#58 - Befriend your inner critic & embrace your inner power
We all have that internal voice that can be self-critical and judgmental that breeds self-doubt within us. It is the voice that tells us we aren't ready, aren't good enough, or the classic, "who do you think you are to do that?!"
In this episode we dive into where it comes from and practical methods to work with the inner critic so it doesn't hold you back.
What you will learn from this episode:
How your inner critic is not an enemy, but a misguided protector that needs your love and compassion.
Personal experiences from Mandie and a recent client session in how to acknowledge, understand and manage the inner critic
How cultural contexts and conditioning can impact your inner critic
That your dreams are worth going for and your achievements worth celebrating no matter what your inner critic says about you
Journalling Process - Make friends with fear
We all have many different parts of ourselves, including what we know as the inner critic. If you aren't doing what you truly want and stepping forwards with what your soul is calling you to do, then a part of you is afraid of what will happen if you do.
This is a profound and transformative journalling process to help you identify that part and provide a space for it be heard and feel safer so you can move forward.
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What you will learn from this episode:
How your inner critic is not an enemy, but a misguided protector that needs your love and compassion.
Personal experiences from Mandie and a recent client session in how to acknowledge, understand and manage the inner critic
How cultural contexts and conditioning can impact our inner critic
That your dreams are worth going for and your achievements worth celebrating no matter what your inner critic says about you
The value of having a supportive network around you
What we cover:
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:38 Understanding the Inner Critic
01:54 Origins of the Inner Critic
03:07 The Impact of Societal Expectations
04:17 Personal Experiences with the Inner Critic
06:15 The Role of the Inner Critic
08:16 Dealing with the Inner Critic
11:03 Befriending the Inner Critic
16:19 Moving Forward Despite the Inner Critic
16:49 Personal Reflections and Conclusion
Listen to episode now:
Listen above or via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music.
This episode also aired on JOY 94.9 Thursday 18 January as part of its summer program.
Transcript
Episode 58 - Befriend your inner critic & embrace your inner power
Hey, Hey, it's Mandy Kai and you are listening to the Find your Calling podcast. And I am so happy to have you joining me today.
Now today's episode was prompted by a recent client session that I had. And I know from so much feedback that I have had over many, many years of coaching people. As they stretch themselves and really go for their dreams and really deeply desire to fulfill their callings. So this is what we're going to dive into.
Understanding the inner critic
We're going to talk about that inner critic. The internal voice that all of us have. That just tends to be a bit of a bitch. And is judgemental and can throw us into a lot of self doubt. And can be significantly harsh and just downright terrible.
It can have this long lasting effect and impact on our self-esteem. It can make you feel inadequate and totally hinder and hold you back form really going for what it is that you truly deeply desire and want for yourself and your work and life moving forward.
So it's a super important topic. After having this beautiful, rich, deep client session where we explored it in more detail, along with some consequent insight that I got in meditation a couple of days after I thought, you know what, this is what we're going to do today. This is what we're diving into. This is what's alive this week.
So, let's go into it.
Origins of the Inner Critic
So, first of all, where does that bloody inner critic come from? Well, it's influenced by a lot of different things.
Largely past experiences. You might recognise it as a voice of one of your parents or significant caregiver, or maybe even a teacher that you experienced as you are growing up.
It can come from societal expectations and internalized beliefs. This is particularly pronounced for those who are marginalized and experienced systemic bias and barriers to success in life. Having that experience of butting up against those biases and barriers people can internalize them. So any people from marginalized groups can significantly experience this as an internal inner critic that has developed. And it's often a real barrier to true self-acceptance and self-compassion.
Societal Influences on the Inner Critic
One of those societal experiences that occurs in Australia. I do believe that it also happens in New Zealand. I'd love to hear if you experience it. I know I've got listeners all around the world. So yeah, please, write to me and let me know if you, in your culture also experienced this.
We call it the Tall Poppy Syndrome. It's a cultural phenomenon where anybody who has achieved something or achieved the level of success is criticize resentment, resented, or basically undermined because of it.
It's all about cutting people down to size and ensuring that they don't think that they're better than everybody else.
Culturally in Australia, it leads to many of us lacking confidence and feeling intimidated by the idea of stretching ourselves professionally and really going for what it is that we're really feeling called to do. And create and birth into this beautiful world. Particularly women, non binary people and people from marginalized groups.
Personal Experiences with the Inner Critic
In this client session that I had, she is Australian. And the insight emerged of what a lasting impact, the experience of being bullied and teased in high school for her success had her had on her. She was really good at things in high school and got awards and got recognition. And as a result of that other kids bullied her.
I absolutely resonated with it so much. I had such a similar experience. I remember going into high school, so we're 12 years old. When we go into high school here. And I got straight. A's that first term. So every single subject I got an A, and I felt really proud of myself. But I was bullied mercilessly for it. And I absolutely internalized the belief at that point that it was not safe for me to succeed. And that I was going to be risking, retribution and harm if I got that level of success again.
So not surprisingly, I did not get straight A's again for the rest of my schooling years. And this client had this similar experience where she was just realizing in her professional career that she was truly desiring to step up and to really make her creative career a success. And yet she was totally holding back on taking the action that she knows she needed to do next in order to make that happen. And so, it was very easy to put that link together of like, there's this part of her that had identified it is not safe to succeed. And so therefore, that part is going to hold you back from doing what it is that you need to do in order to be successful.
Role of the inner critic
So, how does this relate to the inner critic? Well, our inner critics primary job is to save us from the emotional risk and harm of being embarrassed, rejected, judged. Basically any consequence or impact of either failure or success.
Our inner critic is just trying to protect and save us from harm.
So you can see that when we have earlier experiences, that we can form these internalized. Inner critics and voices that worked to really hold us back from, in order to, just to keep us safe. And that could manifest in, like it wasn't my client where it was just holding her back. Literally just not taking the action. Totally procrastinating.
It's the voice that says to you, or I don't think you're ready for that, or you don't really good enough for that or the very classic one, which I hear so often is ‘Who do you think you are?’ ‘Who do you think you are to do that?’
It's very much rooted in comparison and competition and fearing that something bad or some harm is going to come to you, if you step forward and do that.
It's very interesting that it speaks up most loudly when we're truly going for our dreams and following our callings and stretching ourselves out of our comfort zone. Because it knows there's risk out there. Like when you're just operating within your comfort zone. It won't be as loud. It's the closer that you move to taking action outside of that comfort zone that it's really going to start. Being very, very loud and very determined to hold you back. In order to keep you safe.
Dealing with the inner critic
So what the hell do we do about this? How do we actually move forward knowing that we've got this part of ourselves that is actively trying to hold us back?
The first step is to become aware of it.
So over this coming week, pay attention to when your inner critic arises. What kind of thoughts or negative thoughts and self doubt does it throw up for you? And in what circumstances is it the most loud? Or in response to, what does it appear?
Really start to become aware of it. Because that very first step of awareness means that you're bringing some level of distance between the inner critical thought and you as the observer.
I find meditation just such a useful ritual and practice that's helped me become more aware of my thoughts. Like to me, meditation, isn't just about sitting there and clearing my mind. Tthat doesn't ever happen. My mind is just constantly going. But what it does do is it gives me a practice of becoming aware of the thoughts. And allowing space. It makes me the observer of my thoughts rather than me being my thoughts.
That's what you want to do with the inner critic is first to create a little bit of distance between you and the critical thoughts so that you do not fully identify and immerse yourself. Like you are not your critical thoughts. It's just one aspect of you.
There are many different aspects of you. I love and appreciate the wisdoms of internal family system work. It's a therapeutic approach. Which views the mind as having all of these different parts of ourselves. And, each part it's formed from its own experiences and it has its own beliefs and emotions and motivations. And the inner critic is just one of those. Like there is another part of you that so deeply desires more for your life. More for your work more for your impact. And that is the part that has seeded this desire. It might be really clear about what it is that you want to do. And even if you're not clear, it's there part of you that's really striving to understand what your potential is in this lifetime. And that's a very, very valid part of you as well. So yet you have all of these different pots in the inner critic is just one. So to start to become aware of it.
Befriending the inner critic
And one of the ways that we worked with this with my client was we visualized it as a separate character and Tara Moore in her book ‘Playing Big’, goes into this in a lot more detail and really gives some great advice on how to step yourself through this.
It's about bringing more separation and characterizing. Who is this inner critic of yours? Who are they? Do they have a name? What do they look like? Where did they come from? And, start to bring them to life so that you can actually personify them.
Once again, it's creating more of this separation from who you truly are and this inner critic, this part of yourself that ultimately just has your best interests at heart. It really does. It thinks it's trying to keep you safe and from harm. It thinks it's doing the right thing, even though it's just being really super mean.
A very simple way to respond to the inner critic when it comes up. And this was from Tara's work is “thanks so much. I know you're trying to protect me, but I've got this.”
One of the habits that I've formed over my life as well, is that when that inner critic arises. I just stop immediately and say, “I love you”. So I love that. We can expand the process. “I love you. Thank you. But I've got this”. “Hey, I've got this. We've got this. Let's move forward.”
So the more that you can develop the relationship with this part of yourself and send it love and dive into the conversations and the understanding of “What is it trying to protect you from? Where did it first come from? What is its greatest fear?” And that's a really good journaling, prompt is, befriending that fear.
And if you would like a journal prompt for that, then head to the link in the show notes and go to download I've got this little one pager journaling guidelines to help you really befriend that fear and that inner critic. And really worked through that.
So you want to turn towards that part. Internal family systems work sometimes is referred to as parts work and parts work is about turning towards those parts of ourselves and giving them love. Giving them acceptance. Giving them a voice, giving them air time.
Often our natural response can be to ignore them, want to wipe them out, want to squash them, want to eradicate them.
And yet those parts of you have formed for very specific reasons are in response to very specific experiences that you've had over your life. And they need love. They need acceptance. They need compassion.
It's about moving forward with wholeness. All these parts of yourself are whole and worthy of love and acceptance. So yeah, turning towards them. And actively giving them time to really voice what it is that they have to say. What is it that they're most afraid of that can all be done through that journaling technique that you can download from my website here.
And then you'll start to understand its role. You'll start to understand it and understand where it's come from and what it's really trying to protect you from. Then it's easier to give that part love because then you realise, oh my gosh, you might be misguided but you really do wish the best for me.
So in that moment, then expressing gratitude for it. Thank you. That's where, that response “Thanks so much. Thank you for trying to protect me. Thank you very much, but I've got this and I love you”. And reassure it.
As always with any of these practices, self-compassion is a core tenant of this work because you are going to move forwards in your life. You will never eradicate the inner critic. It'll continue to emerge.
In Tara's book she gives so many examples of women experiencing immense amount of success in their professional lives, and yet still experiencing that inner critic. And those voices of self doubt and worry about with her, I really am good enough. That imposter syndrome of when are they going to find out that I'm not actually I'm not qualified to be doing this. I'm not good enough to be doing it like this. This is just universal. And so learning to be really compassionate with yourself while still taking the action to go forwards.
Moving forwards despite the inner critic
So that's the key thing as well, acknowledging that yes, this inner critic is going to come up, but what you do in the response to it, do not let it determine your actions moving forward.
It's about moving forward with that part of yourself, giving it love, making it an ally, and then continuing to step forward out of your comfort zone, no matter how loud it may get and how fearful it is about what will happen.
So it was really interesting. I had this deep session with this client. And in meditation days later, I had this realisation of the significance of the fact that I have a bunch of poppies tattooed on my arm. I chose poppies because I loved the way that they looked and I searched the internet for like the significance and the meaning of these poppies. Just hoping that I could find some greater meaning of having these flowers tattooed on my arm. But with not really that much success. At the time, nothing fully landed.
But in meditation, I realised, oh yes. I'm from the land of the tall poppy syndrome. And as a result of that, so many of us here hold ourselves back and now this tattoo takes on such a deeper meaning for me, they symbolise my commitment to rise above the fear of what others will think and how others will respond to me. To me shining my light. To me rising up and just seeing what's possible this life, like not holding myself back. So I just loved that realization.
I want all of us who care deeply about people and the planet and doing good and creating this better world. We all need to rise up. Now is the time like you've got that call follow it. It's meaningful. It matters.
Closing thoughts and announcing ‘Be Brave’
So, remember your dreams are worth going for, and your achievements are worth celebrating. And truly other people's criticisms are a reflection of their own insecurities and jealousy.
But it can be hard to move forwards. When we're navigating, the fear of being on the receiving end of other people's criticisms. And navigating the power of our inner critic to hold us back. And to keep you safe, no matter what. And that's why having a really supportive network around you. Who we're really going to celebrate you and who are also stepping up alongside you. So, because of that, I need to let you know, if you haven't heard already that there's going to be another round of be brave. And this is a four week beautiful journey with like-minded passionate change makers and creatives who are each bravely stepping forward to bring their visions and their projects and businesses to life and to grow them.
And it includes weekly coaching and accountability and really the strength of a community behind you to support you. To follow through what it is you need to do with more confidence and with more focus and not be held back by your inner critic. And your fears. So the next round starts on the 2nd of October. There will be replays for coaching calls and there are payment plans available. So check out the links in the show notes. And for all the details, I would love it. If you feel called to join this round.
Here's to you shining. Here's to all of us tall poppies overcoming the impact of our inner critic, befriending it, sending it love, reassuring it that “yes, we've got this. Thank you very much for keeping us safe but you know what? We've got this, you've got this”.
I believe in you. I love you. Thanks for tuning in. And I look forward to talking to you soon . Ciao.
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