You don't have a mean brain. You have a protective brain that is just trying to keep you safe and reduce your suffering.

Now, you might think safe, suffering, what? This is not keeping me safe. This is not reducing my suffering.

Now, for our agenda today, if you want to

quiet your inner critic, we don't shut it down. We are here to retrain it. And my hope is to help

you silence that inner critic using science, not grit. Hello, my name is Kimbelly Quinlan. I am an anxiety and OCD specialist. I am on a mission

to equip over 10 million of you on how to use evidence-based, science-based skills so that you

can manage your anxiety. It is a hefty goal. But I am pretty certain I can get there. And with your help,

I'm so happy you're here because together my hope is that I can help reduce your suffering and help

you feel empowered to manage your own anxiety. Now, the thing to remember here is the voice in your

head isn't trying to ruin your life. It's trying very aggressively to keep you safe

from failure, from shame, from rejection, and from uncertainty. Now, I am going to teach you three

specific self-compassion skills to help reduce self-judgment, reduce self-criticism and

self-punishment, and to help you improve how you handle situations when things don't go the

way that you want. This is going to be a self-compassion plan that you can use. I want you to

think of it like a road plan where you move from one skill to the

other and eventually arrive you on a roadmap that will help you manage and navigate any

uncomfortable moment where the inner critic is taking over. Our goal here is to focus on

responding effectively and kindly to that inner critic.

Now, the number one step in this roadmap is to name it, don't become it.

What do I mean by this?

Now, when you have that inner critic voice that shows up telling you that you're the worst

or you're bad and you did something

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