Dealing With The Inner Critic (Day 1)

Ever notice how the harshest voice in the room lives in your own head? We kick off a seven-day journey to name that voice, understand what it targets, and learn how to meet it with mindfulness instead of fear. Drawing on years of teaching and monastic practice, Sean Fargo offers a simple framework that turns vague self-judgment into something you can observe, question, and gently transform.

We break the inner critic into three clear identity targets: competence, goodness and worthiness of care, and acceptability or likability. By naming these patterns, you’ll see exactly where the sting lands and why certain moments trigger spirals of perfectionism, shame, or people-pleasing. Sean walks you through a brief, accessible practice: settle the body, soften the breath, and ask three focused questions—Am I competent? Am I a good person or worthy of care? Am I acceptable or likable? As you notice which question activates a stronger reaction, you gain a compass for the work ahead.

From there, we connect insight to action. If competence anxiety shows up, choose one concrete step toward skill-building or a clear “good enough” boundary. If worthiness feels tender, practice self-compassion to rebuild trust from the inside out. If acceptability is the hot spot, map supportive relationships and practice small, honest bids for connection. Throughout, mindfulness remains the anchor—grounding attention in the body so you can respond with clarity rather than habit.

This is a short, focused start designed to shift your relationship with self-criticism in real time. Join us, try the guided prompts, and mark which identity needs the most care so tomorrow’s practice can meet you where you are. If this helps, subscribe, share with a friend who could use a kinder inner voice, and leave a review to let us know which question revealed the biggest insight.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Host Background
• 0:30 Series Overview And Goals
• 0:40 Defining The Inner Critic
• 0:49 The Three Core Identities
• 2:07 Guided Mindfulness Posture
• 3:24 Reflective Questions Repeated
• 4:30 Identify Your Primary Trigger
• 4:43 Closing And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the seven-day series on dealing with the inner critic. My name is Sean Fargo. I teach mindfulness to professional teams around the world. I started practicing mindfulness in China about 12 years ago. Then I ordained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand for two years. Daily mindfulness practice has really helped me gain a greater sense of self-awareness and clarity, and also the ability for me to tame my inner critic. Over the next seven days, I'm going to teach you some science-proven ways to deal with your inner critic. I'm really looking forward to supporting you on your journey. The first step to dealing with your inner critic is to address what the inner critic is really trying to say. There are usually three core identities that the inner critic is attacking or critiquing. So it's helpful to bring awareness to which of these three core identities your inner critic speaks to. The first is competency. Am I competent? What does your inner critic say about how competent you are? Second one is whether you're a good person or worthy of care or love. What does your inner critic say about who you are as a person? The third is addressing your acceptability, your likability. What does your inner critic say about how likable you are? So it's really helpful to bring awareness to these three core identities, and which of these your inner critic mostly attacks. First, as we bring more awareness to these identities, it can be helpful to do some journaling, to ask some friends how they see you in terms of how you treat yourself. But here I'd like you to find a posture that's very relaxed and alert, and either close your eyes or look downward, and invite a sense of full embodiment to feel the weight of gravity as you touch the ground or your chair, and soften your belly, and drop the shoulders and invite a sense of alert relaxation as you ask yourself these questions.

SPEAKER_01: 3:24

Am I competent? Am I a good person or worthy of care? Am I acceptable or likable? Again, am I competent? Am I a good person? Am I acceptable?

SPEAKER_00: 4:11

Now, I invite you to see which of these you may have a reaction to and sense which of these your inner critic most identifies with. This will be really helpful as we move forward with future exercises in the days ahead, as we bring more mindfulness to dealing with the inner critic. I look forward to seeing you here tomorrow on day two of dealing with the inner critic. Take care.