The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

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Good morning.

And today we'll start this journey on looking at the inner critic.

And in this guided meditation, I used a way

in which we can maybe like subvert the critic because maybe it's such an integral part of our

meditation practice like oh you're you're no longer on the object you're lost, or you know, there could be this way in which these little pervasive thoughts just show up in our regular meditation.

So I thought it'd be helpful to do a little bit of a different meditation that keeps the mind busy, gives it something to do.

So this inner critic isn't busily chattering. And not only that can provide a sense of spaciousness and warmth, which is what's needed,

if we're going to work with this inner critic. So again, I'll describe this inneric a little bit as maybe it's something like a sub-personality inside of us, this way in which it's like constantly putting us down and belittling us. It's a voice of negativity that's blaming ourselves and nagging at us and maybe it has a sense of shame for what we are or how we are or who we are or

maybe there isn't a sense of shame with it maybe it's just a bunch of criticizing

but one thing that this inner critic has is a sense of harshness.

Like it's not warm and friendly. It's a sense of, you know, you're not good enough, you have to do more. There's this feeling of an

inadequacy of I'm not enough. You I am is not enough for.

I'm not worthy.

And maybe those words aren't so explicit,

but it's this attitude that's often like just happening kind of like as this running. this

this running narrative in the back of the mind or accompanying our daily life,

whatever it is that we're doing.

And wow, give me so much Duka associated with us.

And for some people, it's so prevalent and such an ongoing part of their inner world that it's even hard to imagine that it can't be there.

Or it's even hard to imagine that it can diminish or maybe there's a way which they have a certain loyalty to it and their real hesitation to even put it down or to look at it.

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