47. Your Inner Critic Isn't Yours...And It's Running Your Creative Life

Your inner critic isn't actually yours.

That's where we're starting this week on This Is Soul Therapy — because before we can do anything about the voice that tells you to put the camera down, close the sketchbook, and forget the whole idea, we need to understand where it actually came from.

Spoiler: you didn't arrive here with it. You picked it up. From a fifth-grade bully, a terrifying client, a mentor who laughed at the way you held your camera, a partner, a parent. All of it tangled together into this very specific, very personalized thing that knows exactly which lever to pull to get you to stop.

I share a photo walk I took when I was deep in a creative funk — and what happened when my inner critic realized I wasn't going home. It started small. Then it escalated. And when I kept going anyway, it pulled receipts — actual memories, actual moments of failure and shame — trying to prove it was right.

And then I share the sneakier version: how my inner critic spent over a year quietly talking me out of launching a creative community by cycling me between two arguments that were actually the same argument in different clothes. Once I saw it for what it was, it lost its power almost immediately.

We Cover:

• Where your inner critic actually comes from and why it is not your voice
• The predictable three-stage escalation pattern your inner critic follows every single time — and how to recognize it before it shuts you down
• Why your inner critic gets loudest right before you expand, not because something is wrong, but because something is working
• The photo walk as a low-stakes way to meet your inner critic face to face and hear what it's actually saying
• How the same core wound can wear a hundred different disguises and keep you circling for years
• What it actually means to work with your inner critic instead of trying to silence or heal it first

This episode is for you if you keep almost starting something — and you've been telling yourself it's a block, or bad timing, or you're just not ready yet. You're ready. Your inner critic is just very, very good at its job.

Plus — I'm finally launching Creating Space, the year-long creative community I've been sitting on for four years. Photography, therapeutic arts, shadow work, and self-expression through the lens — all in one place. Details and a link to book a call are in the show notes.

Head to jenniferhulley.substack.com for the full community and everything mentioned in this episode.

Transcript

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For the ones unraveling, reorienting, and remembering who they are, this is Soul Therapy. Here we explore the questions that tug at you. What season am I in? What is the universe trying to teach me? How do I support myself through change? We weave intuition, nervous system healing, creative energy, psychology, and the unseen into real grounded conversations. I'm your host, Jen Hully. Let's begin. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of This Is Soul Therapy. And this week we are going to take a big girl look in the mirror at our inner critic. Because I guarantee you it is running the show so much more frequently than we realize. And it's not there to play. It definitely does not want you to play. It wants you to shut up and it wants you to sit down. And it comes in so many sneaky ways. And you know, like on the surface level, we think we're aware of our inner critic, you know, the one that says, that's a bad photo, that's this, that's this, whatever. But I've learned recently with my own push with my inner critic, like how sneaky it can be. And how we have these stories or narratives running in our mind, in our subconscious, all the time. And we we don't even realize like how much of a stronghold they have on us. Let's back up a bit and just talk. Like, what is your inner critic? If I was to ask you, like, how would you describe your inner critic? You probably say it's that voice inside you that tells you that you're not good enough or that you failed in some way, or like pushes you toward people pleasing. And, you know, we think it's like we talk about it and identify it as if it's like a part of us, but that's the thing, is it's not actually from us. I would say like 90% of the time, your inner critic is somebody else's voice that you have been pre-programmed with. We do not come to Earth into this life with an inner critic. We pick one up along the ride. Your inner critic can be that bully from fifth grade, or it's your parents, or your boss, or your partner. It's their fears. All of that comes together and creates your inner critic. For me, my inner critic is like this weird, tangled version, like Frankenstein of teachers that I had when I was a kid. People that I would have called friends, but do not call friends anymore. Previous partners, clients, that's a big one. If you are doing creative work and getting paid for it, you will at some point have a client from hell. And if you're highly sensitive, empathic, and you're like a deeply feeling creative soul, which if you're listening to this, you are, I would guarantee. The words and the energy that you absorb from your clients and your previous creative experiences, they all come to shape this voice. It's an inevitable side of being human. It just happens to develop because we have feelings and we're living in this earth. We're learning and living alongside other humans who are just as lost and just as confused and just as fucking scared as we are. Like we're all this mess of an egoic mind, just scrambling in survival mode for most of our life, acting out our fears, acting out the subconscious limitations that we put on ourselves, projecting things on other. Like it's a it's a mess, really. It's it's amazing that we make it out alive. And we don't actually make it out alive, if we're being honest. Your inner critic can also be a silent partner. Like some of us, we don't even realize how much our inner critic is running this show. But it's this like really terrible, brutal combination of like, if you imagine all your worst experiences that you were scared, times that you were ashamed, moments you fell and you didn't think you would get back up, or you were told, like, how dare you, you'll never get back up, all of that comes and weaves itself together. I'm seeing this like dark monster under the bed. Like it literally takes shape and it becomes this thing. And with each experience of pain or failure or not enough, or any of those like shadowy, icky, I'm seeing the moon card in my mind's eye, every single one of those, your inner critic builds this library of experiences and proof. It creates this endless portal from which it can reach in and pull and throw exactly what you need at that moment to get you to stop. So if you're like pushing a boundary in something creative or something in your life and you're about to expand and you're about to try something new, that inner critic's gonna be like, let me go back to the library and let me find that time that oh, she said something and Sally said this, and oh my god, all the kids laughed at her. And then this happened and she failed her test. I'm gonna throw that at her because it knows that's where it'll get you to stop. And it's got a good memory, like it hangs on to everything. It even hangs on to things that were not outwardly directed at you, but you may have like passively absorbed them by just going along your human life, just being like a sideliner to like bullying and things of other people's parents. It's socialization, if you want to give it an official name. The process of socialization inherently creates this scenario and it will stop you. It will just throw shit at you to get you to stop when it senses that you're going to grow, shift, or change. Our ego is like, that's scary. Growing and shifting and changing means I'm not gonna be able to recognize myself. If I can't recognize myself, I can't predict my actions. If I can't predict my actions, I might not be able to stay alive. And if I'm not alive, I'm dead. Something I say over and over in this podcast is that undertaking a relationship with your creativity is learning to dance with setting your nervous system on fire and working with these demons and not getting rid of them. The biggest disservice we can do to ourselves is tell ourselves, like, I'll be creative or I'll start writing or I'll pick up my camera when I've healed that inner critic, when I've released all my shadow side, when I've healed the wounded inner child. It's like that's not ever going to happen. We're never gonna be perfectly pristine, whole, and just put back together. We need to learn to dance with the devil, basically. Let's just be dramatic. So a long time ago, like months ago, I took a walk with my camera. I just, I needed to get out of the house. I needed to stretch my mind creatively. And like, honestly, I was in a funk. I'd like been complaining about where I live, which I do a lot, because there's a part of me that really just wishes I was still in London and had Europe on my doorstep. And I was like, fuck the suburbs, fuck this, everything's boring. It's winter, blah, blah, blah. Like I think it was just spring, and I had was just like, I was like drowning in this sea of adulting. Like my life was bills and errands and forms and school lunches and trying to sleep and going to appointments, and my brain had sort of shifted into this like fantasy of like life is easier when you're in Italy. Life is easier when you're in Mexico. Life is it's not easier, it's just different. Okay. Like I've done it before, and life shit is just gonna follow you to a different location. But your brain starts doing this sneaky, like, oh, it's better on, you know, the grass is greener on the other side. It's not true. And so, as part of my like, let's push back event against this because I'm aware that it's happening. And if I feed that demon, it's gonna get bigger. So I was like, I'm taking my camera and I'm just gonna go out because I'm gonna walk the community. It's a beautiful day, and I'm gonna capture something, anything, I'm gonna get my photo walk in. Photo walks are a great way to pull yourself out of a funk, to regulate your nervous system, to get that movement and to get peace and quiet because you just have to be so tapped into your surroundings. They're like portals to wonder, but I knew I needed to do this. I was like, I gotta get out, I gotta start taking some photos. And I was in that space where I was like, I don't know how to start. So I gave myself a prompt. Because sometimes when you're kind of frozen creatively, having endless options is like not okay. Like it actually makes it worse. So you need to rein it in a bit. And I said, okay, you're gonna do frame within a frame. I love frame within a frame with photos. Like there's nothing more beautiful than looking at an image inside an image inside an image. It reminds me of like when I was a kid, we had this cookie jar. And it's like there's a picture in a picture in a picture. There is a label that has a man holding the cookie jar. But on the cookie jar, there's another label of that man holding the cookie jar. And it's kind of this like infinite loop of a story within a story within a story. So I was like, yes, get me out of my funk. I love looking at pictures like that. It's kind of like fractals, too, like frame within a frame. If you've never looked at fractal meditations, go YouTube that. They're fascinating. It's these images that are multi-layered and like one leads to another, and you're almost stuck in this like infinity loop of imagery. And so I was like, this shit's gonna pull me out of my funk. Let's go. Frame within a frame, let's do it. And so I go out with my camera and I start walking. It's a beautiful spring day. I can't complain about the weather. So I'm like, let's do this. And as soon as I got walking, I realized that my like intended, my intention was like for naught. It was like there was nothing around me that had a frame within a frame. And I was getting really, really frustrated trying to force my creative flow down that like, you know, that pathway. And so I start getting this like overwhelming sense of frustration and impatience. It like starts in my belly and then it like comes up to my heart, and then it's like in my throat. And it's this, it feels like fire, but it also feels like panic is squeezing me. And I was like, this is not no bueno, like, this is not what I'm out here to do. Excuse me. And so I was like, you gotta switch the plan. So instead of forcing this prompt, I was like, let's just go with whatever catches your eye. Let's make it easy. What is interesting to you? And so I changed my path and I changed where I was going, and I started wandering around the back of a building. And you're like, what does this have to do with the inner critic? Here it comes. Because the second I got around the corner, like I wasn't even there yet. I was just going around the back. I was like, let's see what's behind these buildings that are on the main street. I heard so clearly in my head, you're not allowed back here. And I just kept going, and I took photos anyways, and then it came back and it was like, this is pointless. That's ugly. And I was like, this is weird, and let me keep going. Then it went up with, people are looking at you. You're an idiot for thinking that this is gonna solve anything. And I don't know if you noticed, but my inner critic escalated what it was saying to me. Like it started with a really simple, like, don't do that, you're not allowed there. And when I was like, fuck you, I'm gonna do what I want, I was like, mmm, that's not good enough. Okay, how else can we scare her? This is pointless. You're wasting time because that's a scarcity belief that we all have that we don't have enough time. So let's go first of like, you're not allowed there. You're blocked from this space. Oh, you're wasting a resource. You have lot, not a lot of time, you should be doing something else. Again, this is pointless. That's playing on the scarcity of time. That's ugly. Why are you taking that photo? That's a failed photo. So we're going higher and higher. And then when that still wasn't working, it went to like my little inner child, my little inner gens wound of like people are gonna laugh at you, people are looking at you, and they're looking at you in a way that they think you're weird and they're gonna talk about you. So it went for like people are looking at you. You look stupid. Like, what are you doing? Because getting photos that are interesting when you're walking around the suburbs, like you can't just walk and stand and take a photo from like your viewpoint all the time. That requires like a beautiful light or a beautiful moment or like a beautiful scene. And if you're working from like nothing, you have to be creative. You need to like sometimes get on your belly and shoot from like ground level or get yourself in a different position. Like, you gotta do stuff and put yourself in places that people are gonna be like, what is this lady doing? Like, why is she crammed in a bus terminal with like her lens like an inch? People are gonna wonder what you're doing. But it went straight to that, like, let's make her afraid that people are talking about her. And it was upping the ante to convince me to stop, that I was too old, that I was too stupid, that I was gonna be judged, that I was too late, like it was all of these things. And it was just wanting one resolution. It was aiming for me to put my camera away and to go home and to forget about it. And the more frustrated I became, the louder these thoughts became. So as I got frustrated that I wasn't getting images that felt good to me, this voice was like nattering, was like faster, faster, louder, louder. And it was like my thoughts were feeding my emotions, and my emotions were feeding my thoughts. It became this like little feedback loop from hell. And I was like, fuck this shit. And so I put my headphones in and I was like, I hear you, but we are doing this anyways. And I put my headphones in, and this is like one of my go-to life hacks for when you need to like shut out noise if you're on a photo walk and you're trying to find like magic and beauty and things that are not really inspiring, is go to Spotify and there's something called cinematic mix. It's like all this, it's just beautiful music. And it's like you feel like you're in a movie. So if you play that and you walk, I find when I do that, I'll notice the light differently, or I'll see a reflection, or I'll see like a moment that maybe I haven't like hadn't had the opportunity to tune into. And so I pop the headphones in and I'm like, this is like, I'm bringing the antidote, like you can't get me. And a shit you not, the second I did that, because that's me like drawing a line with my inner critic and saying, I'm not gonna let you stop me. I'm gonna support myself, give myself some music, and keep going. It went bananas, like clockwork. My brain pulled up a highlight reel. And instead of just saying, People are looking at you, this or that, or like those photos are stupid, it started showing me times in my life when I had been ridiculed, when I'd been made fun of, when I'd put something out there on the internet, nobody cared. When clients had said like shit to me that I had taken to heart and had been really upset about, like my inner critic was like, Oh, you don't believe me? You don't believe that these things I'm saying are true? Let me prove it. And I was like, it's non-arguable. Like it's not just showing you an idea of like people are looking at you. It's like, remember this time that you did this and people saw you and they started making fun of you. And in the group chat, they did it, like it pulls it up. And I had to take a moment and be like, I'm taking a deep breath. I'm gonna keep going. And eventually that voice got quieter. Because like emotions and inner narrative that come with them, they move in waves. Like they will roar in with a crash and threaten to knock you down and like sweep you out to sea. And if you fight against them, they keep coming. They will keep like blasting you with wave after wave after wave until you're finally exhausted. But if you soften your grip a little bit just enough to stay present and relax, you can kind of move with the waves instead of being taken under. And when I was on this photo walk, the thing I realized was that like your inner critic is not a sign that something is wrong. It is a predictable, almost mechanical process that follows a pattern. And once you recognize this pattern, you can work with it instead of being blindsided by it. It tends to go in this. First, it detects that you like want to change something or explore something. And it offers you an easy way out, an easy way to like opt out of even starting. It's like you're too tired. You don't need this, do it later. And if you push past that, it's like, oh shit, let's crank up the volume. And it starts telling you why you can't do the thing that you're trying to do. And they're usually like simple, logical excuses. It's nothing life or death. It's like the light's too flat. I'm running out of time. I need to go to the bathroom. I better make a snack or whatever. If you push past it again, now it's pissed. And it's like ready for battle. And it's gonna pull receipts. It's gonna pull those moments, those memories, those proof points that show you that this is a bad idea because it's going to flood you with emotional pain and memories to try and guarantee shutdown. But if you don't stop, it will back off. Your inner critic learns, okay, we're safe. We didn't die, and it shuts up and it goes away. And the problem is most people don't make it that far. They stop somewhere in the middle and they think that like the discomfort means that they shouldn't be doing this thing at all. So, how do we tame our inner critic in a way that doesn't leave us exhausted? You know, for me, I make a point to prepare for it, to notice it, and to name it when I see it popping up. I try to create distance from it so I can keep creating, even when it's doing like its damnedest to shut me down. And I just tell my inner critic, like, hey, I hear you, but we're still going. The example of the photo walk is really like an obvious example of when it was like really overtly trying to ram its way into my consciousness, but it happens on a subconscious level in terms of like what you will even allow yourself to think is possible or to dream up or to even hold space for an idea of a new project or a new branch in your business. So I'm gonna give you an example of something that I've been going through in the last few weeks. And when I really picked it apart, I was like, this is not even a logical argument, the inner critic is telling me. But it's telling me that I'm shit, that I'm shit at what I do. And if I'm shit at what I do, then I won't expand what I'm going to do. One of the goals that I have, and I'll talk about this later in the episode, is to launch a photographic community, something that brings together photography with creativity strategy, with therapeutic arts, with all of it and brings it into this very healing, self-expressive space for people who want to explore life through the lens. That's the the long blah blah blah version of it. I'll give you a TLDR later. And I was like, you know, as I'm sort of workshopping out what this is gonna look like and I was like prepping it, I was like looking at like, okay, who is this for? Right? Who are the people that this would help and serve? And, you know, I'm gonna give you an example. If you think of like the trajectory of people on their journey with a camera, there's like absolute new beginners, right? People who have just got a camera and don't know what they're doing, and they're like, ooh, what does this do? You know, and then there's these people who are working professionals, and that that's the trajectory or the spectrum, I'm gonna say, one end to the other end, right? And we all kind of find ourselves somewhere along that continuum. That's the word I'm looking for. Continuum, finally. And my inner critic was going ham to tell me that I couldn't work at either end of the continuum. And so what it would do is it would be like, well, you can't work with beginners because if you work with beginners and all your content is about beginner-based photography, you're gonna look like a shit photographer. All your work's gonna look basic. People are gonna think you're crap. It's like it was telling me this huge story that like teaching and focusing on people at the beginning of their photographic journey meant I was a bad photographer because I should be focusing on people that are at the end of their journey. And I was like, oh my God, like, yeah, you're right. I shouldn't be focusing on people at the beginning. So let me go to the other end of the continuum and let me focus on people who are working professionals, have been doing it for years and blah, blah, blah. And then it pulled up. Same story, different scenario. Where it's like, but your work isn't good enough to teach professionals. You don't have a tidy enough niche, or your portfolio isn't really focused on just one thing. You don't have that one skill set that professionals need to learn, or you haven't quite refined your visual style. There was always this sense of like, I'm not quite there yet. So I can't teach them. So then my brain would be like, okay, so we're not gonna work with working professionals at the end of the continuum. Let's go back to the beginning. The beginning would be like, no, you can't do the beginning because then you look like you're do you see what I'm saying? So I just went around and around and around this circle. And I, when I finally saw what was coming up, I was like, holy shiz balls. I was like, this is just the same fucking story, which is I'm a bad photographer putting on different clothes and putting on a different play for me, depending on what scenario my brain is holding. And what was it doing? It was stopping me from launching this damn thing. And I'm talking like this has been going on for probably over a year. And once I saw it, I was like, mm-mm, you're done. Like, I see it. What is the core of it? I was like, okay, the belief at the core is I'm a bad photographer. We need to attend to that and heal that and release that, and then we can go in on it. That's where stuff like shadow work comes in, subconscious like reprogramming. I was even doing like a like a rescripting of an event that happened in the past that has been really hanging around in my creative energy. Like it was just like little, what am I gonna call them icky pricklies hanging around? Like just yucky stuff that was like, we don't need to hold this anymore because it's feeding that monster that thinks that you're no good. And once I sort of worked with that and noticed it, I was like, okay, I see you, but now we're doing it anyways. And that's the key is not getting rid of the inner critic, it's just seeing the inner critic and being able to hold up a mirror to it. Because once you recognize it, name it for what it is, all of a sudden it's like, oh fuck, she realizes this isn't actually her thought. And then its power is gone, and then you're free to do the thing that you want to do. The work here is not getting rid of your inner critic, but it's working with it. And, you know, the photo walk that I talked about at the beginning is a really, really interesting way for you to meet your inner critic. Because if your inner critic is like working over time and is doing a really good job, you're probably not out there doing the damn thing that you want to do. And taking a photo walk, grabbing your camera and going out there is gonna just sort of jumpstart you into the, we're doing this. And there's also it's low stakes, right? You're just gonna walk around your neighborhood and take pictures of things that you see that are interesting, that catch your eye. There's no pressure to get it right. And when there's no pressure to get it right, and it's open-ended like that, you have almost this open space in your consciousness to hear what's coming up. If you wanted to take this and do anything with it, my suggestion to you would be to do that photo walk for maybe 20. 30 minutes, not with the intention or the purpose of getting amazing photos, but with a mindset of I'm gonna actually pay attention to what is coming up in my head as I'm doing this. Take a little notepad, write a little note, make notes in your phone app, write down the shit that's popping in your head. Become really aware of what is the story that my inner critic is trying to tell me. What is the fear of the most dangerous, terrible thing that it's telling me is going to happen? Know that your inner critic will shape shift. It's a nasty little fucker like that. So, like what it looks like this week is gonna look like something different next week. I have launched this community, and this is coming from the ass kicking that I got last week with the, you know, the collective reading that was like, find your people, get working, get working. I've been dragging my feet on this creative community that I've honestly wanted to create. It's been about four years. I first received a download about it through a meditation in 2022, wrote it all out. I was like, this is what it's gonna be. Oh my God, it's gonna be like a blend of like the artist's way, but it's actually gonna be doing art instead of just reading and fucking journaling about it. It's gonna be photographic, it's gonna be this like camera as a portal to like self-development, self-understanding, mindfulness, depth, but then further creativity. It was fucking amazing. And I wrote it all down, and then like life hit the fan, and there was a lot of deaths in our family in that year, and there was some trauma with my dad's death and other stuff, and that like took me off the map for a while. And over the last four years, pieces of it have come back, and the closer that I've got to launching it, the louder the inner critic has become, right? It's like, no, no, no, you can't do this. Nobody wants that. Photography people only want to learn a skill so that they can build a business, blah, blah, blah. Art therapy is only with paint, like all sorts of bullshit. And that reading that I did last week for the collective, you know, it got me thinking. I was like, we I we need to find our people, and I need to find the people that want to do this kind of work through this kind of process. And so that was kind of like the point where it's like, okay, you gotta get this shit together. And then I sat down and did my own personal reading for July, and I was like, oh my fucking God. Where my guys were just like, let's go. Let's go. Okay. So it's called Creating Space. It is a year-long creative community, and it is for people that love photography and they want to be in partnership with themselves, with their creativity and their life through the lens. I'm really excited about it because we're gonna have these monthly themes where we explore certain topics, like shadow work, like concept of self. Maybe it's gonna be the inner critic. Like we said, there will be this focus that we deep dive through, almost like a mini course or like a mini-intensive where we have this monthly theme and we're gonna explore it through prompts and photographic exercises and contemplative practices. And it's gonna be supported with weekly studio hours. So every week there's like a 60-minute workshop session or open studio where you can hop on and we can talk through what's coming up. You can share your images, we can talk about what is coming up in terms of like the fears or like the deeper parts of this work. And there's a space for the community to share and talk, like a little chat and all of that. We'll talk about this more in another episode because there's a lot that's gone into it and that I do want to share. But I want you to know that it's up and you can go to jenniferhully.com slash creative mentorship, or you can hit the link in the show notes and you can read all the details about it. You can book a call with me to chat about it, and who join before September 1st get that bonus of the four one-to-one mentorship calls with me, which is like an amazing add-on to this whole experience to just really deepen it and to personalize the work that we're gonna do together so that you know you make it, you make it your own. Don't let your inner critic kick your ass. Instead, kick its ass this week. Find it, shine a light on it, be like, peekaboo, I see you. What you gonna do about it? And until next time, I will say go forth and kick some creative ass. I'll talk to you soon. If this episode landed, I want to remind you that there is always more waiting for you over on Substack. Substack is where I publish the essays and resources on things like spirituality, manifestation, creativity, healing, all that deep guided soul work. And the Substack community is where the practices and rituals live that we're talking about in these episodes. So whether you're starting your spiritual journey, navigating a creative becoming, sitting at a life pivot, or maybe you're just ready to look at your shit and do things differently, know that there's always something for someone there. You can head to jenniferhully.substack.com, browse the different membership levels, and find one that fits. And if this episode resonated, please share it with someone who needs to hear it, leave a review, and hit follow so that you never miss an episode. It means more than you will ever know, and it really does help this podcast find the people that it's meant for.