Two Modes Feeding Your Inner Critic - And What a Monk and a CEO Did About It

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How to quiet your inner critic isn't about positive thinking or pushing the voice down. It starts with understanding the two modes that keep feeding it — and most of us have been running both without knowing it.

Your brain cycles between craving — the reaching, the not yet, not enough, not there — and aversion — the avoiding, the deciding not to look at the thing directly. A monk spent a lifetime naming them. A CEO discovered the same truth with two questions he does every morning before he picks up his phone, and within weeks described a shift in how he leads, listens, and shows up at home.

This is Episode 2 in the Going Silent series. Sandy is 3 weeks out from a 10-day Vipassana silent retreat — no phone, no talking, ten hours of meditation a day — and she's bringing you along the whole way.

In this episode you'll learn:

• What craving and aversion are and how they show up in your job and your relationships
• Why your inner critic gets loudest the moment things go quiet
• What Thich Nhat Hanh calls Radio NST and why 30 to 50 percent of your day is running it
• What the first three days of Vipassana involve and why it starts with the nostrils
• The First and Last Thought practice: two questions that shifted everything for one CEO
• How to find out in 30 seconds what your mind is actually running right now