Talking to your inner critic, can it be tamed?

[quirkywords]

Do you have an inner critic ? Have you ever tried to talk to your inner critic. This is what happened when I tried. In my Be yourself thread people asked about how I interviewed my inner critic. So here it is.

This is adapted from a writing exercise to interview your inner critic about one's writing. As my inner critic has an opinion all aspects of my life I decided to broaden the scope of the interview.

Me: I welcome (well I don't really) this opportunity to find out why you always need to have an opinion that is always negative about me and my life.

IC: I thought this was going to be a friendly interchange of ideas but there you go with your anger and hostile remarks. I do not see myself as negative but as helping you, because you do need help.

I am here to help you why can't you see that?

Me: So when I am trying to sleep and you tell me about all my mistakes, embarrassing moments, how does that help me?

IC: I thought while you are in bed you would have time to consider some of your past behaviours. This I feel will only help you to improve.

Me: If you are so helpful why do I feel so worthless, so sad, so ignorant when you are around? Do you really know how low I can feel when you are constantly telling me all my faults?

IC: You make yourself feel that way- I am merely pointing out the truth. It is not my problem that you are so weak.

Me: Maybe this was a bad idea you are never going to listen to me or understand me.

IC: Have you ever thought that maybe you shouldn't listen to me if I upset you so much.

Me How can I ignore you when you are so loud at times.

IC: See this is what I mean you are so weak. You have the power to ignore me, to silence me but all you do is whinge and complain.

Me: I am ending this interview. Enough is enough.

What would you say to your inner critic and what do you want to hear from your inner critic? Maybe you can have a go at interviewing your inner critic.

Quirky

[Quercus]

Hello Quirky, Mrs D, Elizabeth and welcome back Mary!

I have missed you around the forums Mary. Quirky is right you are valued and I enjoy reading your posts.

Running away hits home to me. It is what I do too. The critic says everyone will give up/leave/get fed up of me eventually anyway so run. The sad part is the more we put up walls and isolate ourselves the bigger influence the critic has.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to balance the negative voice of your critic with our feedback... That you are cared for and appreciated and valued.

Sometimes I wonder if that is why there are so many silent readers who don't post. Quirky you mentioned thinking others are worse off. I fell into that trap last night. Really needed to talk about a physical issue but then I saw other posts and I felt my problem was insignificant and a waste of everyone's time. But that isn't true either.

A teacher at the school I work at has a poster in his class that says something like No problem is too big that talking about it can't help. He has added "or too small!" to the poster which I love to see.

I hope you are being kind to yourself Mary ❤

[White_Rose]

Thanks Quercus, Quirky and Elizabeth and Everyone

It is good to know that others think and feel in the same way as me. I think one of the most demoralising thoughts is that I am the only person who thinks that way. So thank you for telling me you get attacked by these thoughts also.

My IC is having a field today. I will not accept its comments but they still worm their way into my mind.Tried my go-to diversions without success. Here I am at midnight typing away instead of being asleep and still listening to my IC remind me of how everything is going wrong and it's my fault. Trying to be kind Quercus but too tired tonight. Had a hectic few days with more to come. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Well the small walk around the house has done me a lot of good. and kept my eyes. Sad isn't it. Now falling asleep so had best return to bed.

Mary

[blondguy]

Hi Quirky

Just having a cuppa 🙂

I find my inner critic nagging me a lot when I dont have the regular counseling I need so I have no choice except to have a good talk (or a cry) to my GP/Psychologist. They are impartial and do provide us with more peace than we realise....yet its the first couple of visits that are hard to do.....to open up and provide honesty...not secrecy

I hope everyone is doing reasonably okay

Paul

[quirkywords]

Hello everyone,

Mary I can so relate to your post. I wonder why we can see clearly how someone else's inner critic is talking rubbish yet we keep listening to our own.

know what to do, I can show others what to do, but when I am vulnerable I just have inner critic on stereo.

Paul, welcome, thanks for your post.

That makes sense with counselling helping and I know it works for you.

Thanks again for your contribution.

Quirky

[Ggrand]

Hi, Quirky, Mary, Paul and everyone....

I don’t know what I done but I must have touched something while I was typing..and got a divided keyboard..my critic is now yelling at me saying how dumb, stupid and useless I am...Maybe it can be tamed sometimes but it doesn’t take much for it to go back to being the wild uncaring critic again...Can it be tamed permanently...I really don’t think so.....

I’m trying not to accept what it’s saying to me....That’s so hard to do right now...maybe later it will calm down..shut up and let me prove my inner critic wrong...

Grandy..

[quirkywords]

Hello folks, big encouraging waves to all those struggle with a loud mouthed critic.

Oh Grandy, my inner critic does the same and I sometimes write a lot and then lose it before I post, lose a whole page, make so many typos that weren't there before I pressed send and many other things.

I would tell your inner critic that you managed to finish your post and that you contribute many posts that help others in the forum and you are only human.

Quirky

[IreneM]

HI all

Great thread!

To begin with our inner critic can be so overwhelming and that is all that we think of. But as we take the focus off that and do more things to take care of ourselves, as someone said, it goes quiet.

But it is always there nagging away and can be the things that we think and say to ourselves or even to others as well as in our sleep that can be the underlying critic.

The key is being able to look at that critic and learn to question it with things like:

What evidence is there that this is true? Does this happen in all situations or just occasionally? Is everyone this way? Does everyone that I know think ill of me? Would I say this to someone else in this same situation? Does this make me feel better and/or help me to achieve my goals?

Once you can establish if it is valid or not - you can then be more reasonable and positive about it.

The key is to replace it with something positive.

For example:

Critic: 'No one likes me anymore'

Validation: 'Many people don't like me, but there are many people who do like me and value me.'

Replacement: 'Not everyone is cruel, there are many kind ones out there too.'

I could go through other examples but I think you can gather the benefits of this skill.

I.

[quirkywords]

Hello everyone, I

IreneM,

Thanks so much for your detailed and helpful response.

I feel that there are times we can think rationally and change the negative thoughts. However there are times when our negative critic can be so negative so We can’t think in a reasonable and Taino always way as you suggested. I feel people who can change negative sintompositives easily do not have a harsh critic .

As I said sometimes it works and wither times it seems impossible to find anything positive about ourselves. I agree as you say it is a skill that we need to practice.

Quirky

[Elizabeth CP]

One thing my psych has pointed out many times is that when we are really stressed or down we don;t have the emotional energy to deal with it. At this time knowing what to do to change our thinking isn't enough. In these times we can only do small things which are helpful to keep us from getting worse. When we are doing better then we need to practice the techniques which will help. This includes breathing techiques to calm down, challenging our thinking in the way Irene mentioned etc. By doing what we can when we are doing OK we help to keep ourselves well & reduce the impact of any triggers. Also by practising when well it make sit easier to use those techniques when we are unwell. Unfortunately ATM my life seems to be so stressful that I don't get enoug chance to practice things which would help so I can't use them effectively when needed

[quirkywords]

Hello all

Elizabeth CP, thanks so much for your very helpful,post. it contains much good advice.

I really like your sentence below and I will try to remember it.

By doing what we can when we are doing OK we help to keep ourselves well & reduce the impact of any triggers.

Quirky