if the Inner Critic’s cherry-picking of past lowlights happens before a big moment it’s called anticipatory processing. If it’s after the fact, it’s post-event processing. Either way, it’s hyper-focusing on stuff gone wrong. In each case—before and after—the Inner Critic puts us under the magnifying glass. But it’s a magnifying glass that not only enlarges; it also distorts. It makes us interpret the neutral as negative.
