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If you've been following this series, you'll know by now that the inner critic is not the problem. It is a symptom, one that reflects something deeper: the internalised rules we carry about who we must be, what we must achieve, and what we must never do or become.

The inner critic loses its power not when you win the argument with it, but when the rules it is enforcing no longer have the same hold. When I made a mistake is no longer equivalent to I am a failure, the critic's voice becomes quieter, not because you've suppressed it, but because the underlying belief that fuelled it has changed.

Twenty years later, Jackie is a GP working in private practice. She accidentally double-books two clients one day and both arrive at the same time. She handles it well, both clients are seen, the situation is resolved. By any reasonable measure, she navigated it competently. But on the drive home, the inner critic arrives in full force.