Exploring & Befriending Our Inner Critic - in relationships and divorce

In this episode I talk about our inner critic - that inner voice, our ego, our inner mean girl - whatever you call it, we all have one.

What it is & why it shows up.

How it impacts our ability to form & choose relationships that light us up on all levels.

Understanding & accepting she's never really going to 100% go away so how to calm, soothe and befriend our inner critic.

How to lean in to self trust, listen with kindness & compassion and release ourselves from our inner critic.

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Extra resources I mention in this episode:
Clare Bowditch, Your Own Kind Of Girl & Tame Your Inner Critic
Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

Sallyanne Hartnell - Divorce Coach & Strategist

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate the podcast. Finding the space for all of you in life and love. I'm your host, Sally Ann Hartnell, and this podcast is for anyone wanting to reclaim and liberate themselves in their relationships and their life. Where you are on your relationship journey, these conversations meet you right there in soulful, deeply supportive DNMs with me and interviews with other gorgeous humans, moving you from where you are to where you most want to be. A life and love completely aligned with your deepest desires to have it all on your own terms. If you're seeking a relationship and a life that lights up all of you, you're in the right place. Hello, hello, and welcome to another juicy episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate. And thank you so so much to all of you who've reached out, sent me a message, shared the podcast. It is so wonderful to get your feedback and have your support. It just means the world to me. So thank you so so much. Today I'm going to talk about Inner Critic. And I'm going to apologize right now if I get excited because there is so so so so much I could share on this topic. It's been a big one for me personally, but also for so many of my clients. Crucial to really developing a deep, loving, nurturing relationship with ourselves. So inner critic. What is it? It's the voice in our head that runs on loop, that pops up when we are stepping outside our comfort zone. It's the voice inside our head that is often negative, nagging, that nasty commentary on who we are, what we're capable of, how we're moving through the world, how we're showing up. It's often filled with doubt and negativity. And it's black and white. There are no shades of grey. There's nothing in the middle, it's all or nothing. So that's what I'm talking about when I talk about inner critic. The critical, harsh, judgmental, nasty voice in our head. You might have another name for it, you might not call it your inner critic, it might just be that voice in your head or your inner mean girl or the superego. Freud talks about the superego emerging around age five, and it is responsible for providing guidelines and a conscience, a self-critical conscience, helps us make judgments. Whatever you call it, I'm gonna call it inner critic. And more simply, it's that voice inside your head, the one on loop that tells you what you are or what you aren't. That you're lazy, crazy, unlovable, it tells you what you can't do, showing up with a sentence that starts, I can't, or I'll never. Or it's the judgment voice, you always, or you should, or you shouldn't, or there's something wrong with you. Everyone will know your dot dot dot insert whatever. Everyone will know. No one would really like you, let alone love you, if they really knew. Maybe your inner voice, inner critic, tells you that you're too much, you're too loud, you're too passionate, you're too crazy, you're too lazy, you're too old, you're too young, that you're too much. Or that you're not enough. You're not thin enough, pretty enough, smart enough, educated enough, you're not enough. Maybe yours shows up in the night whispering that you're a failure, you're a failure at relationships, and that no one will ever love you again. Yep, you know the stuff. You know what your inner critic whispers to you. So why? Why do we have this inner voice? Why do we have this nasty, nasty inner commentary running? It's actually a part of the fight-flight response, which, as I'm sure you know, is a primal reaction to designed to keep us safe. And when I say safe, I'm putting that in verticomas, safe. It also comes from earlier life experiences. So our inner critic is developed by earlier life experiences, particularly any time we experienced pain or hurt or shame. And as we grow, this voice becomes a critical, destructive, and hurtful thought pattern. So supposedly designed or showing up to keep us safe from any further hurt or pain, so to protect us, knowing what has happened in the past, our inner critic, the inner voice, shows up to protect us from future hurt or pain. So the primal fight-flight response is, as I'm sure you're aware, a reaction to a threat or a perceived threat and designed therefore to keep us safe. But if there's no true threat, if there's not really a lion about to pounce, if there's no true threat, really all it does is keep us stuck and keep us small inside our zone of comfort, where everything is known and we can control things, and nothing is going to feel wobbly. But by keeping us in that comfort zone, it really prevents us from living the life we most want and deserve to be living. And our inner critic is a key part of that. Our inner critic, that chatter in our head, is working hard to keep us safe, to keep us in that comfort zone, to stop us from stepping outside and doing something that is a little bit challenging, doing something that is risky, either physically risky or emotionally risky. So that is why our inner critic shows up. And when we question ourselves, when we question our relationships, when we are in the messy middle of deciding whether to stay or go, or maybe realizing that it is over, that it's not what you hoped it would be. Many of us have a really, really, really loud inner critic. I know I certainly did. Mine showed up in all sorts of ways. You'll mess up your kids' lives, everyone will think you're crazy. There must be something really wrong with you if you can't make this relationship work. You'll never have the same financial freedom, you'll never have abundance. All of those thoughts, all of those fears, all of those doubts and judgments showed up for me. And back then, I don't think I really knew a lot about my inner critic, and I definitely did not know how to quiet and soothe her. I just shoved her voice down deep, deep inside me, pushed it down, except for in the early hours of the morning when I'd wake in the dark and she'd be viciously active, rolling around with every possible scenario in my head over and over and over. But mostly I just pushed it down. I didn't have the tools or the skills to quiet her, to soothe her, which is probably why I'm so passionate about this now. I want everybody to have those tools and those skills. But back then I felt the fear, I recognized it, and I also realized that the pain of staying was going to be greater than the pain of leaving. So I took a leap, not knowing really how I would manage, but just trusting that somehow I would. So somehow I overcame that inner critic, maybe just by shoving her down and ignoring her, and really lent into self-trust and faith that I would be okay. Since then, I've done a whole lot of work on and with my inner critic. And and note that I say with. She's still there. And I know she always will be. And as I said, she showed up today when I was preparing to share this podcast episode. I just have a really different relationship with her these days. She's still there, but as I said, I just have a different relationship with my inner critic. So here's what I know about inner critic. Trying to squash, defeat, or silence our inner critic doesn't work. If you try and shut it up, it just tends to feed the critic, add fuel, making it stronger. So we need a different strategy. Firstly, recognize. Recognize when your inner critic starts to make noise. If you hear a voice saying things that you would never say to someone you love and care about, if you feel like the voice is repeating the same thing on loop or that it's out of your control, like it invades your head, rather than being a voice that reflects your real thoughts. If it's like a broken record, or some people call it the monkey mind, or you're just spiraling. If the voice that you're hearing is attacking your own thoughts or ideas or opinions, if it's using for phrases like get a grip, or who do you think you are, or don't be don't be so stupid, you can be guaranteed that that is your inner critic. So learn to recognize how and when your inner critic shows up. Mine, like today, sharing this podcast episode, is when I'm doing something outside my comfort zone. And that's the case for most of us. So it's whether we are, it's when we're showing up to do something that stretches us, that feels vulnerable emotionally or a little bit risky. So learn to recognize when your inner critic shows up. Next, get curious about what your inner critic is trying to tell you or keep you safe from. And again, we're using safe in inverted commons here. Assume your inner critic has the best of intentions. It's showing up to try and help and make your life better if in a misguided way. So get curious. What is the goal of your inner critic and use this voice? Love it up instead. Give it love and compassion so that it becomes your ally and your friend. If your inner critic is telling you that you're lazy, get curious about that. Is it perhaps that you really do want to be more active? And perhaps you can reframe that inner voice, that inner criticism as a way to motivate you. And also to determine balance. So you know you need to tick a few things off your to-do list, and you also need self-care and rest. So when your inner critic shows up, get curious about why. What is the real message? Assume good intentions. So maybe if you're navigating your way out of a relationship, your inner critic is showing up loudly, telling you you'll never find love again. Getting curious about that, exploring what's underneath it, assuming the good intention will lead you to a realization that your inner critic is showing up to protect you from future rejection or a broken heart. So it's actually protecting you but also keeping you small and holding you back. So, how can you use the good intention of your inner critic to actually reduce and diffuse its power? How can you use the good intention of your inner critic to diffuse the power it has over you? The next step is to differentiate your inner critic from yourself. Remember, it's a perspective you adopted from earlier life experience, and you've just internalized it as your own point of view. You've internalized it as your voice, but it is not you. It is not your true voice, it's not your intuition, your inner knowing, it is not you. So differentiate your inner critic from yourself. To quiet and soothe the noise of our inner critic, we need to separate from it, to understand and accept and acknowledge that it is not our voice, it is not our true voice. Australian musician and author Claire Bodic does this really beautifully and powerfully by naming her inner critic Frank. She has a couple of books and she first introduces us to the concept of Frank in her first book, Your Own Kind of Girl, where she describes telling Frank to shut the F up and go sit in the corner. And this is something that I use and I really encourage my clients to use. Claire has also written a second book called Tame Your Inner Critic, which I loved as an audiobook and I found it really, really useful. So I will add that to the show notes as a resource if you want to access that for yourself. Giving your inner critic a name to differentiate it from you, giving it a persona, it can be Frank, it could be Mean Girl, it could be Ethel, whatever you choose. Giving it a name to differentiate it from you is a really powerful way of diffusing its power. You might have noticed that when I talk about my inner critic, I sometimes call her she. She. So she is not me, she is other. By calling her she, I differentiate her from me. We are different. She is not me. So naming your inner critic, identifying her as other from you, separate, is a really powerful way of diffusing her power. Another powerful way of quietening, calming, soothing our inner critic is to stop the wheel, the rumination. Now, telling yourself not to think about it, telling yourself not to think about what your inner critic is chattering away about to you, telling yourself not to think about it won't work. Pushing it down, ignoring it just makes it louder. Whether then in the moment or at some future point, it will come back louder. Yelling at it to shut up also won't work. Your inner critic feeds on anger and doubt, and above all, well, above all, your inner critic feeds on criticism. So if you're adding further criticism and further anger, it's just fueling your inner critic. We need to be able to stop the wheel, to stop the rumination. And there are a few ways that we can do this. Activity. Moving our body, getting active will help reset thoughts and stop them from spiraling out of control. So get active, move your body in whatever way, shape, or form that feels good for you. Activity, movement stops the wheel. Mindfulness and meditation can also be useful here. Can you recognize and reflect on one good thing about yourself, one thing that you're good at? Focus on the positives, or quite simply just focus on one good thing. This helps you build bridges in your brain or synapses in your brain, and with practice and attention, these actually become your reality. So mindfulness and meditation and focusing on one good thing is a really powerful tool to use and build on to offset the stories that our inner critic is telling us. Liz Gilbert, who wrote Big Magic, among other things, Liz Gilbert said, it's a simple and generous rule of life that whatever you practice you will improve at. So if you're practicing listening to your inner critic, you'll get better and better and better at listening to that inner mean voice. However, if you focus on the one good thing, you'll get better and better and better at focusing on one good thing and the next good thing and the next good thing. So to stop the wheel, to stop the monkey mind, to stop the rumination, to stop that voice on loop, focus on one good thing. Andor get moving. Move your body in whatever way feels good for you. Activity and movement. Next, examine the evidence. Examine the evidence in support of the negative thought or the negative comment that your inner critic is making. Examine the evidence in support of that, but also the evidence that refutes it. Write it all down in two columns. So look for evidence and examine the evidence. Is it true? Is it actually true? And going back to that quote by Liz Gilbert, that what we feed and what we practice, we get better at. Feed your positive beliefs about yourself. Go looking for the evidence in your life, in your day, in your world to support the positive things about yourself. Find one positive thing. Focus on that, feed that. Feed the positive beliefs that you have about yourself. Start working on your mindset, changing your mindset, changing your beliefs. It takes something, something crazy, like seven positives to every negative or even neutral thought. So seven positives to offset one negative or one neutral thought. So start looking for evidence and feed your positive beliefs about yourself. Find the positives and start focusing your attention there. Remember, whatever you practice, you'll improve at. Whatever you focus on will grow. So you might as well be feeding the positives. Let's feed the positives. Examine the evidence and feed the positive. Next step: reframe your inner critic's statements. Reframe. And there's a number of different ways to do this. A few of my favorites include changing the I statements to you statements, which really helps you externalize that voice. So it shifts it from being a part of you to being an external voice. So something like, I'm hopeless with money and I'll never be wealthy. You just simply switch the I for the for you. You're hopeless with money and you'll never be wealthy. It can just subtly shift things for you and help you externalize that voice and recognize it as not your own voice, but something that is actually external to you, something actually alien to you and not yours. It also helps you see just how nasty it is, which can help you let it go. Would you say this to your five-year-old self or your own child? Can you choose a new, more gentle way of reframing, rephrasing it, of addressing your fears and doubts? So does switching I statements to you statements help you? Remembering that your inner critic is showing up with every good intention can also be really useful and another way of reframing. So reframe using the good intentions of your inner critic. For example, if your inner critic's showing up and telling you you'll never find love again or you'll never be loved again. Firstly, understand the intention. The intention is to keep you safe from heartbreak or hurt. Secondly, kindly thank her or use her name if you've named her or him. Kindly thank her for her concern. Let her know you're fine, you've got this, you're okay. For example, reframe and rephrase and speak back to her and Say thank you. I know you're showing up to keep me safe from heartbreak. I've got this. I know that by being vulnerable in this different form of my relationship, in this new relationship, I might get hurt again, but I'm okay, I've got this. I'm stronger now, or I've learned new boundaries and I'm willing to give it a go. Thank you, I've got this. Thank you, inner critic, for showing up, and I've got this. Reframing in this way is a really powerful way to soothe the voice, to calm the noise. Rather than getting angry and frustrated and adding fuel to the fire, like I talked about before, this reframe really calms things down. It also provides evidence for you that you have got this, that you are okay here. There is no lion about to attack. You're fine, you've got this, you're okay. And the more you do that, the more you feed the positives. You build those synapses in your brain, you build new stories about having your own back and being okay. And so your inner critic gets quieter and quieter over time. You're building a bank of evidence to show yourself that you are fine, you've got this. So when your inner critic shows up, reframe. Accept that she's showing up with every good intention and reframe what she's trying to tell you or what she's trying to keep you safe from. And so just to recap, the steps that I've used and coached my clients to use in calming and soothing and quietening our inner critic. Number one, recognize. Number two, get curious and assume good intentions. Number three, differentiate or separate. Split out the voice, the inner critic from your own knowing, from your own intuition. She's not you. Differentiate. Number four, stop the wheel. Work on methods and strategies and build your toolkit in stopping the rumination. Activity, mindfulness, meditation. They're my key go-tos. Stop the wheel. Examine the evidence and look for the positives. Is it true? How do you know it's true? Look for the positives. Then reframe. And finally, finally, my final point. Cultivate a really deep sense of gratitude for all of your stories, for all of your past experiences and the stories that have brought you here where you are today. Even the shitty ones. Cultivate gratitude for the journey and the lessons. So when your inner critic does show up, you know it's an opportunity to learn. Cultivate gratitude and lean into the learning. And lastly, just a little reminder, just a little reminder. I'm really sorry to tell you that your inner critic, your inner voice won't ever fully go away. It will rear up again and again in your life, especially when you're being brave, especially when you're being vulnerable, especially when you're stepping out of your comfort zone, taking a chance, making a change. It won't ever fully go away. So getting to know your inner critic, recognizing when it's making noise, getting a handle on telling your own Frank or Vera or Ethel, getting to know your inner critic really well. And when she shows up with love and gratitude and compassion, telling her to shut the F up, I'm fine, I've got this, is vital to your happiness and success. She's never going away, so you need to make friends with her while you get on with your amazing life. Embracing her, accepting her as part of your journey, but not you, not your knowing, definitely not the driver of your bus, is liberating. So if this resonates with you, I would love to hear your thoughts, your opinions. Let me know what you think, and if you want to dive a bit deeper with me on this, please, please reach out. Coaching can really support you to explore, make friends with, and soothe your inner critic and step forward to that liberation that I spoke about. Please reach out. I'll pop a link in the show notes to all the resources I mentioned, Liz Gilbert, Claire Bodic, all the things, and thank you, thank you so much for sharing this time and space with me. Do let me know what you think, and really look forward to sharing some space with you next episode. I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, Relationship Coach, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate. You can follow me on Instagram at Reflect Coaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love this episode, please, please share it with them. I'd also be so grateful if you'd follow the podcast and review this episode so we can get it in the ears of a whole lot more humans just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love. I hope you'll join me next time for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate. Until then,