A Standing Offer
On the inner critic that doesn't retire, and the posture that finally worked
She raised her hand after the opening release.
What had come up wasn’t just frustration with things not going her way. Something underneath it showed up: a feeling she’d been carrying for years that other people weren’t here to support her. That they were here to trip her up.
She named it plainly. No drama in the naming. Just recognition of something running quietly in the background, shaping how every disappointment landed.
We went into the body. Notice where this shows up. Notice how it feels. Could you let go of wanting this to mean anything at all, just allow it to be sensation, without name or explanation?
A few minutes passed. Something released.
“Right here, right now,” she said. “I no longer feel like I’m being persecuted.”
We went another round. Memory, pattern, story: there was still resonance. Let it be sensation. Give it permission. Notice the openness.
There was a sigh.
She was talking about the mind. About that voice that keeps showing up, the one that insists there’s still a problem to solve, that its help is still needed. She’d been working with this for a while. Some days her best friend, other days her enemy. She’d even tried to retire it. It wasn’t working.
But this time: “it’s nice to have a standing offer. I don’t need you right now, but I appreciate you standing by.”
“My ego voice is feeling heard and seen,” she said. “It’s like: okay. I’ll just sit here in the wings. You just let me know when you need me.”
That’s it, really.
What I’ve found, across years of calls: that voice isn’t the enemy. It’s more like a small child tugging at your sleeve — can I help, can I help. The impulse is right. The timing and method aren’t always. Most of us try to retire it. It doesn’t work.
The next time that voice fires up its worry cycle, or starts scanning for the problem you haven’t addressed yet — try it. Not as a technique. Just as a thing you might actually say.
Thanks. I’ve got this for now.