Before now I refused to even use the term. Seemed so trite, so overused. But lately, The Inner Critic is alive and kicking for so many people, so okay fine, let’s just take it on.
Good For You
The Inner Critic (we’ll call it TIC) is the voice inside of your head that tells you, no matter how well you did, it was not good enough. In that way it motivates you always to do better. People say it spurred them on and got them where they are today. On the other hand, it also tells you what you can’t do. It sees danger, failure, potential for humiliation…everywhere. So it also protects you from making a complete fool, or failure, out of yourself. Okay, so far so good. It spurs you on and keeps you out of harm’s way. Why would we want to give that up—even if we could, which we can’t because the negativity bias, which has helped us to survive and to thrive, is hardwired in.
Bad For You
Yeh but, left to its own devices, it can become so loud in your life that you can begin to trust it more than you trust yourself. Or, worse, you get to where you don’t even know the difference between it and yourself. This is how and when the suffering really sets in. And it is bad. The voice may have started up outside of you. Maybe it was an overbearing parent who meant well but overshot. Too much of a good thing, we could say. Or maybe a teacher. But now it is in you, and yours to have and to hold forever more. If it is in charge of you, instead of the other way around, it can fill you with shame—the very thing it meant to prevent. And shame-filled people tend not to grow, not the way the inner voice thinks it wants you to anyway. In the words of Jena Pincott in Psychology Today ,“All too often it sends us back to a zone where we find ourselves safe, but also stuck.” Therefore what?
Making Friends
Know this: You are not The Inner Critic. There are two of you, not one of you. As with marriage, friendship, work relations too; the first step is to recognize and respect how separate we are (or should be). Then there are numbers of approaches.
- Some would say to go back and explore how that voice got there in the first place.
- Others would say don’t do that, just take what it says and think the opposite. Fake it ‘til you make the opposite your own.
- Other approaches include finding an overriding purpose that distracts you from the TIC.
- Or reframe your story with affirmations about how amazing you are. Take that, TIC.
But I believe that what we resist persists—big time—so I’m saying let’s make friends with it instead. You and TIC. And then figure out together the best ways to proceed. This means that when TIC gets anxious about how things may unfold, listen and learn, problem solve, reassure TIC that you’ve got this if you do, or factor in what TIC had to say if you realize TIC actually had a good point.
Above all, be respectful because you can deplete yourself down to the bone by fighting with TIC all day and all night. Make friends and work it out instead. Practice, practice, practice and, if you care to, let me know how it goes.
Warm Wishes,
Madelaine
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