Your Inner Critic Is Old Programming, Not Truth

We name the inner critic, trace where it comes from, and show how harsh self-talk keeps our nervous system on edge and our life smaller than it needs to be. We share mindset shifts, perspective reframes, and simple practices to build self-trust and self-compassion without slipping into fake positivity. 
• Defining the inner critic as judging, comparing, and replaying old stories 
• Understanding the inner critic as internalized messages from caregivers, school, society, and past relationships 
• Noticing the real cost of harsh self-criticism on stress, energy, and willingness to take risks 
• Modeling self-compassion so our children learn mistakes are survivable 
• Seeing mindset as the lens that shapes what we notice and believe 
• Using confirmation bias to our advantage by changing the belief and changing the evidence we see 
• Reframing failure as data rather than identity 
• Treating rejection as redirection and practicing self-trust 
• Shifting from “why me” to “what for” to create meaning in hard seasons 
• Starting before we feel ready and letting clarity come from action 
• Releasing comparison and honoring our own timeline 
• Treating personal development as daily inner tending that can be simple and consistent 
• Practicing four steps when the critic shows up: notice, get curious, redirect with compassion, return to the body 
If you're not already following me, you can find me on Instagram at immarisa.xo. And if this episode resonates, spread the love like you would Nikola by sharing this podcast and tagging me so that I can personally thank you. And if you are feeling extra loving, leaving a review helps light up another beautiful soul and supports the growth of this place. 

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Transcript

Welcome And What To Expect

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Inner Beacon. I am your host, Orisa. I'm a Colonian Grow Mama of Q business owner, flight attendant, and a certified self-loved coach. You are in the right place if you're ready to lead your life from the home, reconnect with your intuition, trust yourself deeply, and reclaim your power. My goal and intention here is to inspire and empower you. And for fun, I might even add some flight attendant content and travel tips. And I'm so glad you're here. So let's dive into today's episode. Okay, so I want to start today's episode by asking you something. I want you to think about the last time that you made a mistake, or didn't follow through on something, or compared yourself to someone else, and came up short in your own mind. And now I want you to think about what the voice in your head said in that moment. Was it kind? Was it patient? Was it the voice that you would use with someone you love?

Meet The Inner Critic

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Or was it something more like, ugh, why do I always do this? I'm so stupid. I'll never get it together. What is wrong with me? Sound familiar? If it was the second one, then you're not alone. Not even a little bit. Because that voice has a name. And today we are talking about it directly. The inner critic. And we're also going to talk about something that I am deeply passionate about, which is mindset work, perspective shifts, and why personal development isn't just a nice hobby. It's genuinely one of the most important things that you can invest in. Well, yourself, right? Because the way you think shapes everything. Absolutely everything in your life. So let's get into it. So, first, what actually is the inner critic? The inner critic is that voice in your head that judges, criticizes, compares, and narrates your every flaw and failure. It's the voice that says, you're not smart enough, not thin enough, not successful enough, right? Not good enough, not a good enough mom, not far along enough. It second guesses your decisions, replays your mistakes, and has a remarkably detailed memory for every embarrassing or painful thing that has ever happened to you. We all know her. It sounds familiar, right? So here's what I want you to understand. I want you to understand where it comes from. The inner critic is not your true voice, for one. It is a collection of messages that you've absorbed from the outside world, from caregivers, from school, from society, from past relationships, maybe even, from experiences where you were criticized, shamed, or made feel like you were just not measuring up, right? Over time, those external voices, they got internalized in your head, right? So they they basically moved in. And now they feel like your own thoughts, like your truth, when really they're just old programming running in the background. The inner critic was actually trying just to protect you. If I stay small, I won't fail. If I never try, I can never be rejected. Right? But here's the thing about survival mechanisms, they outlive their usefulness. And an inner critic that once kept you safe is now the very thing keeping

The Hidden Cost Of Self-Criticism

SPEAKER_00 4:26

you stuck. I want to talk about what harsh self-criticism actually costs you because I think we normalize it so much that we forget it has real consequences. And when you are in a constant state of self-criticism, your nervous system is in a constant state of low-grade threat. Your body doesn't distinguish between an external threat and an internal one. So that critical voice now, the one beating you up all day long, is literally keeping your nervous system activated, your stress hormones elevated, your body in a state of tension, which means that you're exhausted all the time, not just from life, but from the weight of carrying that voice around every single day. Harsh self-criticism also shrinks your world. It keeps you from taking risks because the voice that's telling you that you're gonna fail anyways, right? So why try? It keeps you from being seen because the voice is telling you that you'll be judged, right? It keeps you in a relationship or a situation that don't serve you no more because the voice tells you you don't deserve better. And here's one that I think is really important, especially for those of you who are mothers. So when you model self-compassion, when you make a mistake and say, Okay, that that didn't go as planned, let's try again. You're teaching your children that mistakes are survivable, that they're still worthy, even they got even though they got it wrong. That kindness towards oneself is not weakness, it's wisdom. And that alone is enough reason for you to do this kind of work.

Mindset And The Lens You Live Through

SPEAKER_00 6:44

So let's talk about mindset because this is where it gets really powerful. Your mindset is essentially the collection of beliefs and perspectives through which you experience your entire life, it's the lens. And here's the thing about a lens: you don't always notice you're looking through one, it just becomes a version of your reality. So if your lens says the world is unsafe, then you'll find evidence of that everywhere around you. If your lens says, I always mess things up, you'll notice that every mistake and overlook every success. And then if your lens says good things don't happen to people like me, you will unconditionally block those good things that are trying to come in. This is actually how the brain works. Our brains are wired for something called confirmation bias. We naturally seek out information that confirms what we already believe. So, whatever your dominant beliefs are about yourself and the world, your brain is actively working to find proof of them. Which means if you change the belief, you change what your brain is looking for, right? You're changing that lens and you change what you see. So, this is why mindset work is not optional, it is not luxury, it is the foundation underneath everything else. You can take all the action in the world, but if the beliefs underneath that action are telling you that you're not capable, not worthy, not enough, you will keep hitting the same invisible ceiling. Mindset work is how you raise

Perspective Shifts That Change Everything

SPEAKER_00 8:50

the ceiling. So I want to share with you some of the most powerful perspective shifts that I've learned within my own life and with the women that I guide because I truly believe that sometimes one reframe can shift everything. So things like failure is not the opposite of success, it is actually part of it. Every time something doesn't work out in the way that you expected it, you have two choices. So you can let it confirm the story that you're not capable, or you can mind to see what it's trying to teach you. Rejection is actually redirection. I want you to keep whenever something isn't working out the way that you think it is, it's not rejection. It is just redirecting you in the way that it's meant to go. Because things don't always go the way we plan, but they will work out better, and you have to trust that. And that's self-trust is something you build, right? The most successful, most fulfilled people I know, not the people who never failed. They actually failed plenty of times to get to where they reach. They are people who decided that failure was data and not your identity. Really hear that. So then another one is why is this happening to me? Versus, what is this happening for? Similar, right? This one changed my life. When I started looking at the hard seasons, the postpartum darkness, the health struggles, the rejection, and the redirects. As things that were happening for me rather than to me, everything shifted. Not because the hard things stopped being hard, but because they started having meaning. And meanings is what gives us strength to keep going on. Another perspective change. I'm not ready to all learn as I go. Start before you're ready, right? Waiting until you feel ready is one of the most common ways that we keep ourselves from the life that we actually want. So readiness is a feeling that comes only after action, not before it. You just need to take the next step. The clarity comes from moving, not from waiting. Another perspective change is from I'm so far behind, to I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. Comparison is one of the inner critic's favorite weapons. Social media makes it so easy to look at someone else's highlight reel and feel like you're feeling at your own story. But your timeline is not someone else's timeline, your path is not someone else's, and the version of success that is meant for you will not look exactly like anyone else's. And that is the beautiful thing, it's not failure. Another perspective change from I'm not good enough to I'm growing. You don't have to be perfect, you don't have to have arrived. You just have to be growing. And if you're here listening to this, doing this work, you are growing. That is enough. That is more than enough.

Personal Development As Daily Practice

SPEAKER_00 12:28

It's one step forward. So I want to talk to you about personal development for a moment here because I think it sometimes gets the bad reputation, like it's something you do when you're broken, or a phase you go through, or self-indulgent hobby. I want to challenge them completely. Personal development is investing in your mindset, your self-awareness, your emotional health, your growth. It's not something you do until you feel better. It's something that you do for life. Because life keeps changing. It's changes the most inevitable thing in your life. New seasons bring new challenges, new levels bring new versions of pull patterns. And the tools that you build through this work, the foundation that you stand on when life gets hard. I always say, if you're not growing, you're dying. And I mean that in the most loving way because entropy is the default of the physical world. If you are not actively tending to our inner garden, our mindset, our beliefs, our relationship with ourselves, things go to seed. The weeds move in it. Personal development is tending to that garden. And it doesn't have to be complicated or expensive or time consuming. It is the podcast that you listen to on your commute, the journal that you write in your 10 minutes in the morning, the book that is on your nightstand, the conversation, the colleagues that you think differently from, having those different perspective conversations. The moment you catch your inner critic and choose a kinder thought instead, that's small. Small, consistent acts of inner tending every single day. And that is how you change your mind. And you can change your mind, truly change it, and that will change your life.

Four Steps To Calm The Critic

SPEAKER_00 14:41

So I want to end this with something practical because I never want to leave you with a concept without the tools. So when the inner critic shows up, and it will, here's how I want you to work with it rather than letting it run you. Step one, just notice it. Just name it. Oh, there's the inner critic again, the voice that's telling me I'm not good enough. I see you. This sounds simple, but it's powerful. It's almost like you have to mother yourself. Because you know what? If you heard your best friend talking the way you're talking to yourself, you would tell her the same thing. Right? Sometimes the you hear things that you're the people that you that that you love so much say critiquing themselves, and you're like, but no, because that's not who you're seeing them as, but it's what their mind has told them. So why not mother yourself in the same way? Right? The moment you observe the voice, you are no longer fully inside of it. You have created a little bit of distance there, and in the distance, there's a choice. Step two, get curious, not offensive. Instead of either agreeing with a critic or fighting it, try asking, where did this come from? Whose voice is this really? Is it actually true? Or is this an old story? Often the inner critic is parroting something we heard from someone else a long time ago. When you trace it back, it loses its power. Step three, redirect with compassion. You don't have to fight the inner critic with toxic positive positivity. You don't have to pretend everything is great, but you can choose a more honest and compassionate way to reframe it instead of I'm such a mess. Try I'm having a hard day, and that's okay. Instead of I always get it wrong, try I'm learning, and learning takes time. Small shifts, consistent practice, big change over time. Step four, come back to the body. When the critic is loud, your nervous system is activated. I mentioned that before. So bring yourself back within. You can do this by taking three deep breaths, hands on your heart, feet on the floor, remind your body that it is safe. And from that safer place, the voice almost gets quieter.

Key Takeaways Journal Prompts And How To Share

SPEAKER_00 17:37

So here is what I want you to take from today. The inner critic is not your truth. It is a habit. And habits can change. Your mindset is not fixed, it is a muscle, and muscles can be trained. The perspective that you hold about yourself and in your life is not set in stone, it is a choice, and you get to keep making that choice again and again until the new one becomes the default. This is the work. Not glamorous, not linear, not something that you finish, but so so worth doing. Here are some journal prompts for this episode. As always. What does my inner critic say most often and whose voice does it actually sound like? What is one belief I have about myself that I'm ready to challenge? Where in my life could a perspective shift change everything? What would I do if try to or say yes to if my inner critic went quiet for a day? What does the kinder, wiser voice inside me want me to know right now? Sit with those, give yourself grace, and know that every time you choose curiosity over criticism, every time you choose growth over the same old story, you're becoming more of who you actually are. That is the whole point. Thank you so much for being here. See you on the next one. Thank you for spending this time with me here on the Inner Beacon. If you're not already following me, you can find me on Instagram at immarisa.xo. And if this episode resonates, spread the love like you would Nikola by sharing this podcast and tagging me so that I can personally thank you. And if you are feeling extra loving, leaving a review helps light up another beautiful soul and supports the growth of this place. I am so glad you're here. I'll the next episode.