Making Peace with the Inner Critic | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Tools

Integrative behavioral health. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes, and today we are talking about the inner critic. The inner critic is a voice in our head that is, guess what? Critical. You can think of it as the heckler in the audience. You can think of it however you want. I used to when I was little. This will tell you kind of how old I am. We had a show called the Muppets, and there were these two hecklers that were always in the audience for the Muppet Show. And. And a lot of times when I think of my inner critic, I think of them. But sometimes the inner critic, you can actually hear the voice of the person who was critical to you in your past, and you have internalized whatever message you got from them. And it's important to recognize in the present whether that information is accurate and helpful. For example, there is a. Was an incident when I was very young that my grandfather said something that was a little bit harsh, and he meant it probably in good fun, but I took it personally. And to this day, I still hear what he said come up in my. The back of my head when similar situations arise. And I have to remind myself when that happened in. He was just kidding. He didn't mean to be mean. He was a very kind person. And. And I need to just let that go. Yes, I am. We are 40 years in the future, and it still periodically pops up in my brain. But that's when I have to challenge that inner critic and say, you know, this information, number one, it's not accurate, but even if it were, it's no longer useful to me. So what can you do with your inner critic? The first thing you can do is name it. And as I said, or as I alluded to, sometimes it has a name. It. You are hearing the voice of someone from your past, whether it is, you know, a significant other, a teacher, a pastor, whomever it is that you are hearing in the back of your head that is telling you that you're not good enough. So name it. If it is something that's more ambiguous, like society says I should, blah, blah, blah. Okay, well, then give that a name. If it's this sort of amorphous societal pressure, put a name on that. Whether you want to call it the Heckler or the Joker or whatever you want to call it. Why are we doing this? Because you're separating it. By giving it a name, you're separating it from you. You're saying, this is not what I am telling myself. This is something else. It's easier to get rid of something else than try to get rid of, you know, something that's part of you. So naming it is the first step. When I work with children and we talk about naming it, sometimes I will have them draw a picture of what that critical inner voice looks like and then name it. And you know, we may also talk about replacing that or addressing that inner critic, addressing that villain with a hero. And I will have them draw a hero that can help them combat that inner critic. Now for some of us, even as we get older, that might be a useful tool. Other people may see that as to juvenile to do. If it works for you, great. I don't care. You know, I am 50 years old and I still watch cartoons and not the anime type, you know, the Flintstones type. So it, it's all good. Whatever works for you as an individual. When you hear that inner critic, replace the pronoun I with you if it fits. So for example, if you are telling yourself I am ugly or I should be better at this or I shouldn't do this, replace it with you. Why? Because again, if I am saying I am these things, then that voice is coming from me, coming from my heart, my head and my gut. When I replace it with you, that's something somebody else says to me. And I. Whenever somebody tells me something, I can choose whether to take it or leave it. In. In recovery, a lot of times we have a saying that take what is useful and leave the rest. Not everything everybody says is going to be useful. So replace the pronoun I with you if that's helpful. Now if you are already hearing somebody like a significant other or a teacher saying you are a failure, you will never amount to anything, obviously that's not going to help as much here, but you already realize that is the voice of somebody else imposing conditions of worth on you. End your thoughts by asking, who says so if you had a teacher or a parent or somebody saying, you are never going to amount to anything. Who says, who are you to tell me that I am never going to amount to anything? And yes, this is one of those times when you feel that sense of anger and sometimes shame, remember, is anger turned in at yourself? When you feel that sense of anger of that shame, you know, use that energy and go, excuse me, who says end your thoughts that way? And if you check it out and with your head, your heart and your gut, you truly believe whatever's being said, well, okay, then you can take steps on it. But if it is just something somebody else said, you know, is it useful. Remember that think mnemonic that we talked about yesterday? Is it truthful? Is it helpful? Is it inspirational? Is it necessary? And is it kind? And anything we say to others or others say to you or we even say to ourself should be those things. I'm competitive and I'm somewhat of a control freak. So when somebody tells me that I should do something or I shouldn't do something, or they say a statement like you'll never amount to anything, that just motivates me even more to prove them wrong. So you can use it instead of feeling like you are being attacked by it. Use it as encouragement, as inspiration. Use it as motivation to show them everything that you are capable of. To show yourself. If you're the one that's criticizing you, to show yourself everything you're capable of. Sometimes we feel like we can't be successful. We can't do it. Okay, well then again, ask who says, I'm the only one that's saying that I can't do this. So let me prove myself wrong. Which takes us to talk back. And this is one of my favorite things because I like talking back to that menal inner critic. And it's important to talk back. You can tell. Tell that inner critic, you know what? No, I'm not listening. You can talk back by ignoring the inner critic and starting to say, sing something else. You know, it's kind of akin to when a little kid doesn't want to hear something and they stick their fingers in their ears and they go, la la la la la la la. I can't hear you. Well, we're doing the same thing. When I start having those intrusive thoughts from my inner critic, sometimes I will just put on music and start singing my heart out because I can't listen and listen to the messages of the song at the same time. Other times I may just start talking, find somebody to talk to. But talking back is helpful. When our brain is occupied with words, it can only focus on so many sets of words at the same time. So if you are, even if you're not actually speaking the words of the inner critic, if you are focusing on the words that you are saying or the words that you're hearing in your ears from music. By virtue of that, you're not going to be able to pay as much attention to that inner critic. Practice self compassion. And this one's hard. A lot of us feel guilty for practicing self compassion. We were taught that you're only supposed to love yourself if. Well, that's not True. You're supposed to love yourself. Period, end of sentence. We're supposed to love others, period, end of sentence. There are no conditions on love. There are no conditions on compassion. We want to provide unconditional positive regard to people. Now we don't have to like their behaviors, we don't have to like what they say, but we want to be compassionate and understand and respect them for who they are. Same thing for ourself. You know, we don't have to like, we can make a mistake. We don't have to like our behaviors. We can hear that inner critic or we can even tell us, tell ourselves something that is critical. But we don't have to embrace that. We don't have to tolerate that. We can be compassionate with ourselves and back up and go, you know what? Everybody makes mistakes. I am not going to be that hard on myself. When we are exceedingly critical or perfectionistic, that just gives that inner critic all kinds of ammunition to use. It makes you remember every mistake you made in the past. And trust me, I've made a lot of them. So if I were not self compassionate, if I thought that my worth and my lovability was based on being good, being perfect, then when that inner critic just unleashes a litany of mistakes that I've made, I might feel unlovable, unacceptable, broken. But with self compassion, I recognize that I am a human and I am imperfect and I'm doing the best I can with the tools I have at any given time. And that's a great mantra for self compassion. I am doing the best I can with the tools I have at this point in time. Just repeat that self to repeat that statement to yourself when you start feeling critical, recognizing that you deserve love, be your own inner parent, if you will. You know, as we grow up, we're like, oh, we're, we're grown now. We don't need parents to parent us as much anymore. But that's not the case. We still have to regulate our own feelings, our own behaviors. We still have to provide ourselves love. We have to take over. You know, when we are distant from our parents, we're not living with them anymore, or heaven forbid, they've passed away. You know, sometimes we have to replace that nurturance with positive self talk. Another way you can combat that inner critic is, would I say this to a friend? If you tell yourself something in your head that is just hateful, awful, critical, mean, whatever, back up and say, whoa, pump the brakes for a second. Would I dare say this to anybody else? Is this the kind of person that I want to be perceived as. The things that I tell myself sometimes are nothing that I would dare say ever to another person. Because I am not that critical, hateful, mean person that to the outside world, to everybody else that I can be to my, myself. So why am I doing that to myself? Would I say this to a friend? And a lot of times we have gotten so used to being self critical because there's nobody there to monitor our thoughts. So those things go unchecked and we start saying them and then we start repeating them. And we sort of have this group think in our own head and we convince ourselves that we are not worthy. So step back and ask yourself, is this the kind of environment, are these the kind of statements that I really want to immerse myself in and develop it? A nurturing, protective inner voice. And that kind of goes back to what we were talking about with the hero and the villain. In internal family systems theory, there is a discussion, basically to be very, very brief, that we have multiple people in our head. One is nurturing, one is a. The child that has been hurt in the past. One is the protector. And we want to make sure that we have that nurturing, protective inner voice that we pay attention to that not just the critical one and not just the one that has been hurt and feels helpless, but the inner parent that hopefully we internalized from our very responsive, healthy, loving parents. And if you didn't have that, if you didn't have secure attachment, if you didn't have a great childhood, I get that. Not everybody did. A lot of people didn't. Okay, that's fine. What would you want a parent to say to you? Imagine the nurturing parent that, that you envision. You know, in my day we grew. Well, it was a little past the Warden June Cleaver age, but we still watched the reruns. And Warden June Cleaver were sort of the epitome of the healthy family environment at that time, so to speak. But they were nurturing. They didn't raise their voices. They weren't overly critical. They were, they used Socratic reasoning. There were a lot of things about them that were very nurturing of their children. How can you be nurturing and protective of yourself, recognizing that, you know, when you get inside your inner head, you are not necessarily feeling protected. Your outer, your skin, your skeleton, think of that as your armor and your inside, your head, your brain, your heart, your, your gut, all of those are very soft, fragile organs. And your inner critic resides in there. And so it's easy to damage, you know, to make your, your thoughts negative, to make you feel scared, to make your heart hurt. So creating that nurturing, protective inner voice that keeps a lid on the critical one that's in your head can help you feel safer inside. Explore how the inner critic might be seeking to protect you from rejection, failure, or the unknown. These are huge basic fears that we have as human beings. And when we are, when we have good self esteem and we've silenced that inner critic, then we are able to say, you know what? I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, I am lovable. And, and that is, you know, kind of a take off on what Stuart Smalley used to say. Thank you, Saturday Night Live. But it's important to recognize that when we don't have good self esteem, we rely on other people to tell us we're okay. We fear failure because failure may mean rejection. We fear the unknown because we fear not being able to be loved, not being able to be good enough, so to speak. So explore this inner critic, whatever they say, all right? Listen to it. Remember, take what's useful. Leave the, leave the rest. Hear it and ask yourself, in what ways is this voice popping up now? Why am, why am I remembering this thought now? How is it trying to protect me from rejection, failure, or the unknown? You may have a perfectionist inner controller that is trying to make you good enough to be lovable, to which you need to respond. You know, talk back, tell them why you are lovable even if you're, even though you're not perfect. There's no if about it. We're not perfect, we're human. Talking back to that inner controller and telling them that you are acceptable and believing that you're acceptable, whether that means making a list of all the reasons or whatever you need to do to remind yourself that you are lovable with your, your strengths as well as your flaws. Some people have an inner critic that's a taskmaster master that wants to ensure they work hard so they can be a success and avoid failure and ergo avoid rejection. Which goes back to, I'm lovable even if I fail. I am lovable as long as I am striving for progress, even if I never attain perfection. Some people have an inner critic that's an underminer, that prevents them from taking risks in order to keep them safe, which often promotes conformity. You know, I'm not going to think, I'm just going to. Yes, I'm not going to rock the boat in any way, because if I do, I don't know what's going to happen. So that unknown is coming up and I may get rejected. And that's terrifying. Addressing those fears again, asking yourself, is this, you know, if I take this risk, if I live authentically, am I going to be acceptable to myself? When we are living inauthentically, when we are conforming to what other people want, we are actually rejecting ourselves. That's sometimes the most painful rejection of all because that means we're constantly telling your telling ourselves you're not right, when in reality we are. And finally, some people have an inner critic that's a guilt tripper who makes sure you never forget past mistakes, so you can never be truly free from the shame and able to move forward. Now, I told you earlier that, you know, I have one of those guilt trippers in the back of my head that it is very quick to remind me of all of my imperfections and my mistakes. But I reframe those. When that inner critic starts, starts in, I reframe those mistakes. Those, you know, unfortunate events as learning opportunities, you know, can't change the past, but I can learn from them and I can recognize that those experiences have helped me become who I am, you know, and helped me grow into the person. And hopefully I have learned from them. But it's important to identify why you fear rejection. What's the worst that can happen? If somebody rejects you, does that mean everybody's going to reject you? You know, that's one of those cognitive errors that we've talked about. You know, nobody is going to be liked by everybody all the time, and nobody, I dare say, is going to be liked by anybody all of the time. And what do I mean by that? That means even, you know, the nicest, sweetest, kindest person in the whole wide world that you can think of who might be your best friend may not like you all the time. You're occasionally going to make a mistake, you're occasionally going to disagree. You're occasionally going to do something that that person doesn't like. Does that mean going to reject you? Or does that mean they may reject your point of view? Your or they may not like what you did? And there's a difference. You are different than your behaviors and exploring those concepts of, of rejection, recognizing that a lot of times when people don't like you, especially if they don't hardly know you, that probably has more to do with them than with you, their fears, their inner critics, whatever is going on with them. Because, you know, inherently, I Believe we are all pretty lovable. Examine your fear of failure and how that's held you back and what would happen. One of the activities that I have my. My clients do is. And even when I taught at the university, the. My students, one of their assignments would be to go through the Internet and find memes and quotes about failure that are inspirational. And a lot of times when I'd say that, they'd look at me like I had three heads. Give you an example. Failure means I've learned one way not to do it. Okay. Failure means that I took a chance to step outside my comfort zone. Okay. Oh, gosh, I can see his face right now. There is an athlete out there who actually. There's probably lots of athletes. Michael Jordan, who actually has a lot of good quotes about failure. So looking at. Looking for how to find meaning in failure. So you're not afraid of it. You may see it as something that's exciting because it means it's an opportunity to learn. And the same thing about the unknown. I mentioned to y' all that I am somewhat of a control freak. I hate the unknown. I don't like ambiguity, and I struggle with that. However, sometimes it's important to get outside my comfort zone and embrace the unknown. Embrace what's going on and go, okay, let me just step back. This is not any. Any way. Anything that I anticipated. How can I make this work? And I know a lot of us do that on a regular basis. So stepping back, instead of seeing the unknown as something terrifying, see it as something exciting, as a way to create something absolutely new and fantastic. Does that mean that every single one of your friends, family, loved ones, whatever, are going to love this idea or love your concept and go along with it? No, not necessarily. But does that mean that you are not lovable? And that is one of those things. I. I typically try to stay away from politics, but I have seen politics lately tearing families apart. And it breaks my heart because we are all inherently lovable. And the people on both sides of the aisle and in the middle generally all want the same thing. In general, they want happiness, health, security, contentment, safety. Their ideas about how to accomplish it may be very different. And, you know, you may think foolhardy in some cases. You know, that's okay. That's an idea, that's a thought, that's a concept that's out there. But we all want the same thing. We really all want to be happy and healthy and see the people in our world happy and healthy. So our inner critic can be very powerful. It can be very toxic. And before we can really be fully free to love other people, we need to learn how to love ourselves. We need to learn how to tamp down that inner critic. At the same time, you can work on tamping down your outer critic as well. If you happen to be in a place where you are feeling critical of others, tamping that down and going back to asking yourself who says talking back to that inner critic. And when you start feeling like you're going needing to be wanting to be critical of yourself or others, go back to think. Is what I'm getting ready to say 100 truthful? Is what I'm getting ready to say helpful in any way? If it's not end of story, don't say it. Is what I'm getting ready to say? Am I saying it in a way that's inspirational and encouraging? Maybe encouraging somebody to get better or to consider a different perspective or whatever, but is it inspirational? Is it necessary? Again, some things may not. They. They may even be helpful or you think they're helpful, but they may not be necessary. Pick your battles. It is not necessary to be critical of people if they are doing things slightly differently. It is not necessary to be critical of yourself if you choose a different route than other people would have expected of you. And finally, kind. If you have to say something that is constructive, I'll use that word. You know, it's truthful, it's helpful. You're going to say it in a way that's inspirational. It's necessary to get it out there. This is one of those battles you need to fight. Then making sure to say it in a way that's as kind as humanly possible. All of those things can help you become less critical of others as well as yourself. Before you tell yourself something or when you hear that inner critic run, run through your head those things. Is what this inner critic saying to me truthful, helpful, inspirational, necessary and kind? If not at. At the very least reframe it. Thank you for being with me. I really, really appreciate you attending every day. Please recommend this to friends if you find it helpful. We are entirely supported by the generosity of you guys as well as the ads that we have at the begin. You know, we try to do as much as we can with what we have. So the more people that tune in, the more ad revenue we get. That can be certainly be somewhat helpful to us. Everybody, have an amazing day. Have a wonderful week. Do something kind for yourself today and you know.