, firstly, just to say, I really enjoyed the conversation, Cory. It's been delightful.

And it's always delightful for me to explore this theme, you know, and as I, as I shared at the beginning, it's also very raw for me. You know, it's very, it's a tender, this is vulnerable material, not the easiest material but just one so worthy of attention. And, and, and it's actually one of those things. There are many things that we work on in our lives and our spiritual practice where, you know, sometimes it takes years or decades. And what I noticed with working with the critic as hard as it is, that actually it's one of the places to see quite radical transformation, particularly when we start to bring awareness to our thoughts and some of the faulty thinking and beliefs.

We can really do ourselves a lot of favors by bringing awareness to those and, and seeing how much space we can have from my mind. And then of course bringing that quality of kindness as a way of sort of holding ourselves when it's not easy with, with this material. So I just want to say I'm just happy to be sharing, glad that we're having this conversation. I hope these practices really serve. Yeah.

Thanks Mark. I think what stands out to me having done this conversation and getting to chat with you is just your embodiment of these teachings and the intention of these teachings. And I'm, I'm sure everyone who's listening can feel it. It's one thing to talk about these ideas and it's another thing to have walked the often difficult journey to come to these insights and be motivated by by something in one's heart to, to share with the world. And Mark is just so committed to the integrity of these teachings and maintaining the depth of these teachings, especially as mindfulness grows and becomes more mainstream.

So it's it's really an honor to know you Mark and have you on this platform and I'm excited for people to, to really get to take a deep dive into your work. Right. Thanks Cory. Me too. So for all of you who are looking to go deeper, you can get access to all of Mark's materials just signing up for a free seven day trial.

This will also give you access to the video coaching, the library of guided meditation, sleep meditations. And we're really look forward to to hearing how you're impacted by, by Mark's work. So, Mark, thank you again. It was a joy and a privilege. And thank you all for tuning in.

Until we talk again, take care.