* Encourage others to share their humor. Listen and appreciate it when they do. When someone sees that you have enjoyed their humorous contribution they will be eager to continue sharing.

* In my full day humor workshops I always ask participants to break up into groups and begin sharing funniest thing that has ever happened to them. The laughter that this simple activity generates is a joy to behold. Try this will your friends sometime.

* Collect cartoons and jokes and put them on display on fridge or bulletin board. Make sure to avoid racist, sexist or filthy humor. The is plenty of good clean humor to go around without resorting to these. Remember that there is a difference between dirty and earthy humor. I personally like earthy humor. I don’t appreciate dirty material.

* Watch comedy movies and television programs as often a possible.

* Use humor to neutralize conflict in your relationships. When things get tense use self deprecating humor to lighten things up. I remember one evening having an argument with my wife, Carol. In heat of moment she said something totally out of character. She said something hurtful. In my surprise I looked at her and said, “ Carol, when you say things like that you stoop to my level.” She started to laugh and so did I. It wasn’t long before things were back to normal.

Good luck on your journey to HA HA Land.

Mike Moore is an international speaker/ writer/ cartoonist on humor and human potential. Visit him at http://www.motivationalplus.com http://www.motivationalplus.com/cartoons.html

* Draw your inner critic. This is not an art project and no one will mark you on this. Drawing inner critic externalizes it and helps you to separate from it. What or who does inner critic look like?

* Think about when and how your inner critic developed. Does it sound like any one you know?

* Write down both of your parents’, and anyone else’s, critical messages and compare them to your list. Have you adopted any one else’s critical messages as your own? Separating from inner critic can sometimes be accomplished by saying to yourself, “Ah, yes, that’s what my mother would have said.”

* Meditation is very helpful for stepping back and observing inner critic, and any other part of yourself.

Acknowledging Parts of Yourself That You’ve Disowned

Inner critics have a tendency to feed on very aspects of ourselves that we are most uncomfortable with, deny, and disown. For example, if you are uncomfortable with your anger and your critical judgments of other people, tell yourself that you don’t feel angry when you do, and think that you are not being mean when you are, your inner critic will rake you over coals and call you a cruel bitch! If you acknowledge your anger and reality that sometimes you do think or speak critically of other people, your inner critic has nothing to hit you with.

How we feel about our bodies, or parts of our bodies, can be harder. If you have an inner critic that tells you that you are “fat”, you likely don’t accept your body as it is and would prefer that you weighed less or looked differently. While it may be hard to accept your body way it is, you can try acknowledging to yourself that this is your body and this is way you look with as little judgment as possible.

Some people find it helpful to acknowledge that indeed they do have fat on their body, and so what. For more help with this issue, see my article called, Changing Our Body Image

Becoming aware of and acknowledging all aspects of yourself, including parts you are not comfortable with, softens inner critic’s power.

Some ways to get to know different aspects of yourself that you disown include:

* Think of somebody whom you really dislike, somebody who pushes your emotional buttons, and leaves you feeling self-righteous and superior. Don’t pick someone who has abused you. What is it about this person that you judge? Once you figure that out, you’ve found a disowned aspect of yourself. For example, say you dislike someone because she is needy and wants others to take care of her. You would never want to be like that! That is your disowned self - needy child who wants others to take care of her/him.

* Think about someone you overvalue. This is someone who you not only admire, but someone with whom you feel bad about yourself in comparison. Again you will have found a disowned self. Perhaps, you admire a friend’s ability to be rational and in control. You, in contrast, always seem to be emotional and confused. You wish you could be calm, cool, and collected like she is. In fact, around her you may get even more confused and emotional, and have great difficulty pulling your thoughts together. She is showing you a disowned self. You have disowned your own rational, controlled part. (Stone and Stone, 1993)

One of inner critic’s jobs is to criticize your disowned parts, so by acknowledging all of you who you are, you reduce power of inner critic.

Dialoguing With The Inner Critic

Dialoguing with an inner critic can be helpful too. The traditional approach to dealing with inner critics is to try and talk them out of what they think, but this can soon become a no- win situation. Even if you manage to prove to an inner critic error of it’s ways, it will simply move on to another thing about you to criticize.

Gently countering inner critics views can help. But, sometimes it helps more to view inner critic as another part of yourself who has something of value to say and deserves to be heard and respected. Dialoguing with inner critic (for example, writing out a conversation between inner critic and another part of yourself) where you simply listen, ask clarifying questions, understand inner critic’s deeper concerns, offer feedback as you would in any conversation, and negotiate agreements if that fits often softens inner critic more and has longer lasting results.

The next time you hear a voice inside of you putting you down, take a deep breath, remind yourself it’s your inner critic speaking, take a step back, and observe it in action. That may be all you need to do to reduce impact of inner critic. You may want to listen for potential disowned parts as well that you can try to acknowledge. For more we acknowledge all of who we are, and how we can behave, less powerful inner critic is, and that is such a relief!

References:

Embracing Your Inner Critic - Turning Self-Criticism into a Creative Asset by Hal Stone & Sidra Stone, HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.