The Con Artist in Your Head

You know the voice.
The one that questions you right as you’re about to speak up.
The one that rewrites your confidence into doubt, your clarity into hesitation, your instinct into overthinking.

You've got a scam running in your head, by a voice that's masquerading as your protector.

In this episode, we go straight at the internal critic—the one that’s been quietly (and sometimes loudly) shaping how you show up at work, in relationships, and in your own life.

We break down:

•  Where that voice actually comes from (and why it’s not random) 
•  How it disguises itself as “logic,” “preparation,” or “being realistic” 
•  The subtle ways it keeps you small, even when you know better 
•  Why awareness alone isn’t enough to change it 

This isn’t about silencing your inner critic or pretending it doesn’t exist. It’s about understanding it well enough that it stops running the show.

Because when you can see it clearly, you can start choosing differently—mid-thought, mid-conversation, mid-pattern.

And that’s where things start to shift.

Welcome to the first real confrontation: not with your boss, your partner, or your circumstances—but with the voice that’s been narrating all of it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I have a woman named Moira in my head. Oh my god. I think you need help. Yeah, she lives there permanently. And sometimes she's really loud and a bit obnoxious. What does she say? Sometimes she'll be like, No, don't say that. That's stupid. Or sometimes after I say something, she's like, Why did you say that? You sound like a moron. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I don't like her. You know I'm protective. I know. I don't like her. She's in there and she is my inner critic. I she's named Moira because of you, actually. Uh, because you you told me that I needed to come up with a name for my inner critic. So when she was being noisy and mean, I could specifically by name tell her to stop. Some of the best advice I've ever received in my life, by the way. And also because I've given her the same accent as Catherine O'Hara from Shits Creek. Oh, R.I.P. R.I.P. It's easier for me to tell her to stop talking and you don't know what you're talking about, stop being mean when I picture her talking to me in her Moira voice.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

I just picture her like you're being a bedbe.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

She's just a little dramatic sometimes. And yeah. So, but seriously, giving your inner critic a name, A advice, highly recommend it. Has done wonders for when I start to hear her piping up to be like, pipe down, Moira. Love it. Glad it could be of service to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Someone named Amanda just told me right before we jumped on this podcast episode today that mine should be named Angela. Uh, before I tell everybody what Angela tells me most often and in what ways, can you explain why you chose Angela? Because I have not heard this.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

So, Angela from the office, if you've seen the show, she's very particular about how she likes things to be done and she's soft-spoken usually. And it's like the antithesis of everything that you are. So I felt like your inner voice should be something that's like completely opposite from you. And it just made sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Do you want to know what Angela often tells me?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Angela often tells me that it can never be good enough. Angela's standards are ridiculously high to the point where going right up until when it's go time, she is always refining and wanting to make it better because she's aiming for something that doesn't exist, which is perfection. And then she causes me to get frustrated and to get a little bit tripped up. Uh, so that's what she does.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

We say this in sort of in jest, but also seriously, in that a lot of times our harshest critic isn't coming from outside, it's coming from inside our own heads. Naming that presence in your head can be very helpful to practice telling it to stop because it separates it from us, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

And you can almost see it more objective. Well, you can see it more objectively. Most NDAs keep people quiet. Ours does the opposite. Around here, NDA means no dicks allowed.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Not men, the behaviors that keep women small.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

This is the podcast for women who are done shrinking and ready to rise. I'm Amanda Kachurka. And I'm Elizabeth Cipola. Welcome to NDA.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Most women live with constant internal criticism. There's the internal monologue, which I've recently learned that not everyone has. Wait, what? Yeah, I was reading an article recently that basically was like, not everyone has an internal monologue.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Who doesn't have it? I don't give a- I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Apparently, there are people out there.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

I don't think I know any, but if you don't think you have an internal monologue, can you please reach out to us?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

And comment on something on comment on a post on Instagram. I'll put a post up. But anyway, in addition to the internal monologue, a lot of times, especially for women, that is accompanied by internal criticism. You can call it your inner critic, you can call it Moira or Angela. It's limiting and it causes the theme of our podcast shrinking behavior. Over time, it becomes so normal that you stop noticing it. That's what we want to talk about is the inner critic that we have that holds us back. I'm sure both of us have countless examples of this, but the one that I'm guilty of all the time is replaying a conversation a million times in my head and thinking, why did I say that? Or oh, I could have said this. And then inevitably, if it was like a tough conversation or not offensive, but you know, conversation where biting wit in a comeback would have been just chef's kiss. Right. I in the moment it doesn't happen. And then on the way home is when I think of all of them. But I always replay conversations in my head. I do it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

I'm fascinated. So you do it, because I don't do that. I don't believe I do. Uh I mean, I I have other you would know. Okay. Okay. So I would know. So is it even when you're with friends, family, work, like the grocery store? What are we talking here?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Um, yes, especially if it's an emotionally charged conversation, I've noticed that's where I do it the most. So if it's like especially conversations that I'm dreading or not looking forward to, I'll play it over and over in my head after it's happened and start critiquing. Moira will pipe up and be like, okay, well, you said this, but you should have said. And it depending if conversation was really emotionally charged, I'll get stuck in that loop for a solid couple of hours.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Oh, interesting. Okay, here's one for me. This is something I have struggled with honestly my entire life, is all about feeling really overwhelmed and feeling like I am not savvy enough financially to manage my life. So, anything to do with self-confidence or decision making when money comes into play, I have a lot of um anxiety around that. Now, because of work that I've done on myself, I know exactly what that's rooted in. And spoiler alert, it's rooted in, you know, growing up, not having enough, and hearing a lot of arguing and everything to do with money and worrying about meals and all of that stuff and having enough food, things like that when I was really young. But there's constant conversation about money. I'd say that's my biggest thing that replays in my head over and over is I always feel like there's gonna be a crisis.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Interesting. Yeah. So do you then tend to defer those decisions and conversations to other people?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

I do. And I know that's illogical because I'm a very smart, capable woman, but it's like it takes me back to when I was little, you know what I mean? And feeling powerless and out of control when it came to, you know, all the stability that having enough money brings into a home.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Yeah, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's these types of inner conversations that we have and the inner critic that we have that really starts to shape the way I think you just spoke to it perfectly, shapes the way that we behave and forms patterns. Again, whether we realize it or not, anytime there's a conversation around decisions to be made related to money, is it safe to say those are conversations that you shy away from and avoid?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Because of the work I've done on myself, I don't avoid it. But every time I have it, I'm scared.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

So, how have you worked to identify those fear feelings? What do you do? How do you keep yourself from spiraling?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

For me, what helps is I separate what I know to be true as a fact in that situation from fiction. And fiction is like what we talked about. It's Angela, right? And the thoughts going through my head because I feel like I'm so competent and capable in pretty much every other aspect of my life that it's like, oh, it's almost like a scarlet letter. Does that make sense? So I just try really hard to be like, okay, what are the facts? What do you know to be true? And then everything else, I try to just kick it to the side. And then I actually I want to give credit to who shared this with me, and I just can't remember. But recently within the past six months, I don't know if it was a podcast episode I was listening to, but anyways, so it was a financial expert actually. And um, she said some of the best advice is to think about not long range, but what is the next best step to take. That's what I try to do. I try not to think too far ahead.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Going back to naming your inner critic, I think that's where it becomes helpful to call your inner critic out by name. And I like what you said about looking at what you know to be true and the fact that the majority of the time what your inner critic is saying to you is not based in fact, it's based in fear. Right. And taking the time to like pause in the moment when you're feeling your inner critic start to make noise and just taking a few beats to recognize and acknowledge, I hear you, I understand, and starting to flip the script on okay, I'm not gonna go into this situation reacting and thinking emotionally, and what if I'm gonna focus on what are the facts, what do I know to be true? Right. And moving forward from that point. I think that's solid advice.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

And it's funny because money is a very common stressor, right? I don't care about keeping up with the Joneses, I don't care about anything like that. For me, it's definitely is rooted in some of my earlier core memories relative to what I witnessed. And I'm always so terrified of not being able to provide for my family.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Yeah, the voice that we have, the inner critic that we have in our head is an alarm bell of sorts to this is something that's tied to a core fear and might put you in a situation where your core fear becomes a reality and oh, we don't want that, so let's do whatever we can to keep you safe. So it's starting to trigger that fight, flight, freeze, fawn reaction. It just sometimes comes in the form of like a slow build from a really bratty voice inside your head. But there are consequences to this internal critic, whether we're aware of it or not, it ends up inhibiting our decision-making processes, our confidence. We avoid visibility, it can ultimately lead to burnout. We get into these patterns of flexing ourselves and trying to contort and fit into the mold that we're supposed to be to be more acceptable and to be taken seriously and maybe respected. That's not always a guarantee. It's a circus act, really. I mean, to try to do all of this and you do it for so long that eventually you get to a point where it's like, I can't do this anymore, and you burn out and you're stressed, and then you start having the physical symptoms, and then it ends up affecting opportunities as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

It does when you say opportunities, not just like career opportunities or something like that. It can even be you mentioned I, you know, in the past you've shared that you and your husband love to travel. That internal critic can stop you from doing things like that, things that you enjoy or having relationships with people that you really care about, right? Yes. Um, you know what? My own mother, she passed away. It's almost been 10 years. I can't believe it. But her internal critic, in my observation, appeared to be very loud, which always made me feel very sad for her. I believe it led her to really not know what to do and almost be paralyzed, like you said, fight, flight, freeze font, and being able to properly take care of herself or put herself out there to really enjoy and receive, you know, the the fruits of having happy, healthy relationships. She lost out on making memories with loved ones and family and you know what I mean. So yeah, I just I know exactly what you mean.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Not just workplace. It's not. And going back to the travel example, I'm a plus size woman. So when we fly, you know, airplane seats are made for smaller people. And so that's always a consideration if we're going on a long flight when I'm on an airplane, you know, trying to make myself smaller. Sure. For the comfort of other people.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Why? Yeah, what the hell? I deserve to take up space in this world. You do. Fortunately, this is something that I've been on a bit of a journey with my therapist around, you know, my body perception issues. But it's an area where in my personal life traveling it's something I really enjoy and love to do and want to do it as much as possible. But this negative self-talk, this inner critic of like, why would you ever want to take a flight to Europe? That's a long time that you're gonna have to be squishing yourself up against the window because you don't want to touch an elbow of a person next to you. Like, that's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

It's easier not to go, honestly. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Right. You don't buy the ticket, you don't go on the trip, and then you've lost out on an experience because of the inner critic that's telling you other people are gonna care too much. Yes, that is a terrible reason to not do something.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yes, definitely, or like this is something that I think a lot of teenage girls and or or guys can can relate to. And why am I limiting it to teenagers? Probably because that's like the age range my my kids have been in these past few years. But at any age, really, that inner critic can have you doubting yourself and explaining away or rationalizing behavior that you tolerate that is not good for you in a relationship, or convincing yourself that you don't deserve anything better or that you're the problem. At the end of the day, you know what the inner critic does? It silences our intuition. Intuition is a very important. Thank you. I was trying to think of a word that's dangerous when we learn to silence that. And that is a learned behavior. We're all born with intuition as human beings, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Yes. And if you allow it, your inner critic overrides your intuition. That's where to go back to what we talked about earlier, naming the voice and asking yourself, is this the truth or is this the shrink talking? Right, meaning the shrinking behavior. Pausing and doing it in the moment is really helpful because then you're starting to build the foundation of a habit of calling out that inner critic when it's getting noisy and hard to ignore. So then you can recognize it sooner. And again, the whole point of everything we talk about on these episodes is about creating awareness around behavior. So you can then choose differently. So if you're creating the awareness of the behavior, when you hear that inner critic start to pipe up, getting in the habit of pausing, saying, is this the truth or not? And recognizing it in the moment, you it becomes easier over time to start to recognize that behavior.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah. It can lead to a lot of really scary physical symptoms. That stroke I had when I was 31, I know for a fact. It's because I kept trying to explain away my intuition about just different choices I was making in my own life. And I was just chronically pushing myself and trying to silence that. I think the amount of stress and tension that I was experiencing, there was nowhere elsewhere to go. Some of our listeners might be living a life where they feel like they are in a career path that is not in alignment with who they are, but they explain away, like, uh, forget it. I just have to stay. I've been doing it for 20 years or 15 years or 10 years, or I make too much money, I just have to suck it up. Maybe you don't give yourself permission to have boundaries. You just keep putting your own well-being on the back burner. That can lead to really dangerous consequences. And for those of us who don't have children, and for those who do, it doesn't matter. It's not just about children, but literally you're teaching other people how to treat you.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

I actually have it as the background on my computer. People will learn to show up for you the way you show up for you. Yes. So when you are allowing this inner critic and these behaviors to take over how you show up and how you move in the world, you are teaching other people that it's okay to do that as well to you and to themselves. Before I did again emphasize extensive work with my therapist on my body image issues, I had a friend say to me once after I made a negative comment about my body, and she was like, Hey, that's my friend you're talking about. And I was like, Well, that's a lovely thing to say. And you're right. I would say that to my friend if I heard her say something about her body that was negative, and yet we do it to ourselves all the time. So that's another tool that I've started using in my own head. Is like, would I say that to a friend? Would I say that to somebody I care about? Right. And if the answer is no, then hey, Moira, take a backseat.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Exactly. Absolutely. And you know, it's really funny because you it makes you wonder, right? Like, how the heck is our internal voice even created? And it comes from a lot of different places. It's not a simple answer, but it definitely evolves over time. But I will just say a couple days ago, I was at the grocery store and there is this mother who you could tell she was frustrated and just stressed. Her young child, who I'm gonna guess was maybe like three-ish, was really excited and kept trying to chit-chat and was just happily talking. And the mother was saying things like, nobody cares, you know, I need to focus, you know, because she's trying to cash out how you're talked to as a child. That definitely I know is one component of our internal dialogue, right? It's not the only, there are lots of others, like just even in society. But it's really interesting because the example you just gave, Amanda, how your friend said, Hey, stop talking about my friend like that. You never know how one little thing you say can really positively impact and land and stick with somebody and impact their internal dialogue.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

So who knows what the mother's internal critic was saying to her in that moment, right? That was causing her to react in that way. And it does, it becomes this cycle of internal critic shaping our behaviors, and then we get to a point where it starts impacting other people, not just ourselves. And listen, we're not saying that the goal is to eliminate the voice completely. I've never talked to anybody that has successfully done that. I haven't either. No, but the point is to notice it sooner, right? So you can create awareness and have the power of choice. That's the goal.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Yes. Because if you can just even notice what your patterns are, then you'll have a chance of being able to interrupt it and replace it with some of these things that we're talking about. If you don't even notice the pattern, or if you don't give yourself permission to pause a beat and actually think about it, you're gonna convince yourself you're hopeless. And and it just feeds that internal narrative that you're powerless to it.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah, it does. Absolutely. I think this is a good time to bring up our regular segment, shrink this. Is there a shrinking behavior that you have exhibited or witnessed recently that you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_00 19:57

I'm gonna build on that example I just had this past weekend at the store. Okay. Let's shrink this in terms of parents speaking to their children in a way that is actually lashing out with all the things that they're likely thinking about directed towards themselves. Listen, we've all said things we regret. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about those who just don't even give themselves permission to pause and really think about what they're saying first and the impact that it's gonna have.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, I think in that situation, it's one of those things where again, you're thinking about what other people are thinking and possibly what other people are doing or how they're reacting, because we live in a time where people wear their reactions and their comments right out loud. Yes, definitely. So, you know, again, it kind of goes back to the comments that I made about when I travel. And we we're all humans, we deserve to take up space in the world. And so to try to shrink or minimize our behaviors or our family members' behaviors, in this case, children's behaviors, because of the negative self-talk that we have, I agree. We gotta shrink that. Yeah, definitely. What about yours? It's sort of goes back to what I was saying at the beginning of the episode where I will replay conversations in my head over and over again. There was a piece of advice that I actually got. Strange place to get a piece of advice. Uh, at a concert, the uh singer that I was there to see at one point in the show said, We're all humans and we're all doing this for the first time. This being life. Like, this is our first time here. And so he made a comment about like, if he does something that he thinks is silly or stupid or whatever, the way he's learned to not dwell on it is by saying, I'm a human, it's my first time doing this. Yeah, I love it. And it is because it's crazy. Like we we live our lives as though we're supposed to have, especially as women, as though we're supposed to have all the answers and we're supposed to fix everything. Right. It's this is our first time doing this, this life thing. Yeah. Why would we be experts in how to do all of these different things? Like we're we're just trying our best here. Yes, that's all we're doing. Yes. That's all we're doing. So the the shrink this that I'm going to focus on is anytime I feel myself spiraling about a conversation that I had, I'm a human and this is my first time doing this.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

I love it. Now, what about people who believe in reincarnation? Because I have to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

You know, it's your first point, your first time in that life. So in this, okay, okay, okay. In that exact situation.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

But you're right, you're right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

So I think it's a good reminder that's a little bit funny and feels a little silly, but it's true. It is. And you know what?

SPEAKER_00 22:56

You when you said that, it made me think of another one that kind of complements it. And this this helps me. And it's okay, so what? So you screwed up, you said something stupid. When you know different, you do different, you can choose differently next time.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

You know what I mean? Awareness equals choice. Yes, it definitely does. So that's our shrinkness for this episode. If you have a behavior that you've recognized in yourself as shrinking behavior, we want to hear about it. So send us a DM on Instagram NDA underscore pod. We would love to hear about your shrinking behavior, the moment that you realized it was shrinking behavior, and what, if anything, you would do differently next time, or even the shift that you tried to make in the moment once you recognized it as shrinking behavior. So send us your shrink this submissions because we want to hear about them.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

And we don't just want to hear about them, but I promise you, if you are having these sorts of thoughts go through your mind, other people are too. So the only way we can ligh the load is if we share them together. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

We want this to be a safe space to share the discoveries that we're having about our own behaviors so we can help each other learn and we can be supportive for each other. Because guess what? We're human.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

It's our time doing this. That's right. Absolutely. And when you screw up, you can choose differently next time. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

So that brings us to the end of episode two. Thank you for listening to be sure that you do not miss any future episodes of NDA. We would love it if you would subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also follow us on Instagram at NDA underscore pod. Feel free to reach out. We would love to hear from you. Comments, your shrink stories, all of the above. Yeah.