PLATITUDES SUCK, EXCEPT WHEN THEY DON'T
If you listen hard, you’ll hear your inner critic speaking in platitudes: No pain, no gain. Honor your parents. Give it all you’ve got. Stop being selfish. Your mother knows best. Don’t slack. Be best. Serve others first.
My private practice is called Tame Your Inner Critic. My job is to encourage clients to listen for the shopworn bumper stickers that are whispered to me daily. The more I hear them aloud, the more useless and irritation they become, and eventually they drop away.
In the course of our investigations, my clients and I notice other platitude-like statements arising. These messages don’t necessarily suck. They emanate from the more reliable, kind, and curious authentic voice that has been drowned out for years by the inner critic’s hackneyed statements.
Over the last few weeks, these are some surprising short statements that have exposed themselves:
Why am I mourning the future?
The opposite of better isn’t worse; it’s satisfaction. The opposite of worse isn’t better; it’s satisfaction.
Sometimes I’m looking for things of interest; other times things are calling out to me. They want to be seen. This might be another meaning for the Buddha having eyes that face both out and in.
Catastrophes seldom actually arrive.
When I am awake to it, life is a dream come true.
Being rejected now saves me from a lot of trouble down the line.
When dread is removed, death is endlessly interesting.
Cruise control is the bomb.
I have maintained a 100 percent success rate at adapting to misfortune.
Platitudes suck, except when they don’t.
Which isn’t to say that there isn’t another set of platitudes that are as wearing as the inner critic’s. Do I want to reinforce gratitude or consider the fact that I continue to lack it at times? Do I want to command acceptance or examine the fact that I continue to react with annoyance at times?
