How to Befriend Your Inner Critic (Without Letting It Drive)
September 24, 2025
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A friend doesn’t text back.
No big deal, right?
Except… you feel that tug. That drop in the stomach. That whisper that says, You did something wrong. You replay your last message. You read their tone. You read into their tone. You start to explain it to yourself – then explain yourself to them, just in case.
Meanwhile, they were on a plane.
Or asleep.
Or dealing with something that had nothing to do with you.
Your feelings were real. But they weren’t telling the truth.
That’s not failure – that’s biology.
We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures. Logical. Evidence-based. But the truth is, most of what we experience – and how we act – is driven by emotion.
Not the loud kind. The fast kind.
Emotion is the brain’s shorthand for meaning. It happens before thought, before language. A sound, a glance, a memory – and your body is already reacting.
That’s how we survive. But it also means we’re constantly interpreting the present through the emotional filters of the past.
And those filters? They’re not always accurate.
Let’s say you’re giving a presentation. Halfway through, someone in the audience frowns and checks their watch.
Your brain picks it up – not consciously, but fast. Your heart skips. Your throat tightens. You feel the surge of embarrassment or panic. They’re bored. You’re blowing it. Get it over with.
Except maybe that person just remembered a 3 p.m. dentist appointment.
The emotional part of your brain – the amygdala, to name names – is not interested in nuance. It’s scanning for threat. It wants to keep you alive. And it relies on pattern recognition, not truth.
If frowning once meant judgment, your brain stores that. Reactivates it. Reapplies it. Even when it doesn’t fit.
That’s how you end up reacting to ghosts – not people.
Emotions shape perception. They bend memory. They drive behaviour.
And here’s the thing: they’re often running without your permission.
You might think, This is just how I am. I’m sensitive. I’m anxious. I overreact.
But what if that’s not you?
What if it’s your brain doing its best with old information – and just needs an update?
This is where emotions and hypnosis become powerful allies.
Hypnosis helps you slow down the emotional reflex, look underneath it, and change what your brain is predicting – before the feeling takes over.
Jess was always told she was “too sensitive.” At work, a colleague’s clipped reply could ruin her day.
“It’s not just what they say. It’s how they say it. I hear a tone, and I know they’re annoyed.”
She didn’t want to cry at work anymore. She didn’t want to care so much. But logic didn’t help.
In hypnotherapy, Jess was invited into that moment – the feeling, not the situation.
What she found surprised her.
She was six. Her mom was stressed. Jess had asked for something – juice, maybe – and her mom snapped: “Not now. Don’t be difficult.”
The tone wasn’t rage. It wasn’t even cruel. But Jess, at six, didn’t have the tools to interpret stress. She internalised it as rejection. And that feeling – tight chest, throat closing, urge to disappear – had been playing on loop for years.
Through guided imagery and suggestion, Jess didn’t erase the memory. She re-experienced it with adult perspective. She gave her six-year-old self kindness. She made space for her mom’s tone to be about her mom, not about her.
Weeks later, same colleague. Same short reply. But this time, no spiral.
“I felt the tug, but it didn’t pull me under.”
That’s not desensitisation. That’s emotional re-education.
Imagine walking into a familiar room – one that used to make you anxious – and noticing… nothing.
No tightness. No bracing. Just a moment, happening.
That’s the kind of change hypnosis helps create.
It’s not a dramatic wipe of emotion. It’s a shift in weight. In charge. In meaning.
Your body still feels. But it stops panicking.
You still notice the frown, the pause, the delay – but they don’t hijack your system.
You remain you. Just… steadier.
Absolutely. This isn’t about becoming a robot.
Emotions are vital. They carry wisdom. They alert you to boundaries, values, needs.
But if they’ve been shaped by trauma, repetition, or childhood misunderstanding – they can also become unreliable narrators.
Think of emotions as signals – not facts. They need interpretation. They need context.
Hypnotherapy doesn’t erase feelings. It clarifies them.
It helps your brain distinguish between “then” and “now.”
Next time you feel a surge – annoyance, fear, guilt – pause and name it out loud.
Not to fix it. Just to see it.
Try:
“That’s the part of me that thinks I’ve done something wrong.”
or
“That’s the fear of being judged again.”
You don’t need to believe it. You just need to witness it.
That witnessing – especially when reinforced in hypnosis – starts to change the neural loop.
The emotion doesn’t vanish. But it loses its grip.
“What if I get overwhelmed in hypnosis?”
A skilled hypnotherapist creates safety first. You’re not diving into trauma – you’re being guided gently. The goal is regulation, not reactivation.
“Is this just positive thinking?”
Not at all. Hypnotherapy isn’t about slapping affirmations onto deep pain. It works at the level of subconscious association – where emotion lives. It helps change the reaction, not just the thought.
“What if I don’t feel anything?”
Sometimes, numbness is the emotion. It’s protection. And it can be gently unpacked. There’s no “right” emotional response – only what’s present.
At the Hypnotherapy Training College of Africa, we don’t teach people to override emotion. We teach them to work with it.
Our students learn how to track emotional reflexes, use trance to engage the emotional mind, and guide clients through emotional re-patterning – with compassion, clarity, and safety.
We believe emotions are data – not destiny. And we train practitioners to respect the wisdom in each feeling, without letting it run the whole show.
We’re living in an emotionally overloaded world.
Endless headlines. Passive-aggressive WhatsApps. Old fears reawakened by new stresses. It’s no wonder our nervous systems are jumpy.
But you don’t have to be held hostage by every surge of panic, shame, or doubt.
With the right tools – like hypnotherapy – you can start to recognise the feeling, listen to what it’s trying to say, and choose your response with more freedom.
You don’t have to be “less emotional.” Just less reactive.
That’s emotional maturity. And that’s the gift of hypnosis.
If emotion runs the show, attention writes the script.
Next week, we look at how mental clutter – distraction, overstimulation, multitasking – keeps you stuck, and how hypnosis helps you create focus and mental space.
Whether you’re managing your own reactions or guiding others through theirs – emotional re-patterning is a skill worth learning.
Join us at the Hypnotherapy Training College of Africa.
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