Roasting your inner critic

Roasting your inner critic

A 4-point after-school cussing match with my inner saboteur, Bad-mind-ecca.

Badmindecca: I heard you got roasted when you forgot during a training session that gender isn’t binary and said ‘ladies and gentlemen'. You’re not made for this type of work."

Me: Yes, I did get it wrong, but I took that as a lesson (as hard as it was). I’m grateful for that as I learned.

Badmindecca: I’ve seen you fluff up some big words in front of a class of professionals. Just face it, you are just pretending to be smarter than you really are.

Me: Excuse you? Yes, that has happened, but did they learn the main lessons though? Name me one professional that hasn’t done that at some point. Back off!

Badmindecca: Yeah but, I’ve seen you post a quotation online with the wrong link. You’re an amateur, who does that?

Me: Oh please take several seats. As soon as the mistake was pointed out, I rectified it. I’m not the first person to make that mistake and I won’t be the last.

Badmindecca – Chu, I can’t be bothered with you today, I’m off, but I’ll be back.

Me: Cool, Termin-nah-not-today, I’ll have a spiced latte when you return.

Can you relate?

·??????Do you struggle with getting things wrong, particularly when it comes to dealing with people who are different to you?

·??????Do you fear you might say the wrong thing and be accused of being discriminatory or worse?

Here’s how your inner saboteur shows up as your biggest hater.

·??????She spins around and drops into the jazz splits every time you mispronounce a foreign person’s name.

·??????She shames you for days when you get pulled up for inadvertently subjecting someone to a microaggression such as “I don’t see skin-colour.”

·??????She keeps you paralysed in place and whispers negative things in your ear when you attempt to sit by the new black employee at lunch time who is on her own.

These fears are totally normal and systematic of our flawed history. If your inner-saboteur is messing up your efforts to becoming a better ally, just know that it is totally possible to override her.?

But wait, let me ask you something,

How are you going to handle it when your Badmindecca shows up rolling her neck and firing negativity out of her mouth?

Though you lyrically mashed her up in round 1, you know she’s going to come back with her iron fist in round 2. You must be prepared to catapult her negativity back to their hiding place.

Do this by having a few clap-back winning lines at the ready.

Whenever you hear your inner saboteur trying to trample over your positive self-talk after making a mistake, simply say, “I am a fallible human being, and I might get things wrong sometimes but that’s not going to stop me from trying.”

Why does this work?

Because it’s the truth and you are allowing yourself to try and fail without subjecting your inner-being to shame. This ultimately increases your chances of being successful in future as you are less likely to fear going wrong.

Come on, let’s try this together.

Let’s say you call Rabiyah ‘Rabina’ by mistake. Your inner saboteur says, “You’re such a terrible person and everyone is going to find out.”

You say,

“I got it wrong, and I genuinely apologised. I’m human, I made a mistake and won’t be repeating it. Now back off!”

This is how we approach making mistakes on our Time to Talk about Race online course. We create psychological safe spaces to learn. Lots of people say things that offend but by side-stepping the shame, we allow people to actually learn to do things differently.

Time to Talk about Race online CPD accredited course:

·??????Develops your racial literacy

·??????Helps you to face difficult conversations about race

·??????Enables staff to show up authentically

·??????Allows you to learn without fear of being called names

Regardless of what your inner saboteur has to say.

If you want you and your fellow staff members to swipe left on your inner-shamers and become stalwart allies, sign up for our Time to Talk about Race online CPD accredited course or send me a direct message to set up a chat about how we can roll it our for your organisation.

Over and out.

Rebbecca (Hemmings), your ‘creating cultural harmony’ guide. ?

BTW: I’d love to know the name of your inner-saboteur and what s/he/they say to you. Let me know in the comment section (or as an email).