Why Your Inner Critic Needs Your Support, Not Constant Positive Thinking
Mental health is starting to become a buzzword all over the internet and social media, with people sharing their stories and encouraging others to do the same. One of the ways to work on your mental health is to identify self destructive parts of yourself, with the inner critic being one of the primary parts to look out for.
The inner critic is the part of us that constantly critiques our actions, emotions and thoughts. Typically shaming ourselves for doing something it deems ‘unacceptable’, and then turning on ourselves. An internal dialogue could be as follows:
’I shouldn’t have said that to her, I’m so stupid sometimes’
‘Don’t think about having sex with someone else, you’re a terrible person’
‘Why can’t I stop being sad, people won’t like me if I’m sad’
‘Don’t be angry right now, why am I so weak!’
‘Why am I always anxious, everyone else is healthier than me, I can’t seem to get it right’
‘Why do I have such terrible pain, I hate my body’
Do you recognise any of these thoughts, or something similar?
Chances are you have some form of an inner critic, we all do. The extent to which it gets out of hand can be best measured by your anxiety, depressive or chronic pain symptoms. If these things are high, then your inner critic most likely needs to be attended to.
What’s the common advice on attending to your inner critic?
Advice around attending to the inner critic varies, however a theme I constantly see is to create new positive perspectives whenever the inner critic surfaces. So whenever you notice the inner critic, you simply turn it’s negative thoughts into positive ones. An example from above:
’I shouldn’t have said that to her, I’m so stupid sometimes’ - ‘Actually I’m not stupid I’m great, I’m human and I said what I needed to’‘Don’t think about having sex with someone else, you’re a terrible person’ - ‘My sexual desires are normal and it doesn’t mean I’m cheating on my partner’
Sounds good on paper right? To a certain extent it’s great, the mere fact that you’re acknowledging your inner critic goes a long way to improving things. However, what always trying to put a positive spin on things could end up doing is creating a new form of emotional burying. One where you inadvertently shame the inner critic for it’s thoughts.
So funnily enough, you actually start critiquing your inner critic!
This form of always trying to look on the bright side is called ‘toxic positivity’, where you push down negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. The mantra in this case being:
‘I can never be critical of myself again, I must always think positively about things’
Where did your inner critic come from?
Contrary to what you may have thought your inner critic is not the devil in disguise, it’s most likely a younger wounded part of you who started behaving in this way as a form of protection. When we’re younger we form our opinions and judgements of ourselves based on what society, our parents and our peers think of us.
If a parent only showed affection to you when you achieved at school, then you grow up critiquing yourself if you don’t achieve. If a parent was very controlling, you grow critiquing yourself if you’re not controlling. If society tells you to act a certain way sexually or socially, then you grow up critiquing yourself if you don’t abide by those rules.
Most likely, your inner critic was born out of ideas which are no longer relevant. So you can now love yourself even if you don’t achieve, are not controlling and don’t abide by society’s rules. But the inner critic doesn’t know that, it’s still a young kid trapped in the past.
What’s a better way to attend to your inner critic?
Once you realise that your inner critic is a younger wounded part of you, you’ll no longer force it to think in a different, more ‘positive’ way all the time. A much better way to respond to it is to first let it know how much you understand it’s fears, and then to help it understand things in a new way.
A great metaphor for this would be to imagine speaking to yourself as a child, this child is scared to go swimming for some reason. What’s a better way to let it know it’s safe to swim?
Tell the child that there’s nothing scary about swimming and it has no choice but to try and swim
Let the child know how much you understand it’s fears about swimming, let it know that it’s safe but also that you can take it slowly at the beginning.
Option number 1 is toxic positivity and option 2 is a more supportive style of communication. The difference may seem subtle but the results are far different. Option 1 you’re disregarding the child's emotions, whereas option 2 you’re letting the child know you understand it’s fears. Obviously you know that swimming is fine, but rather than forcing the child to do so and shaming it’s fears in the process, you let the child’s emotions be met in a more supportive way.
Won’t I just fuel my inner critic by letting it know I understand it?
Understanding your inner critic's concerns may seem counterintuitive, but actually it’s vital when it comes to creating long lasting harmony in the body. There are so many emotions we place in ‘unacceptable’ piles when they arise: shame, guilt, fear, anger, sadness, envy, disappointment.
We don’t like feeling these things so we repress them, but this only makes things worse. Pop psychology on social media will try to teach you to create new positive perspectives, but this too can create new destructive parts of yourself unhappy whenever you have a ‘negative’ thought.
By far the best tool is to learn how to attend to your inner critic in more supportive and collaborative ways. This may take a bit more time to practice, but thankfully there are many people to support you in doing so.