The Severe and Speechless Critic

What is this self inside us, this silent observer,
Severe and speechless critic, who can terrorize us
And urge us on to futile activity,
And in the end, judge us still more severely
For the errors into which his own reproaches drove us?
     - T.S. Eliot

So two stories as we begin.

The first is from a writer who describes herself as a "Mediterranean beauty." It's not to brag, she says. It's just her way of honoring the gifts of her ethnicity: dark beautiful skin and gorgeous thick black hair. And she tells of one day going to a beauty salon for a full treatment spa. Hair. Facial. Body massage. The works. She was glad to see that her beautician was from Spain. She knew he would recognize her beauty, which he certainly did. Immediately, he reached out and cupped her face saying, "Oh, my love, you are perfect. Whatever we do today, we will not shave that mustache!"

Unfortunately it reminded me of a story of my own. I went to get new glasses. The saleswomen was German and immediately recognized my own Germanic features. "Oh," she said, "You are so handsome. I know just the glasses for you. They will go perfectly with your wondrously wide nose!"

So here's the point: There are so many messages out there telling us we are beautiful; and yet we so easily hear only the ones telling us we're not!

And here's the kicker: those messages telling us we're not? More often than not they come from our OWN heads. We've all got them. These inner voices and inner critics that, to use Hafiz's words, feel like sharp knifes in our tender hearts.

And their arsenal is broad and deep.

There are, of course, the usual things like:
I'm not smart enough
I'm not pretty enough
I'm not thin enough

But those inner critics of ours also mix it up to catch us off guard, with things like:
My feet look funny.
Or that mole on my face is all people see.
Or it's only me that could get a pimple at the age of 43!

And then there're the severe voices:
I'm too needy for any partner to ever stay.
I'm too messed up to be a parent.
I'm old and all used up.
My art is dull.
I'm an impostor, and it's only a matter of time until people figure it out.

And I know we sometimes hear that this negative self-talk and insecurity thing is just a "woman-thing." But that's a crock. Indeed there's new research out there that suggests that we men might actually have it worse in some ways. You women it seems at least have the advantage of talking openly about it. "Women at least have Oprah for god's sake," is how one researcher put it. We men don't even have each other to talk to about our insecurities and inner critics. Or at least we won't talk to each other about them.

And it's certainly not an age thing either. It'd be nice if wisdom and self-contentment really did come automatically with age, but it doesn't seem to always work out that way in this culture of ours that sends clear messages that age doesn't signify wisdom, it just means your obsolete. Your can't tell me that those messages don't get in one's head and drive painfully into one's heart.

So we all got them - harsh, severe, inner critics. And here's where our next move would seem so clear. It's where the message for today - the challenge - would seem so obvious: We just need to be more gentle with ourselves - more forgiving of our imperfections. And that would certainly make sense if all we were doing with our insecurities is beating ourselves up with them. But it turns out that it's not that simple.

And here's where we have to immediately bring a researcher named Brene Brown into the conversation, because she shows us that it's not that simple. And she uses an exercise - a test - to help us get at this. It's an exercise she uses with her research participants, but also one she uses as she starts many of her lectures and talks. She begins by walking her audience into a scene of a movie and then asks them to finish the scene.

I want to invite us to do this today. Here's the scene:

Christmas Eve. Beautiful night. Light snowfall. Young family of four on the way to Grandma's house for dinner. They're listening to the radio station, the one that's been playing the Christmas music since Halloween. Jingle Bells comes on. The kids in the back seat go crazy. Everyone breaks into song. The camera pans in on the faces of the kids, the mom, the dad.

What happens next?

Yes, car crash! Turns out, Brown says, that 60% of people say car crash. In controlled settings, time after time, 60% say car crash! Another 10-15%, she says, have equally fatalistic answers - just more creative. Such as: the camera cuts to the oncologist who is looking at x-rays and thinking about having to call the family with bad news about cancer, right on Christmas day. She's also got: they get to Grandma's house and everyone's dead; a serial killer is on the loose! And she says she even had one guy who somehow worked a shark attack into the scene!

Now what's interesting about this, Brown says, is that these aren't just the kind of responses she gets when she poses imaginary scenarios. Routinely in her research, she also hears the same kind of responses when people talk about their ordinary lives. She's lost count of how many parents she's interviewed who will say, "At night I go in and look at my children and their sleeping with these beautiful peaceful expressions on their faces and I'm right there on the verge of bliss,...and suddenly, I picture something horrible happening." She also gets other responses like: "I get the promotion and I'm flying up to headquarters to hear all about my new job, and suddenly I'm imagining that the plane is going to crash."

Now what is going on here? Brown asks. And her answer is: NUMBING.

To protect ourselves from the shock of assaults like car crashes, plane accidents and child sicknesses, we preemptively imagine the worst so we're ready for it. The rising prevalence of this is a sign, she says, of something both universal and profoundly dangerous going on in our culture right now: We are losing our tolerance for vulnerability.

And here's the thing: Brown says we find the same dynamic when it comes to our vulnerability to inner assaults as well - like feeling personally unworthy or having our individual imperfections exposed. Her point - what she wants us so badly to see - is that we don't just beat ourselves up with our personal insecurities, we also - even mostly - numb and run away from them.

She offers a number of examples so we can see this more clearly.

One of our numbing strategies, for instance, is what she calls "Disappointment as a lifestyle." This is the strategy we developed early on as kids - you know, how on the playground when we told our classmates that we didn't want to play their stupid game, because really we were afraid that no one would pick us when it came time to choose up teams. This also, of course, carries into adulthood: for instance, when we don't allow ourselves to get excited about - or even apply for - a possible job opportunity because we're really not sure it's going to happen.

"Low-Grade Disconnection" is another strategy she lifts up. It's when we only half-invest in relationships as a way of protecting ourselves from the pain of losing or being rejected by a relationship to which we'd given our full-heart.

And then there's "Perfectionism." She describes this as our most clever numbing strategy because, in our culture, it's so easy to pass it off as an attempt to just be our best. But as Brown says, don't let anyone you love get away with that. Perfectionism has absolutely nothing to do with healthy striving. It's no more than a shield - a tool to protect ourselves. Perfectionism is the illusionary belief that if we live perfect, look perfect and act perfect, we will then be forever immune to the pain of blame, judgment and shame.

And finally, there's "Stuffing." Brown points out that we are the most addicted, medicated, obese, in debt and willingly-overworked society in human history. Talk about numbing, she says.

So, again, it's not just that we beat ourselves up with our insecurities and imperfections, it's also that we numb ourselves to and run from them. Or another way to put this, she says, is that we hide from our insecurities and imperfections - and also try to hide them from others.

Now why is this so important? Why is Professor Brown so dead set on getting us to see and understand this? Well, she says, it's because it helps us see that we're not just trapped in insecurity, we're also trapped in a self-defeating and abusive game. We're not just beating ourselves up, she says, we're also trying to win!

Now I know that's a bit confusing. I've even found it confusing myself. But I've personally found help in making sense of it from - of all people: Garrison Keillor.

I think all of us are familiar with his famous intro to his show - the one about how Lake Wobegon is the town - the land - where "all the men are good-looking, all the women are strong and all the children are above average."

And you know, when we hear that, I think it often leaves us with a nice chuckle. But I also think, on some deeper level, it also leaves us with a pit in our stomachs. Because, I think we know - on some conscious or even unconscious level - that it's not just a cutesy intro to his show, but also a profound statement about what we all want to be - or at least the game that we've all - on some level - bought into playing.

And it's a game with pretty harsh rules. The foremost of which is: to be average is to not count!

It makes me think of a quote I read recently. It said: "In America, you only win if you are extraordinary; and everybody's keeping score."

Or how about this one too: "In America, an ordinary life has somehow now become synonymous with a meaningless life."

And if this is true friends - which I think it is - if this rule and this game of needing to be extraordinary in order to count is also another one of those voices in our heads, then is it any wonder that we have to numb, hide and run away from our insecurities and imperfections? Because they so clearly make us ordinary. And thus losers in the game.

And so where does that leave us?

Well, actually, I think it leaves us with some good news, a lot of good news in fact. Because it gives us a more complete way out, a more true and full escape from our inner critic! You see, so often, I think escaping the brutality of our inner critics is framed ONLY as a matter of being more gentle or forgiving with ourselves. But what this stuff about competing to be extraordinary helps us see is that it's also a matter of having the courage and the awareness to quit - or drop out of - a wider cultural game. Another way to put this is to say that our real challenge is not just "accepting our imperfections" but also "embracing our ordinariness."

There's a story that gets at this better than any of my explaining could do.

It happened in small group discussion back at my church in Syracuse. We were talking about the challenges of aging. In the midst of that discussion, one of the oldest women in the group bravely spoke up. In my eyes, she was beautiful and carried herself with a mesmerizing eloquence. But that's not the way she saw herself. And she bravely admitted that. She started off by saying, "I hate to admit it and I'm embarrassed to even say it, but one of the things I find hardest about growing old is that I've lost my ability to compete. You may not be able to tell it now," she said meekly, "but at one time, man, had I figured out what it took to turn every head in the room my way! I was so good at playing the game. But now with wrinkles and veracious veins and a much slower wit, I've become invisible. Now, when I enter a room, that's all I can think about: how I'm no longer seen."

There was a long silence after that. Not a silence filled with judgment or discomfort, or even surprise. It was just a quiet that felt tender.

And after a while, another one of the women in the group - about the same age as the other - spoke up. "You know," she said, "for a long while, I felt just the same. It's hard not to feel invisible at our age. And it's not just that no one looks at you with those eyes they once might have; it's also that no one wants anything from you, or even expects you to offer anything interesting to the conversation. And that felt, you know, bad, for a long while. But, you know, lately, I've begun to find a freedom in that. I've come to realize that not being able to play the game means that, well, I don't have to play the game. I don't have to figure out what others want or expect of me. I don't even have worry what they think of me. And with their eyes and minds off me and I can now take my eyes and mind off them. And so now I just get to look around - even at myself for once. Flaws and all. And, you know, it's pretty amazing what I see. Just think of all the amazing things that have come together to produce little old me. Amazing!"

And there she stopped. And we? We all just sat there silently with what she had said. With smiles on all of our wonderfully flawed and ordinary and vulnerable faces, including those of us with our amazingly beautiful hairy lips and wondrously wide noses!

And here's the gift she gave us. It wasn't about physical beauty, not really - even though that was what started the whole conversation. No, it was about new sight, and about being able to see that the ordinary is extraordinary!

There's a quote by the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn that I just love. He says, "You - exactly as is - are a wonderful manifestation. Just think: the whole universe has come together to make your particular existence possible."

There's another quote, from a so-called "shame researcher" that I love equally. It's one I've had pinned on my bulletin board the entire time I've been working on this sermon. It reads this:

"There are always wonderful things to appreciate about ourselves, even if they don't make us unique. The fact that I can breathe, walk, eat, create, discover meaningful work, make love, connect with friends - these are all magnificent abilities that are definitely to be celebrated, despite the fact that just about everyone shares them - despite the fact that they are beautifully average. But it's usually only after people lose one of these gifts that they realize how wondrous they actually are."

Friends, I don't want us to have to wait until we lose one of those gifts. That's my simple message today.

To heck with the severe critic in our heads. To heck with the stupid abusive game of competing, pleasing and perfecting. The ordinary is the extraordinary. Let's make sure that's the voice in our heads. And the new game we play!

So be it. Amen.

Scott Tayler, Parish Co-Minister
January 8, 2012