Dealing with your inner critic
Stop your inner critic from getting in your way.
What is our inner critic?
As you may have noticed, our brains can be pretty harsh at times! Most of us can relate to speaking to ourselves inside of our own heads in a way that we would never dream of speaking to someone we didn’t like, let alone someone we loved and cared for. And yet the stream of negative criticism we impart on ourselves - sometimes referred to as our “inner critic” - seems to offer an endless supply of nasty words and put-downs. To make matters worse, this is most likely to happen at times when we’re feeling sad, stressed, vulnerable, worried, ashamed or have made a mistake.
Can you relate to this?
Our brains often think they are being helpful when they engage in this type of thinking (e.g. based on other unhelpful ideas like “maybe if I’m hard on myself I’ll do better next time” or “I deserve this”). But in reality, speaking to ourselves in these nasty ways usually just serves to make us feel worse and less motivated than we already did.
Meeting your inner critic with compassion
There are lots of ways of dealing with our inner critic, and one is to meet this type of thinking with the same compassion and kindness that we might offer to a friend or loved one.
This involves three basic steps:
Identify and acknowledge your inner critic. Start by noticing when you’re being overly harsh and nasty with yourself inside your head. You might be calling yourself nasty names, telling yourself off in some way, placing unrealistic demands on yourself, saying that you ‘should’ have done things differently, or simply telling yourself that you’re just not good enough. TIP: this is most likely to happen when you’re feeling sad/stressed/ashamed/scared. Notice the tone you use with yourself, and the way having these thoughts makes you feel. Say to yourself: “I notice my inner critic is pretty loud/powerful/present in this moment”.
Think about how what your inner critic is saying to you might be different to how you might speak to a friend or loved one. If they were in exactly the same situation as you right now, feeling exactly the same way, is this the way you would talk to them if you were trying to be helpful, supportive and compassionate? If it’s not, what would you say instead, and how would you say it (for example, would you be more diplomatic, kinder and less harsh, and/or with a more gentle tone)?
Now try offering yourself these same more compassionate words, with the same kinder tone, that you would normally offer to a friend/loved one. How does it feel to speak to yourself in this way? (Note: if it feels a bit weird at first, that’s okay. The way we speak to ourselves can be verrry different to how we speak to others. Acknowledge that it feels weird, and remember that softening your self talk even a tiny bit is a good step!)
The way we speak to ourselves matters. Next time you notice your inner critic, we hope that you will speak to your self like you would speak to a friend.
Responding to your inner critic with compassion can go a long way as an act of self-care.