How do you dethrone your inner critic? In this episode of Incorporating SuperPowers, host Justin Recla and guest Joanna Kleinman talk about our inner critic not simply being the voice of criticism and self-doubt. Joanna is a certified Psychotherapist whose focus is on helping her clients dethrone their inner critic and silence the inner voice that runs their thoughts every day. Justin and Joanna also explore the importance of emotions and how they hold the key to taking control of your business and your life. Join Justin and Joanna in today’s episode to learn how you can dethrone your inner critic.
Welcome back to Incorporating SuperPowers. I’m Justin Recla, your host, and this is, I’m going, to be honest, this is straight transparency here, folks. This is my first recording of 2021. You’ve probably heard some of the shows that have aired in January and early February, but this is actually my very first recording in 2021. And just to set the framework of what shows look like moving forward, we’re going to do things a little bit differently.
Last year and last season, we talked about the mechanics of how the divergence we’re doing things differently and how that counteracted and went against the mainstream culture of how business should be done. And this year we’re going to take a little bit different focus, and we’re not going to focus too much on the mechanics, but we’re going to focus on more of the inner work. What does that mean for me as a business owner? What does that mean for me as a consumer when I’m looking at gauging your relationships, whether it be in business as a client, business as a business owner, an entrepreneur, a coach, it doesn’t matter. What does that inner game look like? How did that get you to where you are? How is it having an impact on the world?
So that’s going to be the focus of this year’s shows on all the interviews I do probably from here on out because to me, that is really the only thing that matters is in that space, which brings me to my first guest. Joanna Kleinman is a 25-year licensed psychotherapist. She plays in the mental realm. She is very much our tribe. She’s got her own modality called The Mind Method, which I’m certain that we will dive down that rabbit hole a little bit today as well, and she’s focusing on helping people dethrone their inner critic and that is what we’re talking about today is how do you dethrone your inner critic? Joanna, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure.
This is good stuff. So Joanna, just to give the listeners just a quick brief glimpse of who you are and what you do, can you kind of layout your credentials upfront before we go down the rabbit holes?
Yes, of course. So I am a licensed psychotherapist. I’ve been a psychotherapist for over two decades. I am also an international best-selling author and a podcast host and a corporate and life coach, plus a mother of three and a wife. So I got a lot going on in my world.
Absolutely, absolutely. To that point though, folks, don’t get confused because when you’ve got yourself straightened out and you’re at the point where you’re helping thousands of people work through their stuff, the only way you’re able to do that is if you’re square itself, which is why I’m excited to have you on the show, Joanna, is because your 25 years of experience doesn’t come just lightly, there’s a cost to that per se, right?
Yep.
Because in order for you to get where you’re at and to be able to help people dethrone their own inner critic, you had to be able to overcome your own. So let’s start there.
Okay.
First off, first and foremost, what is that inner critic?
Great. Okay. So every single human being on this planet of ours has a voice in our minds that speaks to us literally all day long from the moment we get up to the moment we go to bed, and research actually shows that it speaks to us about 50,000 to 60,000 times a day. So the way that I describe your inner critic is it’s not actually just the voice of criticism and self-doubt and what if I fail and what if I’m rejected and what if I’m not good enough and I need to be important and I need to be valued, right?
There’s a flip side to that voice and it is also the voice of attachment to the results in our lives. In other words oh, if I write this book or make this sale or make this kind of money or produce these results, that’s going to prove that I’m good enough or I’m smart enough or I have what it takes. And that attachment, most people don’t really recognize that their inner mind drives all of their uncomfortable emotions and that even the voice that says you are worthy and good enough because you have all of these things, it feeds the flip side of that voice, right?
Yeah. Well, and folks, if you haven’t been paying attention over the last year to your own inner critic, I know it’s screaming for a lot of you because you’re blasting it out all over social media and it shares and now that infection of your inner critic has now bled into somebody else’s and fed somebody else’s inner critic.
Yep, exactly.
Right. That’s how it works, right? But it’s hard for us to see that, so how do we get to that point? Because we know that if we stop long enough, right? And listen, and just ask a simple question of who’s thinking am I thinking?
Yes, exactly.
So what is it that I know for me to get through my inner critic, right? It doesn’t happen overnight, folks, and it doesn’t happen in just every single state it’s got to happen. It’s like stop smoking. Everywhere you did that, everywhere you told that story, everywhere you did something, you have to break the habit everywhere. For me, it was almost a 15-year journey.
Yeah. Well, see, Justin, I created The Mind Method first and foremost for myself, but I can tell you that I’m 50, I just turned 50 a couple of months ago.
Happy birthday.
Thank you. Thank you. I have been on my own personal growth journey, I mean, really since the age of 13.
Wow.
Yeah, and so the reason why I call my work dethroning your inner critic, I don’t call it banishing it, silencing it, getting rid of it, shutting it the hell up, because it is an ongoing practice that I still practice every single day. And to your point, who’s doing the thinking, right? I have to see on a daily basis where my automatic mind still drums up the same, what I call, never-ending message, right? That’s the end step of The Mind Method, by the way, right?
But for all of us, there’s this voice that is really attached to what I call a core issue that keeps showing up. It shows up in business, it shows up in our interpersonal relationships, it shows up in our thoughts and feelings about ourselves. So to answer your question about how do we distinguish this, the best place to start is to notice all of your emotions because all of our emotions start with our thoughts. What we’ll label as negative emotions. What if we actually used all of our emotions as a brilliant opportunity to really understand how we automatically think?
Okay, folks, we are going to dive down this rabbit hole on the backside of the break. But Joanna, before we go on break, can you please share with us where people can go find more information about you?
Yes, my website is dethroningyourInnercritic.com. My podcast is Dethroning Your Inner Critic. My book is Dethroning Your Inner Critic: The Four-Step Journey From Self-Doubt to Self-Empowerment. So basically you can find me all over at Dethroning Your Inner Critic.
Awesome. Folks, stay tuned because when we get back we’re going to dive down this rabbit hole that just got cracked wide open, because I know some of you out there are going what the heck do my emotions have to do with any of it, right? They’re just my emotions. But when we get back from the break, we’re going to go explore that a little bit further and talk about how you can leverage this Mind Method, how you can leverage understanding your inner critic so you can have the success you desire in life. So stay tuned, we’ll be right back.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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