Your Brain Bully Just Filed a Noise Complaint

Your inner critic wants to speak to the manager

I woke up to a thick manila envelope sliding under my bedroom door.

No footsteps. No knock. Just that slow, deliberate scrape of heavy cardstock on hardwood.

Inside was a single sheet, typed in Courier, like it came straight out of 1987 hell:

SUMMONS
You are hereby ordered to appear before the Tribunal of You’re Not Enough
Charges:
• Unauthorized self-confidence
• Thinking you might actually be okay at this
• Leaving the stove on (probably)
Date: Right now, asshole
Location: Inside your skull
Presiding: Karen J. Bully, Chief Compliance Officer

There was even a little red stamp: APPROVED.

Classic Brain Bully behavior.
Zero boundaries.
Terrible timing.
Always wrong.

So I did what any rational, sleep-deprived adult would do: I texted my friend

Lynn Smith

.

You know, the woman who spent 15 years on national TV looking like she wrestled self-doubt into submission minutes before each broadcast.

She answered immediately.

“John, it’s 4 a.m.”

“I KNOW,” I said. “That’s when the Brain Bully is the most caffeinated.”

She sighed the sigh of someone who has personally escorted her own inner critic out of the building by the ear.

“Let’s talk.”

(We turned the whole meltdown into Episode 692 of Passion Struck. It’s basically a live eviction notice.)

YOUR INNER CRITIC IS RUNNING AN ILLEGAL AIRBNB INSIDE YOUR SKULL

Partial transcript from tonight’s greatest hits:

“Lynn, remember that time you tripped on live TV? Let’s loop it.”
“Hey John, what if no one ever listens to this episode?”
“Everyone else is thriving. You? Room-temperature mediocrity.”
“Also, panic about something vague. You pick.”

It doesn’t fight fair.
It doesn’t wait for permission.
It kicks the door open, throws a smoke bomb, and whispers:
“You sure you’re good enough for this?”

Lynn’s exact words that shut it up (for a minute):

“You can’t negotiate with the Brain Bully.
You have to starve it.”

And then the line I’m getting tattooed somewhere stupid:
“If you don’t name the Brain Bully, it will name you.”

THE BULLY’S UNION HANDBOOK (LEAKED)

According to the official handbook:

• Article 1: May interrupt any moment of peace

• Article 4: Confidence prohibited without committee approval

• Article 9: All accomplishments expire 12 hours after achievement

• Article 11: Saying anything kind about yourself = punishable offense

No wonder most people never reinvent themselves.
Hard to change your life when there’s a full-time heckler in the cheap seats.

THE NIGHT LYNN QUIT “PERFECT” AND NEVER LOOKED BACK

National anchor.
Major networks.
Millions of viewers.
LinkedIn wet dream.

But the Brain Bully?
Still there.

Still loud.
Still offering unsupervised opinions and questionable life advice.

So one day she did the wildest thing imaginable:
She stopped auditioning for it.
She walked away from the life everyone else clapped for and built the one she actually wanted.

The scariest part wasn’t leaving television.
It was learning to speak in a voice that didn’t have to be perfect.

That voice became her work.
Her mission.

And her new book, Just Keep Going, is basically a permission slip disguised as a children’s story that will wreck grown adults in the best way.

WHILE LYNN WAS DISMANTLING MY MELTDOWN, I DID SOMETHING DANGEROUS

I opened my notes app and wrote a new rule at the very top:

“From now on, the thing I’m most scared to say out loud because it won’t sound perfect… gets said first.”

Not glamorous.
Not revolutionary.
Just done.

If I’m going to keep telling millions of listeners that courage is the only real antidote to the Brain Bully, I figured I should probably take my own medicine.

YOUR TURN (AND YES, THE BULLY IS ALREADY SWEATING)

Hit reply and tell me:
What’s the cruelest nickname you’ve ever given your Brain Bully?
(Be creative. Mine’s currently “Karen with a megaphone.”)

I’m reading every single one and will feature reader nicknames (and the stories behind them) in the next post.

The most savage/funny/accurate ones go straight to the top.

The Brain Bully feeds on silence.
Let’s make some noise.

Listen to Episode 692 of the Passion Struck podcast for the full cage match.

Let’s go disappoint our inner critics a little less this decade.

— John

P.S. If you’re reading this and thinking, “I’ll deal with my Brain Bully later,” congratulations, that’s literally its favorite song. Turn it off. Reply right now. Karen hates witnesses.

Listen to the episode below: