Talk On The Inner Critic - What It Is, How To Work With It

Hi there,

Thanks for joining me today.

Today we're talking about the inner critic.

One of the most common and the most destructive ways that we think,

One of the most common thought patterns we get caught up in and can be most harmful is the critical thoughts that we have.

In mindfulness,

We often call this the inner critic.

And the inner critic thoughts can be easily recognized by words like should,

Or always,

Or never.

You should have done x,

Y,

And z.

You shouldn't have said that thing,

Or you should have acted better with whatever.

Or you're always late,

Or you're always like this.

Or you're never doing x,

Y,

And z.

It's a really common way that the inner critic talks to us.

And the general buckets for types of critical thoughts are we can have critical thoughts about ourselves,

We can have critical thoughts about others,

Or we can have critical thoughts or thoughts of thinking about other people being critical of us,

Kind of guessing what they're thinking about us.

And one of the key things to know about the inner critic is that we all have one.

We all have it.

The reason it's there is it's mostly trying to help us.

And in many cases,

It really does.

We are very,

Very,

Very social creatures.

We absolutely rely on our social connections and our bonds with other humans to be safe and to be loved.

And we can think about a young child when they're just a little baby new to the world,

Taking information about social norms.

And these really,

Really minor,

And for the most part,

Pretty harmless ways in many cases.

A lot of what we learn is very normal and supportive and not harmful social norms.

You can think about kind of the ways that a mother or a father or a parent or any caregiver or any person that interacts with a child early in life has little ways of nudging them towards things that the parent,

That the adult or that older figure likes and the things that they don't like.

They're favoring,

Rewarding the child for laughing,

For saying thank you.

Think about how often we teach kids to say thank you,

Something that they learn.

And if a kid doesn't say thank you,

It can be perceived as really disrespectful.

So the inner critic is,

For the most part,

Trying to protect us.

And so we all have it.

And the specifics of exactly what the inner critic says about us or the content of the attacks that they unleash in us are kind of a unique mix.

But they come a lot from the specifics that really come a lot from whoever kind of was around for raising us and kind of how what what they instilled in us about good and bad and normal.

And then and then the culture we're raised in,

Kind of the broad societal structures around things that we should be expected to do and not expected to do.

Notice that word should there,

Right?

What is good?

What is bad?

And many people,

They kind of automatic reaction and thinking about the inner critic is to immediately think that that without the inner critic,

We would just be some apathetic,

Narcissistic,

Do nothing,

That the inner critic actually just is the only thing that keeps us in line and being an being an OK human.

Right.

And what we're talking about really is the difference between wise discernment in a moment of some being able to see clearly a place where we erred,

Maybe we made some kind of mistake,

Whether that be social or otherwise.

And then the judgment that we put on ourselves about making that mistake,

About the moment of wise discernment.

I think an example in my life recently is that I was feeling passionate about something at work,

About kind of an injustice that is happening in the hiring process of my my work,

In my opinion.

And and I was passionate about it and I used a cuss word.

And afterwards,

I got some I looked at people's faces and I felt like maybe there was some bad reaction.

Maybe people didn't like that.

And there was kind of some silence after I finished talking.

And so I immediately felt really like icky about it.

I felt like,

Oh,

They don't I had a lot of feelings of,

Oh,

They don't like me.

They don't like what I said.

I felt really,

Really bad about it.

And I was able to kind of pause in that moment and look at kind of let's let's see the clearly the situation and think,

Well,

Well,

There actually is a possibility that using a cuss word in a workplace is can be really offensive to people.

Some people are totally OK with cuss words.

And some people find them really offensive and disrespectful.

And if I hadn't been able to kind of just if I hadn't been able to move past the guilt that my inner critic was was inflicting upon upon me about this moment,

I wouldn't be able to see that kind of wise discernment.

Or maybe there's a way that I can be a more kind and compassionate colleague.

I would have been just caught in,

Oh,

I feel guilty.

Oh,

This is I feel bad about it rather than bringing that wisdom to the moment.

So there's a lot of a lot of examples throughout our life where we can kind of see clearly like that,

That the clarity of a place where we can do better without having to add a lot of negative judgment on it that often is actually counterintuitive to us improving,

Actually improving and learning from that mistake.

The general idea in giving the inner critic the time of day is that we believe that the best way to inspire change in ourselves is to beat ourselves up.

And most of us do we actually believe that we believe in other places of our lives?

Is that how we,

For the most part,

Treat others when we when we want when we have are seeking change from them?

Why would we use this method with ourselves,

This push this push ourselves down harder and harder and harder when it's not something that we believe in maybe in other parts of our lives?

Why is this a kind of unique?

Oh,

This is the one place where this works,

Even though it works nowhere else.

By starting with a base of love that is not related to conditions that is just there,

We have the freedom and the strength to accomplish whatever we want to.

So it's really a very counterintuitive idea to much of it.

It kind of feels unnatural because it's not what our inner critic says.

And a lot of our society,

Unfortunately,

Tells us this is the best way.

The tough love is the only way to to to earn your own love for yourself.

I want you to think for a moment about someone who has shown you unconditional love.

It could be a pet.

It could be a partner.

It could be a best friend.

It could be a caregiver,

Could be a grandparent,

An auntie.

What does it feel like to be around that person?

Do you often feel more capable in your in their presence and with that unconditional love or less?

One of the remarkable things is that we can do this for ourselves.

We can give ourselves that same foundation of love to stand upon from which we can have the strength to change with wisdom.

It's it's it's a reversal of idea,

But not to get to a different place from a foundation of I love myself just because I don't need to have a huge list of conditions why I love myself.

Then we actually feel more capable to see to clearly discern places where we can be a better human and we can feel more strength,

More energized nature to to do that.

So mindfulness is a really powerful tool in doing this.

Really,

Really powerful.

We can think of mindfulness with the inner critic like a flashlight shining into kind of a dark,

Dingy attic.

All these critters and these little monsters that we can think of as that are correct.

They're there.

They're there.

And they're there whether we're shining a light on them or not.

And the power of mindfulness is that we are shining light on them to be able to have more power over the situation,

To have more power,

Power of the inner critic and not have it be kind of the ruler of the land.

So what do we do when we notice it?

What happens when we shine that light on the inner critic?

And what do we do next when we kind of see that there's all these critters and basement critters and monsters in our inner basement?

I'm going to list out a list of just some of the tactics that you can that you can use.

And I very much invite you to explore,

Explore any that work for you.

But first is just giving it a name.

A lot of people,

This can be a really powerful tool,

Just giving it a name like the CEO or the taskmaster or I know in an effective tool in the world of eating disorders and people who've noticed they have an eating disorder is to,

They've called it ED or ED for eating disorder.

And just giving it this name can kind of give you the feeling of separation from the thought.

And sometimes just in giving a name and then just that moment of seeing it saying,

I see you inner critic,

Or some people just kind of give it another random name or an alter ego kind of name.

Sometimes just in saying,

I see you inner critic,

It just dissolves and it kind of,

It becomes a lot weaker just in that very brief moment,

In that very simple act of seeing it,

That shining the light on it,

Just that act,

The shining the light can be enough sometimes in certain moments for it to dissolve temporarily.

And then a big one is to offer kindness with whatever it is,

Whatever the broader situation is that the inner critic is focusing on and kind of going to charge at is to offer kindness.

So things like just kind of saying to yourself,

This is really hard.

Maybe you're taking on a really,

Really big challenge at work,

Or there's some really difficult emotional waves that you're going through with a relationship that's important to you.

Just kind of returning to this,

This is a lot,

This is a lot for you to take on.

And this is a lot,

This is understandable,

But this is really hard.

And this is a challenge.

Another fun tactic to approach the inner critic is one of humor.

Sometimes the inner critic,

For the most part,

The inner critic can go very extreme.

It just goes immediately to you always X or you never Y.

And so in those moments,

You can say,

Really?

I'm never,

Never on time ever.

I just push it back in its face like that.

I don't know.

It's hard to believe that I'm never on time or that I'm never make a good meal for my family or whatever.

But I never do anything good for anybody.

Another one is this really fierce compassion,

This kind of pushing back from a place of,

Of just of strength and love for yourself.

No,

That's enough.

I don't want to hear this right now.

No,

Thank you.

I've,

You know,

I've heard enough of your BS.

So just really kind of standing your ground and not engaging in the kind of like a debate,

But just like,

No,

No,

No,

I've had enough.

Okay.

Another kind of similar,

Similar to that,

But a softer version of that is just kind of indifference saying,

You know,

Thanks for your opinion.

Maybe I'll listen to you next time for now.

I don't really need these,

These thoughts just kind of,

All right,

I see you.

You can go away now.

I don't need you right now.

Another method is to kind of just drop into the emotion.

And again,

That's kind of relate to some,

Maybe some of the kind of bigger,

Meatier stuff and even small stuff.

Like what's,

What's it actually triggering for you?

And to drop into the physical experience of that,

Like,

Where do you kind of feel this in your body?

What,

What is it?

What are the traces in your body of what you're feeling related to these,

These critical thoughts and related to this kind of difficult situation.

And then another one is to counter with either neutral statements or,

Or loving statements.

Neutral ones can be really simple,

Like just kind of like basically a distraction method.

Like when you hear the inner critic say something,

You can just kind of literally say anything that's different,

Like look at the blue sky or just anything,

Or what am I going to have for breakfast?

Or it can be more powerful to kind of just do counter with an unrelated or,

Or maybe feel slightly related,

But just an,

A kind of simply unrelated,

Noting of,

Of something related to love.

Like,

May I be free?

May I be kind?

May I be patient?

May I,

You know,

Just,

Just giving yourself kind of these other statements that are kind of wrapped up in love.

And then another useful thing is that when you're in a calmer place to try to just find that discernment,

Find the part of the situation that you're playing in your head,

Which part of it is true.

So we have this common method,

This very common thing of having this replay distortion where we will replay a moment that happened to us,

But it's this really distorted image of,

Of what happened.

It's not actually true.

We've all heard that,

You know,

What we,

What we experienced is some version of reality and everybody else has their own version of reality.

And that gets even worse when we're replaying things in our memory.

We put this kind of really negative,

We can often put this really negative,

Like color tinge on the image.

People,

Like all the things that we did become worse and all this stuff.

So when we feel like we can kind of step out of that movie theater and maybe once emotions have calmed down about it,

Just kind of to touch to clearly,

What's the,

What's the truth of what actually happened and what part of it is true to,

To find the wisdom,

To find the wisdom of that moment and where it is possible to,

To be,

To learn from it and be a better human.

So that was kind of a nice little list of some of the ways that you can work with the inner critic when you do shine the light on those critical thoughts,

Like we talked about earlier.

And another activity that you can try sometime is just to sit and journal,

Or if you have someone who is a good,

A very kind witness to kind of bear witness to you saying some of the,

The most,

Most common things that the critic says to you,

You can journal about them or say them out loud to someone can be really powerful with that person not responding in any way,

But just to bear witness to you doing that.

And you can do it obviously also for the,

In return for the other person.

So I thought you to try those,

Those practices out when you are when you are working in meditation with thoughts or when you in your daily life,

When you're working with thoughts and I will leave you with a quote in a society that profits from self-doubt liking yourself is rebellious.

Thank you for joining me.

Have a good day.