The inner critic is the name given to an internal voice that pops up with mean, judgmental, disempowering thoughts. Yours might appear when you’ve made a mistake, are feeling embarrassed, or are trying to stretch yourself and learn something new. It might even arrive when things are going well, cautioning you not to get too comfortable or expect any success to last.
The message of the inner critic often veers into out-and-out bully territory. It’s not just offering criticism (and certainly not the constructive kind), it’s an out-and-out verbal assault.
“Who do you think you are?”
“You’re so embarrassing.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Did you really think you could make that work?”
“Did you really think they would like you?”
“Why are you so hopeless?”
“You’re so far behind.”
“Why are you always like this?”
“You’ll never be happy.”
When we’re already struggling with something, this voice adds extra layers of shame until the despair snowballs. It exacerbates anxiety, magnifies self-consciousness, and saps our energy.
The Origin of the Inner Critic
Like all bullies, the inner critic comes from a wounded place. You didn’t come out of the womb beating yourself up from the inside. Somewhere along the way you learned to speak to yourself like this.
A question therapists often ask about a client’s inner critic is “Whose voice is this?” Clients are sometimes surprised to realise it sounds like the actual voice or at least the past messages of someone they have known – a parent, a teacher, an ex-partner.
Others say that it sounds like their own voice. Your own voice is especially believable. It sounds like fact, a reasonable assessment of the situation and your own abilities or faux pas. If you can’t pin the voice of the inner critic to someone or something from the past, it can be especially confusing and convincing why you would speak to harshly to yourself.
Sometimes we need to cast the net wider to find the origin story of the inner critic. The society in which we grow up is often a fertile ground in which inner critics grow. Advertising, especially now in the age of the non-stop consumption of media, exists to convince you of flaws you didn’t even know existed so you will purchase their cures.
Cultural expectations and timelines plague many people, especially those in the first decades of adulthood – by this age you should have a degree, by this age you should have a good job, by this age you should be married, have children – provide inflexible benchmarks by which the inner critic can judge us.
We are bathed in these messages hourly. Their suggestions of our inadequacy begin to feel so expected, true and unquestionable that we become like the proverbial fish asking its friend, “What is water?”
Managing the Inner Critic
As frustrating as the inner critic seems, I believe that it usually has, in its (cold, dark) heart, a pure intention.
The inner critic part of us is trying, in a seemingly backwards way, to protect us:
If it convinces you not to try or take risks, then you can’t experience the pain of failure.
If it chastises you about your ‘embarrassing’ behaviour, then you will stop doing those things and won’t be disliked or rejected.
If it shames you enough about your perceived shortcomings, perhaps you’ll reduce your expectations of what you can achieve and won’t be disappointed.
The intention of the inner critic is often to reduce your experience of pain – while using very painful messages to achieve this. But in trying to protect you from suffering by getting you to play small, you instead suffer from the shrunken life and decimated self-worth that result from its attacks.
You might feel angry at the inner critic for this. It is, after all, behaving like an aggressor, even if you can see its desire to keep you safe. It might even be the voice of an actual past abuser, whose intention may not have been to protect you from hurt or shame at all.
There are two common approaches I take to the inner critic – gentle parenting the bully, or standing up to it with the inner older sibling.
Gentle Parenting the Bully
This approach treats the inner critic like the wayward child it often is. Just as you would a child who is bullying others from their own suffering, respond to your own inner critic with compassion and boundaries for its behaviour.
When the inner critic rears its head, you can mentally respond:
“Ok, sweetheart. I know taking risks is scary. I know you just want to keep me safe. Thank you. I’m going to make my own choices, though. I have thought about the risks and I can manage them.”
“Oh I know you think that was a big mistake I made, and you are worried I’ll make it again. Thank you for trying to protect and help me. But it’s OK to mistakes. And that one wasn’t big enough to warrant such a big telling off. A better response would be to help me figure out what I could do to fix it, or what I could do next time.”
“Oh honey. I know you worry about me and my future. I know other people have met some milestones that I haven’t yet. I need to be giving myself or finding encouragement, not shame.”
Be warm, be compassionate, be firm. Show the inner critic you understand its intentions but you do not approve of its methods.
Standing Up to the Inner Critic with the Inner Sibling
Sometimes, particularly when the inner critic has the origin of someone from your past, or any time it is especially fierce or you are really fed up with it, accessing another part of yourself that can stand up to it with the same power is even more effective.
I picture an older sibling that comes to your defence on the playground, striding in front of you to confront the inner critic.
The Inner Sibling has a no-nonsense, brazen energy. It gives as good as it gets. The Inner Sibling says things like:
“No. Uh-uh. That’s enough.”
“We don’t talk like that anymore.”
“We’re not doing this today.”
“I’ve had enough of this kind of talk.”
“Nothing good has ever come from this inner criticism.”
“Next.”
I encourage clients to try out both approaches. I use each of them with my own inner critic, depending on its topic and tone and how much energy I’ve got for compassion that day.
Change takes time
It takes time and practice to get quicker at noticing the inner critic and responding to it effectively. Sometimes it might be harassing you for half a day before you cotton on to it and realise you have an option about taking its messages on board.
Some days you will be able to effectively soothe the inner critic or shut it down, and others it might still have the upper hand. Those days can be frustrating and disappointing. Be especially patient with yourself those days. You are suffering enough, you don't need to add a secondary layer of distress by criticising yourself for having an inner critic.
The impact of an incessant inner critic is so powerful, however, that it is worth doing the hard work to learn to deal with it. Your mindset, opportunities, and sense of self can dramatically open up when you take the power back. The inner critic might never completely go away, but the good news is that it doesn’t have to in order to see significant changes in how you respond when it starts to speak up.
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