Inner Critic Insight
Do you ever feel like you have nothing interesting to say? Yeah, me too.
As I sit down to write, I feel so freaking blank. Like, I've got nothing! I texted a friend and she told me to write about that. About being human and feeling like I don't know what to do. That we all feel a little lost on our path sometimes. So here I am.
Previous me would've chalked this up to failure, that I'm not good enough to write content, to connect with other people. That feeling blank and uncreative was my death sentence. I'll always be like this, worthless even. Shoot! Talk about a harsh inner critic!
It took two minutes for me to text her and receive that reply and realize how harmful I was being to myself. In the past I would have left it unresolved and let it affect the rest of my day, which in turn would have kept affecting me on a daily basis behind the scenes. That lil inner critic is relentless! And I have a feeling I'm not the only one out there dealing with a pesky inner critic.
Recognizing Your Inner Critic
Do you give yourself a hard time when you don't finish a task, if you "mess up" or say the wrong thing, if you have a bad day or don't think you did a good job on a project? Or if you made dinner and it turned out like total crap? (hahaha I hate that one) But seriously, what does your internal dialogue look like? Are you beating yourself up? Or are you responding to yourself with loving kindness and compassion? If your best friend came to you with that exact situation, would you be telling them the same things you're telling yourself?
Whew, me? Nah, I would never say those nasty things to my friend! So why am I saying them to myself?! I am holding myself at such an impossible standard, a perfect one. An unachievable standard.
Thankfully, through this healing and introspective journey, I've learned tools, skills, coping mechanisms, and awareness. Holy cow, awareness is key. The first step toward bettering your relationship to yourself is having the awareness to realize all the moments you'd like to change. I realized I was making myself feel like shit, so I reached out. And all it took was a friend's two sentence reminder that I'm human. Just like you.
Next time you're feeling down in the dumps because of something you did (or didn't do) or felt like you couldn't do, take a step back and look at it from a more broad focus. How can you interject some compassion for yourself in this situation? What would you say to a friend in this scenario?
How to deal with your Inner Critic
An invaluable practice I've come to in this work is journaling. It can bring so much clarity to just get the words down onto paper. Here's the process I took myself through for the above scenario, which you can walk yourself through the next time your inner critic is interjecting some not-so-nice words in your ear and you're feeling like crap about yourself.
First, pop open that journal and free write! Just dump whatever wants to come out. It doesn't have to make sense or have proper grammar. Nobody else is going to read it. Just get it out. You can even rip it up and burn it if you'd like. This helps you process through the full range of emotions instead of holding them all inside your body, waiting to attack you at any moment.
Next, after purging, get focused on how you want the scenario play out moving forward. What action steps or insights can you gain from this?
For me, I took a moment and brought some conscious awareness to the situation at hand.
What's my goal? To write a piece of content to share and connect with my community. To help others along this healing path that has been so monumentally transformative and life-changing for me.
What's my roadblock? Feeling that I have nothing interesting to share, that I'm not creative enough to come up with good ideas or execute them.
What's my inner critic saying? All of these doubts and fears must mean I am a failure.
What would my best friend (or you can think of it as your higher self) say? You're human. Your experience is valid. The whole experience. That means the roadblocks and confusion are a key part of your experience and journey.
What are the takeaways/insights? This moment of my journey is likely a similar part of other people's journey as well. This is a moment where we can build connection. This "thing" I was placing so much pressure on myself to perform wasn't the important part. The important part was the journey of getting there. The realization that my inner critic was beating me up and that I needed to take a moment to treat myself with compassion. And now, instead of giving up on writing, spending my entire day feeling like a failure, and connecting with nobody but a dark corner, I built a deeper connection with myself, expressed my thoughts and feelings and fears, and connected with you. And that's what this healing journey is all about. <3
Journal prompts for your Inner Critic
So next time your inner critic is roaring inside your head, follow these prompts and see what insights it leads you to!
Word vomit onto the page. Purge all your feelings and thoughts about the situation.
Journal on the following prompts:
What's my goal for this situation?
What's my roadblock?
What's my inner critic saying?
What would my best friend/higher self say to me right now?
What are the takeaways or lessons I can gather from this situation?
Another real life example of calming my Inner Critic
That cooking example I laughed at earlier? Trust me, I've taken it through these prompts as well. If you need more proof to this process, read on my friend. This introspection really helps!
I spent over an hour in the kitchen cooking a new recipe with buckwheat- a gigantic meal for myself with extra servings that I can freeze and eat later.
It tastes like absolute garbage. It's so yucky, I can't even pretend that I'll be able to force myself to eat it. I'm stressed because I took all that time cooking and now I have to figure out what to eat at the last minute. And what a waste of food! I hate wasting food.
I'm now believing that I suck at cooking, wondering why I even tried a new recipe with a foreign ingredient, and beating myself up over wasting so much food. I feel like a failure.
My partner looks at me and reminds me that any recipe on Pinterest is actually a crapshoot- you never know what you're going to get, it might be beautiful and tasty or it might be a mushy disgusting mess. (If you've tried to make recipes from Pinterest I know you feel me right now!) And for cooking nearly every meal from scratch and this only happens maybe once a month or less... those are some pretty good odds.
I look at what I've learned from this situation. Well, for one, I hate buckwheat. It's so gross and I don't understand how anyone likes it. So, that's good to know. Instead of feeling like this meal was a failure, that I am a failure, I learned something about myself. And maybe don't make so many servings of a recipe I've never tried before. Those are some pretty good takeaways for the future.
And then I took a meal out of the freezer that I made last week and enjoyed it along with my newfound insight.
Conclusion
Inner critic. We’ve all got one. How is yours communicating with you and how are you choosing to handle it? If we’re not careful, we can fall into the trap of beating ourselves up time and time again. By bringing consciousness into the equation, we’re able to take a step back and look at the situation with a new perspective. Instead of focusing on what was “wrong,” we can focus on what we can learn from the situation. By treating ourselves with compassion, we can deepen our relationship to ourselves and live a life more in line with our authenticity.
What's your inner critic saying that you can turn around into insight?
