Dr Emily

Yeah.

And if, you know, if we look at the function of the inner critic,

you know, really it's there in a lot of ways to protect us or to propel us into some kind of action or to keep us away from something painful.

But the internal experience of the inner critic is a stress response.

So when the critic is like on the march, we get activation of the fight or flight response in the body, sometimes a freeze response, sometimes a shutdown response.

And so inherently when this critic is really loud and very present, we're also experiencing immense amount of stress.

And so when we change the lens on that and recognise, wow, like my brain has just been operating differently and there's nothing wrong or broken about it, it changes our relationship to the critic as well.

Yeah.

I see that all the time.

And I think there's grief.

There's grief in a number of different ways.

So...

You know, when we get this kind of life-changing, and for some people it isn't as life-changing as it might be for others, but for some people you get this diagnosis, for example, and it opens the door to all the hardship and the acknowledgement that that little part of you was working so hard for

And was really trying to do the best it could.

And so, yes, that opens you up to a huge amount of sadness and pain for that little girl or that little boy, that little child that was there.

I also think it opens up to a grief about how you may have been treated.

Yeah.

And that can open you up to anger as well.

So it's a really complex thing, actually, like our response to a new understanding of the self.

Yeah.