The inner critic is always worth a revisit.  I have broken the series into 6 parts:

1. RANT

2. JUDGE

3. INVESTIGATE

4. CAUTERIZE

5. TEASE

6. EMBRACE

Each exercise starts with a journal entry and/or mindmap.  Then we look at the emotions that come up as we share openly.  I encourage you to experiment by sharing your thoughts in the comments here.  Share your rants and judgements.  Judge me freely; judge yourself.  It’s all good.  Let’s demystify.  Let’s take off the mask.  Let’s remove the hesitation.

INNER CRITIC series part 3 of 6: INVESTIGATE

In PART 1 we ranted without hesitation.  We let the ugly out.  We then identified certain emotions that came up.

In PART 2 we dug a little deeper into the emotions that came up, laying out the evidence for judicial review.

If you judge, investigate. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Today let’s carry out a systematic or formal inquiry to discover and examine the facts of so as to establish the truth.

Go back to your mindmap:

Focus in on one particular branch/emotion.

I chose:

Create a new mindmap around the branch you decided to focus on and in a stream of consciousness way, elaborate on your investigation. [Ideally you do this for every branch of your Part 2 mindmap.]

We often shy away from digging deep as it may expose truths we are just too scared or too tired to address.  We tend to doubt ourselves.  Our abilities.  Our freedom to express openly.

But have fun with it.  Is there some kind of truth/lesson that comes up as you address that emotion that resulted from your Part 1 rant?  Is there something new to learn?

 Truth: A lot of my issues simply come from a need to control that which I could never and never will be able to control.  

It is by doubting that we come to investigate, and by investigating that we recognize the truth. – Peter Abelard

REMINDER: