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

[IreneM]

Hi Quirky

Agree with you that it can be so tough when everything is so overwhelming. That is where skills like relaxation come in to calm us down to enable us to think rationally.

When I am in this state what I like to do as many on this forum have suggested is to have a thought diary. Just write it down and forget about it until you are calm again. Later when you feel more sober try and find something positive to replace it. Once you have a replacement, try and say that to yourself instead of the old one. That is my current battleground at the moment.

I wake up saying this horrible thing out loud and I hear it and quickly think of a replacement and repeat that under my breath over and over.

But if you can have a page in your diary or journal to replace the negative thoughts and read the positive page regularly, I think that it eventually pays off if you put the positive replacements around in places that you look at without thinking.

We just need to be patient with ourselves and each other!

I.

[quirkywords]

hello everyone, Thanks to everyone reading and or posting.

Irene thanks for your thoughts.

I do think writing down one’s thoughts does help.

As you said it is hard when very down and overwhelmed to be able to ignore the negativity of our inner critic.

For me when I can change my negatives into positives i have little need for that because it means my inner critic is subdued. I trust that makes sense.

Thanks for all the helpful posts and for adding to the discussion.

quirky

[quirkywords]

Hello everyone,

Does anyone find that even when they are well and positive their inner critic may say, The good times wont last,

this is a fluke things are going well, or similar thoughts?

Quirky

[Doolhof]

Hi Quirky,

Guess I have not really considered this in general.

For me, I feel that way when I try to make medical appointments! So often recently the service I have received has been less than average so I am now automatically thinking why even bother!

Usually I'm not aware of the thought that life can tip up side down in a moment until it actually does.

ope that makes sense.

Cheers from Dools

[quirkywords]

Hello everyone

Hello Mrs Dools,

your reply makes lots of sense to me.

I agree with you that I never think about life can tip upside down until it does.

i suppose I am someone whose critic can seek the dark side of the positive, not loudly just soft remarks.

Most inner critics pick on us when we are down but mine sometimes picks on me when things are fine. Curiouser and curiouser.

Quirky

[IreneM]

Quirky

I agree with you that with some practice we can change the negatives into positives.

I was once in a worked up state and just quickly changed the negative to a positive and just kept muttering the positive until it calmed me down.

Irene

[White_Rose]

Hello Everyone

Ah the joys of the IC. The really sad part is that we need an IC to help make decisions, choices that can have an impact on our lives. It's when it gets out of hand the trouble starts. I am trying to fill my life with good things and the IC can only say you are doing too much and will fall under the pressure. And this may be true. However if we could trust our IC to have our best interests at heart life would be a little easier. Sigh! I think I have a badly brought up IC.

Irene is right to say we need to practice keeping our critic in place. I expect everyone has made a foolish decision or become upset because of the critic. Just as the critic has learned its lessons well through repetition so we need to practice via repetition to be able to respond and stop the whole sad business starting again. We need to react in the way we drive a car. You see a red light and stop. Not much thought goes into it because you have done this so many times. If there is an emergency we stop, again because we have honed our driving skills so well.

Please don't give up folks. Keep plugging away because I am convinced we can do this when we support each other.

Mary

[quirkywords]

Hello all

Thanks Irene, practicing changing negative into positive is hard but worthwhile. I try to avoid words like stupid, hopeless, helpless etc as they are not hopeful.

Mary, thanks for your comment and helpful observations.

I never see my ic has having a role in my life, I try to ignore it.

I think if I can keep on keeping on and be aware when my ice has taken over my thoughts , for m eitstarts with a why bother attitude. So if I am feeling like this I decide to change the way I am thinking.

Quirky

[quirkywords]

Hello everyone

I may have mentioned this before but I try to eliminate certain words from vocabulary that are very negative and have no redeeming features. You know the words some end in -less. I hope if I don't use these words to describe myself my inner critic will not either.

How often do we say I am a failure, when we could, say I could not do this, but I can try another way, or I can try something else.

I do believe that language we use is important. We can be realistic. I never learnt to drive but I can do other things and I walk a lot and can work out public transport in different states and other countries.

I am interested if other people feel their choice of words can help or hinder them.

[Elizabeth CP]

I think you are right Quirky. The words we eliminate are personal. What affects one person is not an issue with someone else. I remember my sister had 2 sons with problems. She banned certain words from her home because they were likely to exacerbate the problems her children had. Those words didn't impact on my own children so there was no need to ban them. Any words which trigger negative feelings or cause us to react badly should be avoided.

Your post made me think how judgmental we can be. We compare ourselves with others and notice all the things we don't do but others do or weaknesses we have which others don't. Problem is we compare ourselves too often with all the good things different people do without considering that each person has a mixture of good & less positive characteristics. We need to counter the things we don't do well by taking note of all the other things we do well instead as Quirky did with pointing out the positive things she does instead of driving.

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