Soma Flow

Taming the Inner Critic on the Path to Soul Aligned Living

• Tabitha MacDonald • Episode 51

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This episode dives deep into the struggle of confronting the inner critic and its impact on self-perception and weight loss. Through personal anecdotes and healing strategies, we explore the connection between trauma, body image, and the importance of integrating our inner voices for personal growth.

• Discussing the inner critic and its influence on self-worth
• Reflecting on a personal weight loss journey and its challenges
• Exploring the link between unresolved trauma and body image
• Highlighting the importance of shadow work in healing
• Sharing insights on navigating criticism in a social media age
• Encouraging listeners to engage with their own inner voices

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About Tabitha
Tabitha MacDonald is an Intuitive Coach and Bodyworker committed to helping people overcome their pain as fast as possible so that they can have the love, success, freedom and fulfillment they truly desire.

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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Selma Flow podcast. My name is Tabitha McDonald. I am an intuitive coach, a body worker, a healer and just a human being trying to get through the chaos of change. I took a break from my podcast because I realized that I let my inner critic get in the way of creating, and that's actually what the topic of today's podcast is is about your own inner critic and how to work with it. When I went on my healing journey and I would say 2021, I went like all in. I was like I'm done with all of my demons and my shadows and the things that hold me back, and it was. I remember the day. It was 12, 21, 21. And I don't know 12, 21, 20,. I wrote this like declaration to the universe that I was done being a slave to my past, and little did I know it was going to take me on a wild ride. But that's not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about my recent experience with my inner critic, mostly because she has been a pain in my ass lately. But I didn't even know she was being a pain in the ass, because I was so unaccustomed to listening to her that I just simply was suppressing and ignoring her.

Speaker 1:

Let me tell you about my discovery because I think a lot of us really struggle with an inner critic that has a way of manipulating and lying to us and keeping us playing small and also makes us believe that we're less than we are. And when we're looking at like the Enneagram of personality, that's the Enneagram. I talk about it a lot my arrow in time of stress points to the one which is literally the critic. It's the perfectionist. Their shadow is the inner critic and hypercriticism. And when I started doing my shadow work, I had kind of worked through the type one personality and actually I just stopped using that arrow point, which was organization, structure, getting things done in a very like, you know, linear way. That's basically the gift of the type one is perfectionism, order and structure. And when I really started going through my healing journey, I just decided not to use that part of my brain anymore because it was where a lot of my trauma was housed and it was also just a part of me that I really disliked. So over the last few years, as I've been working with my intuition and strengthening it, I really haven't wanted to pull up that part of me to make progress, to measure metrics, to get things done. And now I can see why it's because she's kind of mean and I really didn't want to deal with her. So in the beginning of January, I decided that this is the year I'm going to take off the rest of the weight. When I first started my weight loss journey, I was over 300 pounds. 307 pounds to be exact was the heaviest I ever weighed on May 14th 2008.

Speaker 1:

2016,. I remember it was April, I think April 12th. I walked into Weight Watchers and I was like this is the last, first time I'm coming back to Weight Watchers. And I weighed in at 280. At that time I was in a lot of pain. I could barely walk. I had plantar fasciitis. I was, oh, I was trying to date. It was so horrible. I was on the dating apps and guys were so mean and I thought, okay, well, if I could lose weight, then I could find a partner. I mean I think a lot of people think that Little did. I know that was not the answer to love. So here I am. It was April 12th 2016.

Speaker 1:

I walk in to Weight Watchers, I weigh in and I'm like, okay, this is, this is good, it'll be the last first time I go back to Weight Watchers. And I mean I did pretty good. I got down I want to say to about 227 or something like slowly, gradually made my way down and followed the point system. It worked until it didn't. And then I got introduced into coaching and it was a current Crabtree's program and it was all about mindset and it was really the first time I had really heard about mindset and weight loss and how we really needed to shift the way that we were thinking about things. And that was a program that I did and it helped me through a lot of trauma, but it still wasn't getting to the core of the issue, which was really an identity level issue around body image and weight. And as I started working through that one and coming up against these like unbreakable walls, I really started doing a different look at things and I mean I try. When I counted them, I think I've done over 70 diet programs and I think that was generous.

Speaker 1:

And it wasn't until I did this yoga class to manifest that I just wanted to drop 30 pounds and I was like this is what I want to manifest. I'm going to try the manifesting techniques for weight loss. And I remember in the class when we opened up our root chakra and this okay, this is before I knew what chakras were. This is before I was into energy work. This is before I liked the woo-woo stuff. Like this is when I was very, very science-y based and hated I liked the woo-woo stuff. Like this is when I was very, very science-y based and hated all of the woo-woo stuff. But I wanted to give it a try because I was pretty desperate.

Speaker 1:

I remember sitting in the class and we did this root chakra opening and I had a vision and it was me and I was very thin and fit and I was wearing this like white linen dress. It was very sophisticated and I was welcoming people to a very unique wellness experience and I'm not going to say a wellness center, it was a wellness experience and it kind of freaked me out a little because I was like the boss. I was like the CEO, head lady person who was in charge of it, and this vision was so real and so beyond anything I ever thought I was capable of that. It actually kind of like got me excited but then also sent me on a journey that I didn't really know I was going to go on and I started studying trauma and the impact of unprocessed trauma on our body and our identity level beliefs about ourselves. And it was during a meditation that I realized I had unprocessed sexual trauma that was getting in the way of my weight loss. That it wasn't about finding another diet program or figuring out why my metabolism was slow or cortisol, any of it. It was weight related to sexual trauma, specifically during childhood. Weight, uh, related to sexual trauma specifically during childhood. And it sent me on an even more horrible journey of really taking an honest look at all of the things I had rewritten about my childhood um into a positive Hello social.

Speaker 1:

Seven on the Enneagram. You can look them up. We tend to do that on the fly, which is one of our biggest challenges. Everyone thinks it's a gift. I think it's probably the biggest pain in the ass coping skill on the planet, because we don't actually spot red flags, we turn them into green ones. So that's a whole nother podcast episode.

Speaker 1:

But back to the body stuff. What I realized was that I think when I did the research the last time and I could be wrong on the numbers here because I haven't looked them up recently, but it said something like one in four women have experienced sexual trauma in their lifetime and I think that's what they've reported and that over half of the people who are struggling with obesity issues are struggling with trauma. And those numbers, in my mind, were astonishing, because that means this global epidemic of obesity is actually a global epidemic of trauma that has been unprocessed and basically unresolved. And I realize now, like looking back, that like my heavy body was a way of keeping myself safe and protected and cocooned from, you know, being attractive to people and also warding off future sexual assault, basically, and that's a horrible way to live and I'm just going to say that because we can have a whole body positivity movement and I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent here.

Speaker 1:

However, the statistics of the impact on our overall health, confidence and well-being about carrying excess weight are real. I know because I work on people all of the time as a body worker who have excess body weight and I see the impact on their joints and I see the impact on their brain health. I mean you can look up the studies, the impact on our ability to concentrate, to complete tasks all of those things is greatly impacted with carrying excess adipose tissue or fat on our bodies Now and going through the journey of really uncovering all of that trauma and coming up with strategies and tools to process through trauma probably faster than the average bear. I'm grateful because now I have oh my gosh, amazing tools to self-regulate and I use them with my clients who are also recovering from trauma. Even though I don't consider myself a trauma specialist, I do have the tools there to help people when they come in, because you know, I don't care what industry you work in, if you're cutting hair or serving somebody at a bar, you're going to work with people who are in trauma, because that's where people might it might slip out. So I'll just say that, especially in the field of massage, we should all be trauma informed and trained, because when you're touching and engaging with a person's body, you might activate old parts or trauma memories that they don't even know that they have.

Speaker 1:

So you know, when I started the journey down trauma, it was really actually to help my clients and little did I know it was mostly to help myself, which I think is the journey of a lot of healers on how we get into the world of healing is, you know, wanting to resolve it for others and then realizing you were really resolving it for yourself the whole time. So that was my, that's been my journey, and every year I set out a new goal to continue on my weight loss and health journey. And every year somehow I fuck it up, and I don't mean that in a way that's mean or negative against myself, because every year I've gone through deeper layers of trauma that I've had to work through, or unconscious programming, or deeper layers of healing that just needed to happen. And I can see now that when my trauma was like at its worst and I had the least amount of tools, I used to dissociate a lot and I wasn't really present. And it was a pretty scary time for me because my brain was the thing that I loved the most and it was the thing I didn't have access to, because every time I tried to access, you know, the sciency part of my brain or the linear part of my brain, my left brain, a new trauma memory would come up that I'd have to deal with. And it was so annoying. It was like God, this again, really, this again.

Speaker 1:

And you know, for those of you who've braved the journey of healing your trauma, I know you know what I'm talking about. It can be exhausting and sometimes, like I know you know what I'm talking about, it's it can be exhausting and sometimes, like I remember I wrote in my journal, like I sometimes just wish I could go back and not start the journey. And I know that that's not totally true because for the first time in my whole life, I'm me, like, I am very me, I'm very authentic. Um, I could give two fucks about people liking me or not. And that's not totally true because I do care. I'm just more. I'm more of a loner than I used to be. I'm not really codependent. I don't like gauge whether or not I'm safe based on whether or not people see me or like me. In fact, sometimes I prefer just to have the quiet of my own space so that I'm not worried about those things. I might have just contradicted myself completely. I don't know, but I digress.

Speaker 1:

So why am I talking about all of this and the inner critic? So when my intuition told me that this is the year that I need to stop dreaming and start doing, I had a lot of reservations about that, because I was really worried about my inner critic coming up, my type one, because I knew I'd have to pull on that superpower. The type one, the organization structure, looking for better systems and tracking things, metrics, you know stuff I've been avoiding. I knew I'd need to call on her and I also knew that her and I don't have the best history together. So the first month was great, like I was doing great. It was like, oh, this is what endorphins feel like.

Speaker 1:

I was at Orange Theory and I, you know exercising and I had like the people there and I was making friends and I was remembering what it felt like to have a coach tear you on and say good job and pat you on the back and you know to do like a mile and to gauge it and not judge yourself but just to use it as a measurement, a unit of measurement, those types of things. I started feeling really good and I would leave and I would cry, not because I was upset but because I was. I missed it. I missed having that kind of routine and that kind of structure, that kind of routine and that kind of structure, and I missed having a coach cheer you on and I missed having, you know, the high fives and the things that you do in a group workout class, especially when you're paying that much, because the people who tend to spend that kind of money on an exercise program tend to be pretty committed to themselves and to their fitness journey, and so you're really surrounded with all kinds of fitness levels. This is my little plug for Orange Theory You're surrounded by people with all kinds of fitness levels who tend to be pretty committed to their health. So I really wanted to surround myself with people like that. So I really wanted to surround myself with people like that, which is why I joined.

Speaker 1:

And so, as I'm like today, actually I have been feeling really sick. I've been sick ever since I took my daughter on this road trip to drop her back off in Arizona, which was not easy for me because I was pretty sure she was making a terrible decision, and it's really hard to support someone you love when they're making a bad decision, and also it's not my place to say if she was making a bad decision or not. That was my inner critic coming out and I was being directed towards her, and so when I came home, I was really sick and I thought, oh, it's fine, I'll just go work it off, it'll it'll. It's just because you know, I had some beer in Vegas and I don't normally drink, so I went to the class and then, like that day, felt progressively worse and then I started having to cancel clients and I was like, oh, I don't know if I'm sick, sick or if this is just detox.

Speaker 1:

And then so at home by myself all weekend and also trying to shift my diet away from sugar and like boredom eating at night to deal with, and like boredom eating at night to deal with, loneliness and, you know, being alone. And then Sunday, today, I woke up and I was like, oh well, I'm feeling better, I get to go back to work. Today, I feel like the cold is gone, I did all the meditation and the clearing and I've been brothing and doing all the things I'm supposed to do, and so I'm going to go to Orange Theory and then I'll just go see my two clients and see how I'm doing. And I get to Orange Theory and, wow, I did not show up alone.

Speaker 1:

My inner critic was right there with me. I had to wear an SI joint belt because my hip was hurting really bad and because I, like, have an extra weight around my you know pelvic region. I could see like the fat hanging over it and I was like in the mirror. I was like you shut up, you're not going to, you're not having a voice today. You look fine, you're here, who cares? And when I had weighed in for the month, I'd only lost like six pounds and I'd worked my butt off right. So I was pissed that I'd only lost six pounds.

Speaker 1:

And, um, I was sitting there and I was like working out and you got a mirror and all I could hear was this bitch in my head and she's like oh god, you look so fat. Oh you, you can't do more than that. Oh, you can't even do that. You're going to drop your weight, aren't you? Oh, you're going to drop, you're going to drop your weight down. You can't even do the 12 reps with the 12 pound weights. Oh, nothing you're doing is working man, she was on fire today and I was like where did you come from? Get out of my head, you're not welcome. And the more I said that, the louder she got.

Speaker 1:

Like I got on the treadmill and my SI joint has been really bad and it was the drive and I was in so much pain just physically from overcoming this illness and being bedridden for a few days and all I could hear was oh, you can't even hit 3.5. Oh, you're so slow. Oh, look at, you're going to like you're never going to get this. Like, oh, I bet Bill's looking at you like what a loser. I can't believe how slow you are. You're going to drag the class down. And I'm like who is this bitch? Like? She's got to get out of my head. Normally by now, like it would she'd be gone, like I would. You know a couple like 30 minutes in and I wouldn't even hear it. And no, she, she had an opinion and I felt like it was a very terrible experience. An opinion, and I felt like it was a very terrible experience.

Speaker 1:

I left, I cried and she got louder, and so I went home and I knew I couldn't go to work, mostly because I felt like crap, I wasn't really over my cold to begin with, so that was probably also part of it and I went down and I just thought like what, what am I going to do with this? And? And I have tools right, like I have a lot of tools. And so I sat down and I said, fine, just give her a voice. And I just wrote down on a piece of paper Um, I have a journal that I do all of this in Um, and I just wrote inner critic and I said go for it. And I gave her a voice and she ripped me on new one. Oh my God, I just let it all out on paper, every judgment and criticism and self-defeating thought I have ever had about myself and that I have been having about myself that I haven't been paying attention to. I let it all out. And Then I did something called neurographica, which is a way of rewiring your unconscious mind.

Speaker 1:

It's not something I teach, but it's something I use all of the time. I'll put some links to some videos in the show notes and if you're watching this on YouTube, I'll put them in there. And then I did a super conscious recode, which is one of the tools that I use in my soma tribe in my program to help people rewire and eliminate trauma memories. And then I did some parts work integrating those parts and aspects of me that had old programming because the truth is, parts of us have old programming and my inner critic, who I need on board so I can have some structure, routine and like metrics and things that I need in order to be successful.

Speaker 1:

She had some old programs and that was let's use a heavy dose of shame and criticism in order to motivate you to be better. And I remember the first time I went to a women's weight loss conference it was Corinne Crabtree and it was in Nashville and she looked at me and she said wow, that shame shawl you wear is pretty heavy. And I was like I don't know what you're talking about. That's just me, that's it. Doesn't everybody think like that? And no, they don't. And my inner critic comes with a heavy dose of shame. And when I go into shame, what do I like to do? I like to eat, be apathetic and watch TV or TikTok reels period. I don't like to be in my body and I certainly don't like being in my head. So, knowing that that was not a pattern, I was willing to repeat.

Speaker 1:

I did the work and I sat with the inner critic and I let her have her voice and then I did what I do. I used my intuitive healing tools and I did a lot of integration work. Today, when I say we, I mean my intuitive healing tools, and we did a lot of I did a lot of integration work. Today, when I say we, I mean my spirit team, because I also handed it over to my guides. I just basically said guides, just take this one for me because it's old and it's painful and I think I'm done with it now. And then I went downstairs and I thought January and I realized I probably wasn't recording as many metrics as I thought and you know I was probably eating a lot more than I realized because I don't track anything. And so I downloaded an app to help me track what I'm actually eating and I felt better, like I could do it without having the harsh critic inside looking for all of the things I was doing wrong, and I finally kind of felt excited, like oh, maybe I can actually do it this year because I already built the foundation and the structure of someone who's healthy and vital.

Speaker 1:

I did the unconscious reprogramming work first. Now all I have to do is the habit change and the new habits and then installing the new identities and programs that are in alignment with health and vitality. So that's my experience with my inner critic, and I know a lot of my clients struggle with their own inner critic. And if you don't struggle with your inner critic, where are you apathetic in your life to your dreams because you don't want to deal with her or him. That's the big question, because what I didn't realize was that I hadn't integrated the inner critic or learned how to work with her. I simply suppressed her. I made sure that nothing I did would be worthy of criticism so that I didn't have to deal with it. And the truth is, if you want to be successful and you want to have an impact on the planet, you're going to have to deal with criticism. And that is because people are critical and, honestly, I think what changed it for me today?

Speaker 1:

Like and this is going to sound silly, but I was on Facebook and there's this now. I always criticize social media and say I hate it. However, there are a few people I follow who make me laugh and I love their TikTok videos or you know wherever they are, I don't even know anymore. So there's this guy. What's his name? I'll put it in the show notes. Anyways, his handle is like toothpick dad or something.

Speaker 1:

And he. I started following him because he literally just walks out on his porch with literally a pot of coffee and a straw and makes comments about I don't know dating and relationships and funny things, and I just find him hilarious. And he's also like a cover model for romance novels or something. And he was doing a vulnerable post about somebody who criticized him for living in an apartment. And I was like what, like what? Somebody criticized him for living in an apartment and I'm thinking who the cares? Like that's so weird.

Speaker 1:

And what he said about that comment made me realize that, you know, I was avoiding doing some things because I was afraid of comments, I was afraid of criticism, and when I saw him like go through that and how he handled it, I felt like, oh man, he deals with criticism so that he could make me laugh, deals with criticism so that he could make me laugh. And his videos always make me feel, I don't know, like I'm not the only person who would marry my coffee pot. So I feel like and he's hot, like let's be real, and I love his accent too. It's from Tennessee, so I love a lot of things about his videos. And so I was thinking, wow, like I get a lot of joy out of his videos and you know, it's possible that if he could do it, I could do it.

Speaker 1:

And then there's this other lady who I find hilarious on social media and she calls herself the single mom saga and she finds videos of hot men and then she has these funny commentaries that make me laugh so hard. And she had the same thing about her weight loss journey and she would posted something about the criticism people said about her and her weight loss journey and she called them out. And I thought, oh my God, like interesting, like these people are being very brave about their journeys and also they're still doing what they love and they feel called to do, even though they have critics that are going to be mean because there's just trolls on the internet. So I guess, like, what I'm trying to say is, criticism is always probably going to be part of our lives.

Speaker 1:

It's how we choose to navigate it, and that was really the thing I needed to see and learn today was working with and around my own inner critic, because I do it to myself before I let anybody else have the opportunity to do it. I just shut myself down and that way I don't have to deal with criticism from other people. I just don't do anything that would allow for that, so I don't have to deal with it. In fact, I would probably handle criticism from others better than my own inner critic, because she's way meaner than anyone else that could say anything to me. So, with that said, I hope that you found this helpful on your own journey, wherever you are, and I'm going to put a link to a shadow meditation that I'm creating so that you can meet your own inner critic and see what she has to say, because sometimes, when we just sit and listen to our enemies, they actually just have some wisdom and information for us and once we listen and hear them, instead of suppress them, we actually are able to integrate them and their characteristics and their strengths faster and more efficiently. This is the beauty of shadow work.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to go ahead and record that after I'm done recording this episode, and I'm going to put a little link that you can go ahead and sign up to get access to it, and I hope you all have a great day.

Speaker 1:

And also for those of you who didn't completely give up on listening to my podcast all seven of you I want to thank you and also appreciate that if you're still listening, I didn't completely lose you. I'll be back this year because I think I needed to work through some of my own apathy around having a podcast and having a voice, and I feel like whatever I released today helped release that. So I look forward to growing my new podcast, the Soma Flow podcast, which pretty much is mind-body integration, intuition and all the things that I love talking about. So I look forward to sharing more knowledge and information and stories with you, because we learn through stories and shared experiences and it's an important part of transformation is that we share with others the stories and experiences we're having, because you never know when someone's going to need to hear your own terrible gym story so that they can get themselves back to the gym. I hope you have an amazing day. Take care.

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Tabitha MacDonald

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