Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic
Neal Allen
In this life-changing book, writer and spiritual coach Neal Allen, teaches us a stunning new method for quieting the inner critic.
"Better Days will help you get to know your inner critic, and quiet its yammering, and in so doing, get to know the person you were born to be." - Anne Lamott, Author of Dusk Night Dawn, Bird by Bird and others
What if your superego has it wrong?
That snarky little bully in your head…you know the one.
You've lived under its weight for decades.
I'm a fraud, I'm lazy
I need to work harder
I need to be tougher, funnier, calmer…
I need to stay quiet, look pretty, stop showing off
I need to put others before me, I need to put myself first
I need to be perfect
I need to hide who I really am
Sound familiar?
You know that its scolding voice is harmful to you, but you can't will it away. You accept a life with short periods of peace and long stretches of stress and anxiety. But you don't have to.
In this revolutionary new book, Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic, writer and spiritual coach, Neal Allen, examines a critical aspect of the human psyche that often gets ignored - the superego.
Building on Freud’s idea that the superego necessarily forms a person’s moral conscience, Neal explains how this voice in your head develops in childhood as a survival mechanism, but when no longer needed for protection, camps out in your mind like a personal parasite. A parasite that doesn’t belong.
Through simple and engaging exercises and explorations, Neal leads you into meeting, confronting, and ultimately quieting your own inner critic.
By shedding off the burden of the superego, you can overcome tired patterns of reward and punishment, reduce the self-talk that harms you, and ultimately clear an open space for the life you deserve, one that is gentler and more peaceful.
Just imagine…if all that nasty, negative chatter in your head just evaporated ... what would you do next?
Better days are just ahead.
Here's what reviewers and therapists have said about Better Days:
KIRKUS REVIEWS: Allen proposes a way of living in the world unrestricted by the harsh and arbitrary judgments of our least enjoyable selves. The exercises he provides are targeted and easy to perform.
L.E., A NYC PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Besides my two daughters, I’m giving it to other friends who have mini/maxi critics hanging around. And I'm recommending it to appropriate patients also.
BUDDHIST AUTHOR AND PSYCHOTHERAPIST JACK KORNFIELD: There are great tools here to step out of the clutches of the critical inner voices that undermine your true spirit. Tame the critic and open the gate to inner well-being. Neal takes you by the hand and leads you out of the thicket and brambles of self-criticism to the meadow of well-being. Let him guide you.
BUDDHIST AUTHOR AND PSYCHOTHERAPIST SHARON SALZBERG: This book is an invitation to separate the helpful parts of what we call our ego from the defensive, self-righteous, and sullen parts of it that no longer serve us. Allen shows readers that there is a more joyful, honest, and peaceful way to exist once the harsh critic within is understood and transformed.
PROTESTANT MINISTER NADIA BOLZ-WEBER: If you’re ready to stop being an asshole to yourself and need more than fluffy affirmations, this book is for you.
PSYCHOSPIRITUAL PUBLISHER TAMI SIMON: Many people have written and taught about the inner critic. But few have illuminated the subject with an approach as refreshing, innovative, and accessible as the one Neal Allen presents in his new book, Better Days - which includes a foreword by his wife, the celebrated writer Anne Lamott.
Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic is available to buy from your local bookseller and online internationally from Amazon.
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About The Author
Neal Allen is a writer, spiritual coach and speaker whose chief interest is removing obstacles of the ego. He is also the author of Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside You (Self Published, 2021).
A former journalist and corporate executive, he earned master’s degrees in Political Science and Eastern Classics. He lives with his wife the writer, Anne Lamott, in Northern California.
You can learn more about the transformational work of Neal Allen by visiting his website shapesoftruth.com and you can connect with him online via Facebook, X and LinkedIn.
