3 scripts to silence your 'inner critic' when she gets mouthy

A story of how I silenced mine

I have an inner critic.

In the early days of owning my business, I would hear her constantly.

The red glaring from my bank account would reinforce it every morning.

In the last year, I got “23 & me curious.” Whhen did this dialogue take root?

I enlisted the help of a coach to trace the origins. Why the self-flagellating? I’m not even Catholic.

Together, we found it.

It dated all the way back to the eighth grade. I had spent months reading a doorstop of dictionary, readying for the Spelling Bee (back when there were 2 Indian kids. Not 50).

As luck would have it, I won and went on to represent Central Pennsylvania at the Scripps Howard Nationals in Washington DC. My family and I got an all expenses paid trip to the nation’s Capitol, sponsored by the local newspaper.

The dais at the fancy hotel was big. Intimidating. I covered my eyes as the press lights blinded me. Each state had sent a press photographer from their local paper and they sat in the bank just below the stage.

“Myrrhed”—- the judge bellowed.

Shit. I had prepared for this intellectually.

But not mentally.

How to manage the wave of panic that was coming over me. A bank of press lights continued to blind me.

The next day, the Smithsonian Museum was closed for all the contestants. The kids romped between vintage airplanes and life-sized dinosaurs, shrieking with glee. My parents sat shiva in a corner. Morose. Forlorn.

My father, an immigrant, was counting on a big bump in his accounting and payroll business since I was in the papers everyday. All of those dreams came to a screeching halt with me misspelling an aromatic resin.

M-U-R-D.

He video taped me mispelling the adjectival form of the word “frankincense and myrhh.” When he got home, he would play the tape over and over again.

That’s when it got imprinted.

“I’m a failure.”

Because I misspelled the perfume the three kings brought to the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. (I’m not even Catholic).

My coach Sam encouraged me to go back to that moment in the Smithsonian and speak to little Joya. “Reparent her,” she said gently. “What did she need to hear in that moment?”