Healing Trauma 6: Quieting Our Inner Critic

Welcome to number six,

Healing trauma,

Working with the inner critic.

We would never talk to our friends the way we talk to ourselves.

The inner critic can be a persistent debilitating voice that continues to traumatize us through our lifetime.

It does not have to be that way,

And yet it can be one of the most difficult and persistent trauma responses that we have to deal with.

Somatic mindfulness,

Like with so many other things,

Is the route,

The way that we can become aware of what the voice in our head is saying.

We might have had decades of listening to this judgmental,

Harsh,

Condemning voice in our head.

It becomes the water we swim in,

And it's no wonder that we have a hard time in life.

We feel harassed and intimidated and shamed by the voice in our own head.

The first step is to notice that it's here.

Second is to notice the content.

Is what it is saying true?

What is the purpose?

Sometimes the inner critic does have a purpose.

It wants us to play small so that we're not hurt.

How can we honor the intention of protection without falling into the trap of believing what the inner critic says?

Like any abusive relationship,

It's harmful for us to stay.

We have to develop some capacity to see what's happening,

To admit it,

To allow it in,

To acknowledge it.

This is harmful,

It's persistent,

And I need to do something to shift this.

Some people confront the inner critic and make it back off.

Shut up,

I don't allow anyone to talk to me like that,

And you don't get to either.

If you want me to know something,

Figure out a nicer way to say it.

We might try to befriend the inner critic.

Wow,

You sound a lot like that person in my childhood.

Seems like I've internalized that voice.

I'm really working now with compassion and connection and being on my own side.

How can I use your insights in service of that?

We might work with the energy of that in our body.

We might try to hold that with some compassion in our heart.

Wow,

Something happened in my earlier life that led this to be the condition in my mind now.

I have a harsh inner critic.

It calls me stupid,

Calls me a loser,

Or maybe it doesn't call me names,

But the kinds of judgments that it levels on me have the same effect.

We bring it into awareness,

And that can be quite a practice of witnessing thoughts.

We might bring into awareness the effect of those thoughts.

Our shoulders go up around our ears,

We brace ourselves.

We might go into a numbness or a shutdown.

We might find ourselves procrastinating or very anxious.

As we hear that voice of,

You're never gonna make this happen,

You're just a loser,

We might also have a lot of catastrophic thoughts.

Often it's overt,

It's really clear.

Sometimes it's more subtle.

It's a sense of giving up.

Well,

I'm never gonna make this happen anyway,

So what's the point?

And we hit next episode,

Instead of turning it off and getting our rest or doing something else.

Inner critic attacks can be very debilitating.

If time allows when it's happening,

You could pause for a moment,

Go,

Hmm,

There's the inner critic,

Be quiet.

I don't need that kind of feedback.

Or there's the inner critic,

What's going on?

That that's coming forward right now.

Sometimes there's not an answer to that.

It's just the water we swim in.

It happens so often that it becomes a pattern in our mind.

It's a miserable,

Abusive relationship.

Starting to notice when it's happening,

To notice the content,

To notice what happens in our body.

Do you hold your breath when you're in the midst of an attack?

If so,

Maybe using a practice like cyclic sighing,

Holding your own hands,

Bringing your hand to your heart.

We have many ways that we can intervene once we know that it's there.

Let's do a short inquiry to see if we can tell why the inner critic is here.

Bring to mind something that is relatively common,

Some criticism or judgment,

Some way that you shame or attack yourself.

What are the words?

What do you hear?

Notice the impact of that in your body and on your breath.

Open your eyes.

You could tap on your forehead,

Taking your attention away from the words into the sound and sensation of the tapping.

You might put those words into a frame like they're written out on a paper.

Imagine that they're on the other side of the room.

Notice the picture,

The shapes of the letters,

The frame,

The space on the outside.

Take your eyes around the outside space a couple of times in each direction and then look back at the words.

If your body has tightened up,

You could take a deep inhale,

Bring your shoulders up around your ears,

Take a long exhale,

Let that tension release.

If you're frowning or clenching your teeth,

Let that soften.

What's the content?

What is it that it's trying to get you to know or pay attention to?

What is it trying to alert you to,

If anything?

Just like we make our neuroception more accurate by looking at the evidence,

Looking at where it's arising from,

What are the components of our feeling of safety and danger,

We can also look at the inner critic content.

Is this something that's really familiar to us from the past?

If so,

That might be part of our protective mechanism.

It might be part of the way we made it through.

If a parent was yelling at us or scorning us for getting low marks,

That might've been what put us into despair.

It might've been what caused us to seek harmful diversions so that we didn't have to feel that.

For some people,

It might've inspired them to study really hard so that they could get a good job and get away.

There's a variety of ways that this could've worked.

If we look at that situation with compassion,

Say it's when you were nine or 10 and you came home with a report card that your parents weren't happy with.

See if you can see yourself in that situation and bring to mind a nine or 10-year-old that you know.

It might be your child or another child that you know.

What were they like when they were nine or 10 years old?

What do we know now about how the brain works?

It might be that there was a learning disability that had been undiagnosed.

What was going on in your life at that time?

Did you have trouble sleeping because there was violence in your home?

Were you anxious all the time?

It makes it really hard to concentrate at school when we have any kind of dysregulation in our family life.

Maybe your parents were going through something.

Maybe they were working a lot to try to make ends meet.

Maybe there'd been a divorce or a death or a loss of a person,

A loss of a job,

A loss of social status.

There are so many things that might've been going on in the lives of our caretakers or our parents that we didn't know about or that we couldn't do anything about and that we might not have even realized how much they affected us.

We're not excusing the behavior of people who shame us,

Whether that's a parent,

A teacher,

Bullies at school.

It's never okay for people to talk to us like that.

If you were to bring to mind another child at that age,

See if you could offer them some compassion.

What would you say to them if you were in that room and you overheard what was being said to them?

How might you comfort them?

How might your perspective now be different from what you knew about it at the time?

Would you blame them?

Would you have some compassion for their circumstance,

How difficult it had been?

It might've been a learning disability.

It might've been other circumstances.

It might've been a brain that just doesn't work the way our school systems like to teach.

No one deserves to be shamed and condemned.

And often children will take on the job of the inner critic.

We internalize that voice.

Instead,

Whenever the inner critic comes up,

Notice it.

Do something to bring reality to the situation.

Are those words true?

Are they kind?

What is your perspective now?

How could you understand the situation through a trauma lens?

And then offer yourself some kindness.

Wow,

That's awful to feel that way.

It was awful when it happened when I was a child and it's awful when it happens right now.

I'm really committing to stopping that,

To noticing it,

To use the tools I have to stop it,

To interrupt it,

And to taking a moment each time to bring a little bit of kindness and compassion into my own heart.

Come back into noticing your body from head to toes.

Notice your heart.

Let yourself breathe.

Let your muscles soften and bring yourself into your heart.

I commit to a healthier relationship with myself.

I commit to being kind and supportive and on my own side.

Even if no one in my life was on my side,

I commit to myself now.

I'm on my own side.

I'm worthy of love and affection and understanding.

I will stand up to anyone who's shaming me,

Including my inner critic.

What they're saying is a lie.

It's not true.

I bring myself into my own heart.

I offer myself love and understanding and connection.

I'm on my own side.

I'm worthy of love.

Let yourself take that in.

Breathe,

Soften.

Bring your hands to your heart.

I'm worthy of love and respect,

And I offer that to myself.

Open your eyes,

Look around the room.

Inner critic attacks can be devastating,

Especially when they're persistent.

I can work with this.

I bring it into awareness.

I become more accurate in how I see and how I understand that experience in those words,

And I offer myself my own unconditional love and compassion and support.

I'm worthy of love and respect.

I'm worthy of love and respect.

I'm worthy of love and respect.

I'm worthy of love and respect.

I'm worthy of love and respect.

I'm worthy of love and respect.

I'm worthy of love and respect.

I'm worthy of love and respect.

I'm worthy of love and respect.

I'm worthy of love and respect.

I'm worthy of love and respect.