To be successful at yoga, you must silence your inner critic as much as possible. You wouldn’t want to be constantly criticized by your significant other, a family member or a friend. Most likely, you wouldn’t want to have a relationship with them. If you let your inner critic takeover, you won’t be able to live with yourself. Our brains listen to everything we say. After repeating negative self-judgments over and over we come to believe them to be true. By substituting positive affirmations for our habitual and reflexive negative automatic thoughts we can come to believe in ourselves and silence our inner critics. It takes two to have a fight. The inner critic may never disappear, but by not engaging in battle, detente is possible.