3 questions to help deal with your Inner Critic
Image: Priscilla de Pree via Unsplash
The Inner Critic can feel like a saboteur who likes to tell you you’re doing things wrong. Left to run wild, it can go from being a niggling voice of doubt in your head, to something that stops you from reaching for your dreams and living the life you truly want. The good news?
The Inner Critic is a healthy part of your psyche.
Our bodies and minds are intelligent things that do all they can to keep us alive (even if it feels like the opposite). Your Inner Critic is no different. Your Inner Critic wants to keep you safe. It’s the Ego (the I part of you) that doesn’t want to fail if you try something new, or be told you look ridiculous in that red mini-dress. Having a discriminating eye that critiques everything around you serves a very real purpose in life - to make sure you’re doing what you came here to do - but knowing how to deal with it can take some practice.
Here are 3 questions to ask when your Inner Critic starts to rear its head, as well as tactics to help you move forward:
Do I need to hear this now?
Of course, we need to be discerning about things every day. But your Inner Critic actually has a natural home in your cycle: the premenstruum. It’s no surprise that its voice may well feel extra loud in the week or so before your period (and there are strategies to deal with that), but if you notice that you’re feeling hyper critical at other times of your cycle, training it to come back later is a a great way to start quietening it down overall.
So, what to do? Every time a criticism comes up in your head, note it down. It doesn’t matter if its big (I hate my job) or small (I hate seeing breadcrumbs all over the kitchen counter). Write them all down and when you come to the premenstrual phase, you can review your list.
There’ll be some things that simply aren’t important anymore, and others that are. And there’ll be some things that keep on coming up over and over again. Because your Inner Critic is a finely tuned part of your psyche that is housed in your premenstrual phase to make sure your life is in order for the baby you may or not be carrying, this is the time to review your bugbears. It’s specialised in analysing and reviewing. Think of it like going to a dentist for a toothache, instead on optician.
Is there a nugget of truth in this?
As I mentioned, your Inner Critic is really just trying to keep you safe, like an overprotective mother who’s scared to let her child try anything new for themselves. Often, it’s highlighting something we think we should’ve done better, can’t do at all or feel a lack of (e.g. I should’ve replied in a different way to that comment from my colleague, I don’t know how to use Photoshop so I can’t go for that promotion, or why am I still single after so many years?). It might sound like, I am not enough.
Sometimes, it’s helpful to ask the question: what is my inner critic asking for help with? What is it trying to protect you from? There’s usually a nugget of truth to be found, like a skills gap. If there’s a job you’d love to apply for but they require knowledge of a certain software, you can acknowledge your critic’s fears by in turn acknowledging that there’s some more learning to do. If you’ve been perfectly fine focussing on yourself by avoiding relationships but all of a sudden find your critic berating you for it, it might be your subconscious telling you that you’re craving that love connection and are ready to start dating.
The Inner Critic can sound positively acidic at times, which can make the idea of sitting with it, and admitting there might be truth hidden inside absolutely terrifying. But this is where the growth is and, once you give it airtime, there’ll be one less thing for it to nag you about.
Who’s voice is this?
Finally, don’t underestimate how much we’re influenced by other people, social media, magazines, films and TV, music and culture as a whole. We often take on other people’s ideas as our own. The views our parents and caregivers had can easily feel like ours when they’ve been ingrained in us since childhood. There might have been a nasty comment (or even a nice one) from classmates at school, teachers or colleagues. You might have read something in a book that told you things should be a certain way.
The next time your critic shows up, listen to it. Take in in the tone of voice, choice of words, accent and energy. Does it sound like you? Or does is sound like the comedian who made an awful joke about sized 16 women? It might sound like your mum telling you you ought to be married by now, or the teacher at school who made you feel small.
If it’s not your voice, you can choose to ignore it or dig deeper to rewrite the narrative to one you choose instead.
Your Inner Critic doesn’t have to be a pain that ruins relationships, and working with it can make some symptoms of PMS lighter or disappear altogether.
If you’d like to talk about how coaching can help with your Inner Critic and cycle, book a call with me or find out more about my 1:1 menstrual cycle and empowerment coaching.