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Week 2 – ‘Observe’ – The Inner Critic Program

Welcome to the second week of the program!

Woman able to observe her whirlwind of negative thoughts

As before – this is an overview of what’s coming up for the second week and explains how the tool for the week works.

Focus of Week Two’s Questions

The emphasis for this week is on Observe – getting better at spotting when the critic is causing your negative feelings, and how it talks to you.

A lot of the time, the inner critic is muttering negative stuff without us even being aware of it – a whirl of blurred, unformed fears and questions. The daily questions will help you notice the critic in more often – to enable to you to do things about it. Throughout each day, pay attention to see if you can catch the critic in the background.

Tool for Week TwoMindfulness

The second Disarm tool which you’ll use all week is mindfulness.

This is generally regarded as one of the most helpful ways of combatting negative thought patterns (the NHS and NICE recommend it). It’s something that people practice daily for life, rather than being a one-off fix – but even a week’s practice should help.

This tool is to help you step back from being immersed in the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions and recognise they are not reality – they are just thoughts and feelings; you can notice them without being swamped by them – “See it, don’t be it

Don’t worry about trying to do it perfectly, or feel you’ve done it badly if you’ve tried before! We all struggle with trying to ‘clear’ our mind – it’s about just improving a little bit with practice.

  • Select a tool – eg Headspace or Calm; both are available with free trials and mobile apps. 
  • If you’ve never tried mindfulness before, aim to do 10 minutes daily. If you occasionally already do it – then make a daily practice of doing a length that’s a bit of a stretch for you.