Making friends with our inner critic

Ah the 'inner critic'. The negative, harsh voice inside our heads. If only we could get rid of it… I used to think this and still wish I could sometimes, but what I have learned over the years is that wrestling with your inner critic causes a lot of stress, pain and tension and is bloody exhausting. It's like trying to reason with a toddler. Here's how it usually goes...

You're putting something off, procrastinating about something, distracting yourself. This goes on for a few days, weeks. You start feeling really guilty and frustrated with yourself. Your inner critic is saying stuff like 'you're so lazy', 'you always do this', 'why are you so unmotivated, disorganised', 'just get on with it'. You notice you're beating yourself up and being really hard on yourself and then you feel sad and frustrated about that. You start beating yourself up for beating yourself up - exhausting!

What if we could rename the 'inner critic' as the 'inner protector', and see it as a part of us that is trying to help us (in a weird way). Our brain's job is to help us avoid risk and keep us safe from any potential danger. And through your life it has developed strong mechanisms that have worked well (you're here, you're reading this). When you're procrastinating or avoiding something, you brain is sensing there may be some danger ahead and so it will do everything it can to stop you from taking action. The problem is, it is not sophisticated enough to tell the difference between an actual physical danger or an emotional one. So the difficult email you need to send is equally as dangerous as doing a bungee jump to the inner protector.

Just knowing this, can be massively reassuring, because we may start to believe that we are 'lazy', disorganised' or 'unmotivated', but if we know that this is part of being human and our brain is just trying to keep safe, then we can understand and not be so hard on ourselves.

So what if we stopped the fight and started to make pals with this part of us???? Next time you notice you are avoiding doing something, or you’re beating yourself up about something, instead of blaming yourself, stop and take a closer look and ask yourself: 'What could my inner protector be trying to protect me from?' - maybe it's rejection, failure, conflict, the unknown outcome of something. Instead of bullying yourself into getting on with it (because that's not really working out for you is it?), offer yourself and your inner protector a bit of kindness, saying 'hey, I know this is hard and you're just trying to look out for me, but honestly I've got this'. Then take a deep breath and see how it feels.......Try it and keep practising.

Photo by Luke Porter on Unsplash