You cannot suppress this voice/person/belief system that lives in your head.
You will only make it stronger. You must come up to it and say,
“Hello, what is your opinion about my (music/writing/clothing/weight…)” and let it/her/him reply.
Then kindly say, thank you for sharing that, now I need to get back to what I do best, writing/playing/being joyful…
This person will lose the desire to bug you when you stop taking the bait. Just like an external person. If you are polite but do not let them jerk your chain they will get bored and stop their negative chatter about everything and anything.
The magazine “Real Simple” suggests some tips for controlling your inner critic:
- Pluck the weeds – when you have a thought, decide, is this a weed that needs to be plucked so my lovely garden can continue to flourish? Focus on the thoughts that are beautiful blooms. You can only focus on and embrace one thing at a time- by the time you immerse your feelings into the astounding beauty of what your eyes and your heart behold, the weed/critic will have forgotten the point it was trying to make
- Rewire your brain – every thought we have paves a neural pathway, making it easier to have the same response over and over again. When the path is taken millions of times, it gets on auto-pilot. Be aware of this, for example, every time I work on a new jazz technique the critic assures me I am too stoopid to play jazz – so I will recognize this, and take note of things I have mastered that I originally thought I never could. At first this counter-thought will seem like a lie, I am just fooling myself, but just go along with it, and the next time the critic on auto pilot returns, insert that same response: “Look at what I have accomplished that proves your criticism is wrong”. Each time you do this, the new and self-loving neural pathway will get bigger, to the point that you will replace the critic with the warm, loving supportive inner you that treasures each effort you make to excel at your dream of being a jazz guitarist/author/dancer/painter…or ______ (insert whatever is your passion.
POSITVE Place Jazz Guitar 
If it’s negative self talk I call him the Saboteur! Thanks for checking out Epictectus on my blog.
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Epictectus changed my life. To me, the ancient philosophers are saying the same things all the new self help books say, they had all that figured out way back then. But then, as now, most don’t take head of their knowledge.
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