Cultivate surrender and acceptance towards persistent difficult states, as this can lead to a transformative insight where the pattern “unhooks” and falls away, as it did for the speaker’s chronic depression.
Allow your “wise self” (a wiser, greater part of you) to lead your inner parts, rather than being blended with or controlled by difficult voices like the inner critic, enabling your wise self to “drive the bus” most of the time.
Before attempting spiritual transcendence, first “tend and befriend” your psychological pain by relaxing parts, identifying where it hurts, and bringing compassion and kindness to those areas to prevent “spiritual bypass.”
Engage your inner critic with compassion, curiosity, and calmness, asking questions like “What are you afraid would happen if you didn’t criticize me?” to uncover its underlying fears and motivations.
View your inner critic not as an enemy, but as a “protector part” that is trying to help you, even if its methods are unskillful, to foster a more compassionate and understanding approach.
Practice “labeling” or mental noting (e.g., “inner critic,” “anxiety”) in daily life to create distance from difficult emotions and thoughts, moving you into a state of awareness rather than being caught in them.
Create “spaciousness” around difficult parts (like the inner critic or anxiety) by envisioning them in a vast “airplane hanger” rather than a small room, allowing for more presence and love to diminish their impact.
Recognize that difficult emotional states like depression or anxiety are “empty” of inherent substance, meaning they are shifting collections of constituent parts rather than solid, non-negotiable entities, which can lead to their dissolution.
Integrate working with difficult emotions or trauma into your spiritual journey, recognizing them as part of the same path rather than separate obstacles to be overcome first.
To access your “wise self” or create spaciousness, practice expanding your mind and heart to be “as wide as the sky” or “like the night sky full of stars,” counteracting a collapsed feeling.
Access a “wise elder” perspective by envisioning your future 70 or 80-year-old self and how they would approach a situation, or by asking “What would the Buddha do?” to gain wisdom.
Practice self-compassion by talking to yourself the way you would a good friend, mentee, or child, channeling your capacity for good advice and kindness inwardly.
Avoid trying to force a difficult part (like the inner critic or depression) to go away, as this resistance often causes the part to “dig in deeper” and persist.
Reframe self-criticism as “the voice of the system” (cultural conditioning) or treat it like an AI chatbot to depersonalize it and take its pronouncements “with a grain of salt.”
Shift your focus from the “content” of your inner critic to the “canvas” of pure awareness itself, recognizing that this fundamental awareness is never critical and is free from thoughts.
Recognize that all mental noise, including the inner critic, ultimately “defaults to silence” within the spaciousness of pure awareness, allowing you to wait for it to pass away.
Visualize the inner critic as a single voice with a microphone in a vast, empty stadium (your spacious awareness), aiming to “take away the microphone” by not amplifying its perceived power.
Set your intention for the “end game” of your practice, whether it’s transcending specific issues like depression and anxiety, or pursuing complete freedom and full awakening.
Adopt the mindset that “everything is Dharma” (nature/truth), meaning all experiences, whether difficult or mundane, are part of your spiritual path and can be approached with awareness.