Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart - A Kinder Voice: Releasing Your Inner Critics with Mindfulness Slogans

Hazelden Publishing

Center City, Minnesota 55012

hazelden.org/bookstore

2016 by Thrse Jacobs-Stewart

All rights reserved. Published 2016.

No part of this publication, either print or electronic, may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the publisher. Failure to comply with these terms may expose you to legal action and damages for copyright infringement.

ISBN: 978-1-61649-642-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

Editors note

The stories in the book are based on actual experiences. The names and some details may have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned in this publication.

This publication is not intended as a substitute for the advice of health care professionals.

Readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this book was written and when it is read.

Alcoholics Anonymous, AA, and the Big Book are registered trademarks of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.

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Cover design: Terri Kinne

May you feel safe,

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

May you live with ease.

Table of Contents

Contents

To Zoketsu Norman Fischer, whose writings on compassion training and meditation have inspired this book. Thank you, roshi, for your teaching.

To Doug Toft, bodhisattva-brother and fellow writer. Thank you for your support and skill.

To my editor, Sid Farrar. Thank you for your vision.

To my beloved Jim. Thank you for your love and wisdom, and teaching me a kinder voice.

May any merit of this work be of benefit to all beings.

I have a whole gang of inner critics. Let me tell you about just two of them.

The first one I call Old Joe after my dad (d) because this voice drills like an army master sergeant. Irish to the bone, my d was red-haired, freckled, and fierce before he turned gray in his early thirties. (Just like me.) He fought Mussolini from the foxholes in North Africa during World War II and never lost the edge of drill sergeant in his voice. He gave us orders and dressed us down if we were birdbrained. Old Joes voice says, What have you got between those ears? Sawdust? Other times this voice belittles people: Well, those shoes didnt walk themselves over there in front of the TV, now did they?

The thing is, my d Joe was raised by his d, who grew up in the old country. Shaming, biting humor was the rule in those days, and a blackthorn shillelagh hung on the wallan easy reach to whack a sassy child. People in the village of Newton-Stewart called my grand Big Red. With flaming hair and fiery temper, he was a force.

Grand got into trouble with the law because of getting pissed with drink and vandalizing graves, which are sacred to the Irish. He fled the old country and went on to a new life in the New Land. But, his legacy lives on and that voice is inside me now.

Another of my gang of inner critics is Ms. Perfectionist. She notices every detail and sees when something is out of place. She spends hours with foil wrappings and bright ribbons making Christmas packages into mini-works-of-art. My mother was like that, and she nearly had a nervous breakdown over it. Although she had four kids, each only a few years apart and me the second born, she tried to make everything just so.

My Grandma Ceil did the same. You could eat off Grandma Ceils floor, and she was proud of it. Mother said that Grandma spent more time cleaning than talking to her, and I dont think she liked Grandma very much.

I liked Grandma Ceil, though. She gave me dollar bills to put in my pocket. When I stayed at her house, wed eat dinner on TV trays and have ice cream with chocolate sauce. I liked her spotless, shiny floors and the scent of lemon wax in her house.

My mother lost her eyesight in her eighties and then she lost her memory from dementia. When I brought gifts to her nursing home, they were always wrapped nicely. Mother once said, I dont know how you got to be such a perfectionist. I laughed because she must have forgotten what she used to be like.

Now I have Grandma Ceils voice inside me, and Ive noticed she can be quite demanding. One of the downsides of perfectionism is that nothing is ever good enough. Once before a family holiday, for instance, I didnt wash and wax the kitchen floor on purpose. It was my ode to imperfection. But, it just about killed me.

Whats in This Book for You

This is a book about releasing your inner criticspluralnot by killing them off but rather by first befriending each of them and loving yourself just the way you are in the here and now. The practices of mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation offer you ways to do this. Both have been profound medicine for my emotional wounds, and this book explains how they can help you, if you wish.

In the pursuit of peace and freedom from my gang of inner critics, Ive gone through many months of counseling and attended years of Twelve Step recovery groups. The Twelve Step program is a beautiful thing. It saved me from destroying myself with amphetamines before I knew how to live. The programs of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon hold that addiction and co-dependency are conditions of spiritual bankruptcy. Nearly forty years after my first Twelve Step meeting, I am still convinced they are right. The implication is that the remedy can be found in spiritual practice.

I work professionally as a psychotherapist. I believe in therapy and have devoted much of my adult life to helping people heal. Yet, during these past three decades, I have also practiced contemplative meditation from both East and West traditions. I studied and became certified as a Spiritual Director in the contemplative Christian practices of the Ignation Exercises and trained for years in mindfulness practices, Zen meditation, and Tibetan traditions. I believe in the power of meditation to change the brain and touch places that talk therapy cannot go.

At the age of twenty-four, I went to a monastery called Nada Hermitage in the foothills of Northern Arizona, looking to find peace and learn how to meditate and pray. Maybe the ancestors that still roam those hills in the spirit world found me; maybe I found them by showing up with a fairly open heart. I discovered a path of mindfulness and meditation that has, for the most part, helped me gain freedom by releasing my inner critics. Though they are still present, their power is profoundly diminished. A similar freedom and release can be yours if you are willing to use the suggestions in this book.