How to Make Friends with Even the Harshest Inner Critic
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If you tune into your inner monologue, what do you notice? If you’re lucky, it might be fairly benevolent, telling you positive, hopeful things about you and your life. If you’re not so lucky, it might be very different, which is the case for the vast majority of my clients. Most people I work with have an inner monologue dominated by their Inner Critic, which is relentlessly harsh, negative and self-lacerating. This is especially true for people who experienced significant trauma in childhood, because this always seems – very sadly – to lead to a critical inner voice which is especially dominant, negative and often vicious.
When people come to me for therapy, they are either completely unaware that their day-to-day thoughts are dominated by this critical part: That’s just me, they say. And if they do have some sense that this is just one aspect of their thinking, they – very understandably – might dislike or even hate this part: It makes my life a misery, I just wish I could cut it out of my brain and get rid of it.
The problem is, we can no more cut the Critic out than we can cut off an arm. It’s a fundamental part of us and is not going anywhere. So the question then is, how can we turn the volume down on this relentless inner judge? And can we go even further, helping it change, so the criticism is at the very least much milder, and at best transformed into something helpful. If your Inner Critic is at the harsher end of the scale, this probably sounds fanciful, but bear with me – I have seen this happen, with hundreds of my clients. And I have experienced it myself.
How My Inner Critic Has Transformed
During an especially rough phase of my life, I struggled with cyclical periods of depression that felt like being buried under an avalanche of dark thoughts and feelings. I was drinking way too much – partly to cope with the depression – and struggling financially. It felt like every aspect of my life was a struggle. I had some sense of who I wanted to be, but had no idea how to get there. During these dark days my Inner Critic was loud, bullying and relentless. It felt like a hard-hearted person was standing next to me, all the time, telling me how useless I was, why I should feel bad about myself, what a failure and loser I was.
And, of course, this made me feel awful. It was a driving factor in my depression, robbed me of self-confidence and self-esteem and kept me reaching for the next beer, which was the only way I knew to numb the pain. Then one day, something snapped in me. I had enough of this inner bullying and decided never to call myself names again, like loser or pathetic. Some powerful, loving force held up a strong hand and said, Enough!
And that really helped, because I went from being my own worst enemy to, if not a friend, at least a great deal more friendly. This was all before I retrained as a therapist, when I was hustling to make a living in journalism, so I didn’t really understand about parts, or trauma, or any of the stuff I have learned over the past 15 years as a therapist. But I did eventually learn CBT, compassion-focused therapy, mindful self-compassion, schema therapy, IFS and all the other wonderful healing modalities I incorporate into my integrated trauma therapy model. The idea of self-compassion is fundamental to my model and the way I help clients who, like me back in those dark days, may feel self-dislike or even self-hatred. Finding ways to change this self-perception is the bedrock of any effective therapy.
And, after many years of therapy, meditation, self-compassion and loving-kindness practice, my Critic has been transformed. It may seem hard to believe, but he never yells at me these days. He can be a little pushy, but I know he is only trying to help. He has shape-shifted from feeling like he hated me to understanding he was only trying to help me become a better version of myself. I feel genuine warmth, appreciation and gratitude for that. It is, quite honestly, miraculous.
The practice: Befriending Your Inner Critic
Before we get started, it’s important to note that changing your Inner Critic is not easy. In therapy, this is often a long, arduous endeavour. If you are an adult, you will have spent decades thinking self-critical thoughts, which means those ways of thinking are strongly wired into your brain. The neural pathways carrying those thoughts are enduring and fast, like a neural motorway. So, as with all my practices, just give this a try – if it’s too hard, you may need the help of a skilled parts-based, trauma-informed therapist.
Think about a recent incident where you were self-critical. This may have been about your weight, or some other aspect of your appearance. You might feel like you failed at something, made a mistake or perceived judgement from others. Just bring that incident to mind and recall, broadly, how you spoke to yourself internally. Then try to remember how that made you feel – I’m guessing stressed, upset, down, anxious, embarrassed or ashamed.
Take out your journal and make a few notes about this, in whatever way seems helpful for you. We then make a small but crucial shift in language. Just change I am to You are. So, I am stupid becomes You are stupid. I messed up and am such an idiot becomes You messed up and are such an idiot. Following on from this, we change the language from I don’t like myself, or I’m so mad at myself, to A part of me doesn’t like me, or A part of me is mad at me.
And that part, of course, is your Critic. Just make a few notes in your journal about this idea – that a part of you is critical, a part of you gets angry with you if you mess up, a part of you can be harsh and negative. A simple change of language, but it can make all the difference, because this means there is a part of you being critical and another you who is not. And this other, kinder, more compassionate you (the me who said, Enough!) can step back and observe this critical voice, question and gently but firmly challenge it. Again, write about this in any way that seems helpful.
Teasing Out Intention from method
Finally, if you drill down into what the Critic is saying, I 100% guarantee you that its intention is to either motivate or protect you in some way. When my Critic was yelling at me all those years ago, I now understand he was just freaking out, because my life was not going well. He was trying to motivate me to work harder, do better, drink less, make better decisions… All good things, it’s just that his method (yelling in my ear all day) sucked. Once we start to get this – that the Critic’s intention is always good, even if their strategy, or method, can be terrible – it’s the first step in befriending them.
Because they are not your enemy. They are, weirdly, your friend. They are trying so hard to help, just with an outdated, probably childish way of speaking and behaving. Helping them change that takes time, but I know from personal experience it is entirely possible.
I hope that helps – and if you are feeling beat down right now, sending you love and strength, whatever you may be going through.
Love,
Dan ❤️
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