In our previous coaching episode with our lovely enneagram One, she reflects on the experience of the inner critic and how that shows up in her experience. So today's episode, we are going to talk a little bit more about the inner critic how to balance it out and kind of turn down the volume on the inner critic as a really a teaching episode that coincides with our previous coaching conversation. So for those of you that are maybe not as familiar with the enneagram, the inner critic is a really significant aspect of the Type one structure. It can be an audible voice, it can be your own voice, voices that you recognize like maybe your parents or coach or teacher. But it doesn't always have to be a voice, sometimes it is more of a abstract feeling. When people talk about their inner critic, it's just a feeling of guilt or feeling of shoulds and oughts. So let's talk through some helpful practices for those of you that lead with Type one, or maybe you are in relationship with someone that's a one and these are some helpful things to be compassionate about their experience. 

So the first practice that I would offer for those of you that lead with Type one and have this inner critic aspect, it's really helpful to name the inner critic. So I mean that in a couple of different ways, first to actually give it a name. So if there's a voice to it, that reminds you of a name, you know, and in our coaching conversation, she had named her inner critic Cruella. So there's a name that you can give the inner critic that's really helpful, that feels like it's more of an abstract feeling, still trying to give it a name. And the reason for that is to be able to bring some attention to when the inner critic is sounding.

And that's the other part of naming it that I mean, his name that you hear it, name, what it is saying to you name, the feeling of guilt, or the shoulds and oughts that it is communicating to you. And it's really helpful to name it so that you can separate your own thoughts and feelings from the inner critic. You know, one of the things that often happens for those that are enneagram ones, is that they believe that the inner critic is just their inner dialogue, it's just their train of thought, it's just their conscience. But the reality is, it's it is a significant aspect of your Type one structure, which is a part of you, yes, but it is not the entirety of who you are. And so if you can name the inner critic, it's really helpful in kind of separating yourself from it. Because your personal thoughts, your personal feelings, your personal wants and needs are separate from the inner critic. And so if you can give it a name, you know, and nickname for it, that’s helpful. But then also naming “I hear what you're saying”, I hear what the shoulds and oughts are, so that you can separate it from what your internal dialogue and your thoughts and feelings actually are and what's the inner critic. 

And so, if you can recognize the voice of the inner critic, and articulate what it's communicating, that's really helpful too because often, the standards, the shoulds, and oughts that it's communicating, they're not realistic. And so if you can take a moment when you acknowledge you're feeling burden, or weighed down, or angry from this dialog with the inner critic, name out loud, “okay, I feel guilty. Why? What is the standard that my inner critic is holding me to that I'm failing? Why am I feeling this feeling of guilt from?” Sometimes even just naming what that standard is, can help you dissolve the standard, because when you hear it out loud that the standard is “I should never need to rest” or “I should never take time for myself,” or “I can't rest or play until I get everything done.” Some of those things, if you hear them out loud, you realize it's just not realistic. You know, it's not realistic for humans to hold ourselves to those standards, that’s not realistic. 

If that feels really hard for you, the encouragement is what do you hold your friends to those same standards? You know, if you're sitting down with your friend, and they're really struggling with these shoulds and oughts, of needing rest and needing play and needing some help in their life, would you “should” back on them of like, “no you should not be stressed, you should not need play.” That’s not how you would respond to them. Sometimes that's a helpful trick of how we would be compassionate to our friends, offering that compassion to ourself. And so, if the standard that the inner critic, as you hear communicating is not actually realistic, stating that, you know, stating that's not realistic. You could even talk back to your inner critic of I hear you correlate, but I don't need your input right now. Or I have time for rest, I have time to socialize, I have time for this thank you for your input, but I don't need it right now, sometimes even that is just helpful to separate yourself from it. 

And in this process, as you're noticing and naming these standards, you're seeing that some of them are not realistic to be compassionate towards yourself. Because the problem is, if you notice the internal critic, and then you shame yourself for having that feeling, or having these standards or being critical of yourself or critical of others, if your inner critic is kind of looking out to others, you're just using your Type one structure to reinforce your Type one structure, right? You're trying to control these elements of your Type one structure, which is just your enneagram Type coming into play even more as Susan Stabile makes the comment of “you're using your personality to fix your personality” it just won’t work. So in that these observations we have, they're non judgmental, you know, we notice that we have awareness to it. And we're compassionate towards ourselves when we see these things, when we hear this inner critic. 

The other thing that's really helpful with the inner critic, as another practice, is to name the emotions that are tied to these moments with the inner critic. If you're angry, give yourself some space to be angry. For those that lead with Type one, there's often these synonyms that we use for anger, like being frustrated, irritated, ticked off, that's my pet peeve - we use all these synonyms, but that's all anger. Those are just different ways of saying it. And for some enneagram ones there is it's easier access to anger, they feel comfortable naming when they're angry for others, especially based off of your subType. But it's not as easy to name it, and so we use all these different versions. With no matter what - if it's easy, or it's more difficult and we use those synonyms for anger - giving yourself some space to name that anger when you are frustrated that no one else is being responsible or when you are irritated that no one is doing things right. Those are all moments of anger. And so giving yourself some space to process that emotion, so that it's not constricted. 

What happens in the Type one structure, and it's really part of being the emotional competency group harmonic group (so lumped in there with ones threes and fives) - there's kind of this construction of emotion. We just kind of clamped down on it. Oftentimes, and you hear this in the coaching session, but there's this somatic element of how you feel it physically in your body, and it becomes this tightness in your throat or this rigidity in your jaw line. A lot of times ones have trouble with grinding their teeth, or just this element of you're holding and constraining emotions and it shows up in your physical felt sentence. And so in that, naming the emotion so that you can give yourself some space to process it. So taking a deep breath, acknowledging, “you know what, I'm just really angry right now, there's a lot going on, there's a lot that's expected of me, there's a lot that needs to get done, it feels really hard to ask for help, I wish others were offering help without me having to ask.” Whatever it is that's causing you to feel angry, but just to name it, to name it out loud, “I feel angry.” And that is to give yourself some space to feel it. Because we don't process emotions. Unless we feel it, we just constrain it and it just gets shoved into our subconscious. And it's kind of this raw emotion that often will just come out sideways because you’ve put it down in the pressure cooker, and if you just keep shoving it down and down and down. And then eventually it comes out sideways, either in your physical felt sense when you start to have these chronic health issues or it comes out on the last person that ticks you off and they're kind of the unsuspecting victim - the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. And so giving yourself some space to process it. 

If that feels impossible, that resource that I offered in the coaching session is a really helpful resource on Insight Timer. If you're not on Insight Timer, please go get on Insight Timer. There's tons of free meditations. And also just if you practice contemplative practices, there's a timer with gongs on there, which is what I like because I don't own a gong. But on there, I have a recorded meditation called the Welcoming Prayer that just gives you some space to feel your emotions and to process them so that they are not constrained and get held into our into that experience and kind of unprocessed right we just shove it down thinking that is not appropriate to be angry or we don't have time to process it. So give yourself some space to process it. 

Also, as you hear the inner critic, letting that be some awareness that maybe you need to slow down and check in with yourself. When these moments of feeling really judgmental about yourself or your outside experience come up, often these are some of these unresolved emotions of anger kind of bubbling to the surface. And if you don't allow yourself to process that and experience that, whether that's the anger in the current moment, or even anger from this past week or month or a year, it turns into resentment, it has to go somewhere. And so it's almost like it just boils and boils and boils. Until it's sometimes it's a subconscious resentment, that it's hard to even articulate out loud. And especially for the Type structure of wanting to be good, often it feels wrong, to be resentful for towards others, or to even hate others for all these moments of anger that have built up that we haven't resolved. And so then we just use our Type to fix our Type and we just buckled down and constrain it even more. And really the defense mix mechanism of reaction formation, that's what comes up in there. If you're feeling one way, and you choose to act the other, because it just feels hard to acknowledge the messy raw emotions of being angry. 

And so naming that anger, naming whatever emotion is tied to that internal critic for you, and giving yourself some space to process it. And again, if that feels really challenging that resource on insight timer, also my Growth and Self-Care workshop series that I offer virtually has a lot of what we talk about of how to process our emotions, what are natural responses to stress, and how to better manage that. 

So the last thing I'll offer for our Type ones, and honestly, for all of us as we're navigating, trying to process our emotions, this isn't particularly easy for any of the Types if I'm being honest, but give yourself some space to pause and to reset. And you even hear this in that that previous coaching session as she talks about this kindness she offers to her kiddos of like, “Hey, what's going on? It feels like we're we started this day not very well. What’s happening for us?” and offering that same kindness to yourself, like, “Hey we're not doing so well today, what's going on? What's happening? Can we just take a few deep breaths? Can we go take a walk? Can we sit on our front porch and engage all five senses and come back into ourselves? Come back into the present moment? Not the to do list, not how everyone is doing and what they all need, but just to be present in the moment.” Engaging your five senses is a really helpful way to do that. I also often offer for Type ones sometimes even having these small mantras or breath prayers can be really helpful to just bring yourself back to the present moment. And so for one's a really good mantra or breath prayer is as you breathe in to internally recite, “God made me whole” and as you breathe out to expel this lie, “my inner critic doesn't define me.” And so as you go through just offering yourself this kindness, have a moment to pause and to come back into the present moment. So I hope that's helpful as you think about how do we navigate this inner critic, whether that's for yourself or those that you love as you're supporting them in their personal growth. And I hope you'll join me next time for our teaching time after our coaching sessions.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai