There is a lot of advice out there about dealing with your inner critic – shutting her up, telling her to fuck off, boxing her in, ignoring her. Hmmm. I never liked the idea of demonising my inner critic – after all, she is still part of me, even if she is a part I might not like much. And I firmly believe that every part of every body has a positive intention.
No part of you wants to sabotage..it wants to keep you safe.
No part of you wants to be mean…it wants to get the best from you.
No part of you wants to be a whiner…it wants to show you that you are not taking care of yourself.
No part of you wants to hold you back…it wants you to follow your own heart.
No part of you wants you to be unhappy…it wants you to enjoy your life.
The trouble is we do not train those parts of ourselves to protect us, make us happy, take care of us, inspire us, motivate us; so the way it is done looks like criticism, sabotage, ego trips and inner mean girls.
Then we react against this critic with anger and hurt. We turn away from that part of ourselves, ignore her, tell her to fuck off, shhh her.
Hmm.
We’re turning on a part of ourselves that doesn’t know any better, that was never trained how to do the job of ‘motivator’ without being Miss Whiplash; a part that doesn’t know how to keep you safe without stopping you doing scary things; a part that doesn’t know how to get your attention when you’re going against your inner wisdom without calling you a jackass; a part that learned to help you make your life better by nagging and criticising you.
For years I tried to ignore my inner critic/ego/mean girl.
I didn’t like the idea of telling a part of me to fuck off…but I was ok with pretending she didn’t exist. When that little voice in my head was heckling me, I would just tell it to shhh. This worked well enough, she shushed.
But then over the past year or two I have been diving more deeply into self-love. I have been working on supporting, encouraging, and backing myself 100%. And it started to feel a bit wrong to say I was working on self-love and then shushing and ignoring a part of myself – it is not very loving or encouraging or supportive is it?
I can’t say I would like it if every time I spoke someone shushed me. So why should I treat my inner critic that way? Ok, so she can be a bitch from hell sometimes…but is that a good reason for me to treat her badly too? Or would it be better to express that love and support and encouragement and kindness to a part of me that most needs it?
So I started to engage with her.
Not to accept her assertions that I am a jackass, but to hear her.
Not to take on board her mean comments, but to listen to what is worrying her.
Not to let her make me feel bad, but to help her feel good.
Not to validate her methods of talking to me, but to help retrain her to do it in a loving way.
So for example, this is how a comment from my inner critic would go in the past:
“You haven’t done X”
“Shhhh”
“You still haven’t done X”
“Shhhh” *(getting more impatient now)
“Are you ever going to do X?”
“Shut the fuck up”
“You are useless, you have done sweet FA today”
“SHUT UP!”
What a lovely, supportive, joyful conversation. Not.
Now I am working on responding with love, this is how the conversation goes:
“You haven’t done X”
“Shhh” (I’m still working on erasing the old bad habits)
(Injured silence)
“Oops, sorry. You are right, I haven’t done X. I intend to, later today. But right now I really need to work on Y. But I appreciate the reminder about X. I’ll put it on my list to do later so I don’t forget. Thank you, I appreciate that you want to help me remember the important things. I love you.”
Later on…”You still haven’t done X”
“You’re right, I haven’t. It is on my list to do. And these other things were more important.”
“Facebook was more important?”
“You’re right, it wasn’t. I made a choice…it may not have been a good choice. I am getting to X…you know what, I’ll start it now. Thank you for reminding me of my priorities. I love you”
OR
“Yes, facebook was more important – I needed to connect with some people and enjoy the world outside my head for a while. And I’m going to leave X til tomorrow because I have other priorities for today. Thank you for helping me get my priorities in order. I love you.”
The conversation doesn’t escalate into a slanging match. It doesn’t need to. I listened. I heard. I didn’t take her comments as criticism, I took them as a reminder to pay attention and I responded, with love. My inner critic is learning that I hear her the first time she pipes up…she doesn’t need to get dramatic and mean to get my attention. She’s also getting love, so she is not as chippy. And sometimes she is chippy, because just as I’m working on erasing my bad habit of shushing her, she’s working on not being a bitch! When I respond to the chippiness with love, she gets less chippy.
It is a beautiful thing.
And it really doesn’t take much more time than shushing her 75 times a day. Plus, all the energy you were using to ignore that mean inner critic of yours will be freed to work on other things. You’d be amazed how much of your energy it takes to ignore yourself, when you could hear yourself instead and love yourself fully.
All of you deserves your love, not just the so-called good or spiritual or positive bits. And if you show your inner bitch love, compassion and attention, she might just see that there is a better way to motivate you, to keep you safe, to tell you you’re ignoring your inner wisdom than being a bitch. Worst case scenario: you’re loving yourself more…and how can that be bad?
