As the year unfolds, I've been wrestling with an uninvited companion: my inner critic. But instead of trying to kick it out, I found that getting to know it—understanding where it's coming from and why it's so relentless—can actually change the game. In our latest episode, we navigate the tricky terrain of self-criticism, exploring its roots and the societal pressures that feed it. It's about turning that criticism into constructive, critical thinking and celebrating our wins just as much as we scrutinize our setbacks. If you've ever felt like you were your own worst enemy, this conversation is an invitation to a more compassionate self-dialogue.
This episode isn't just about understanding our inner critic; it's about learning to live with it more harmoniously. I'll share how I've been practicing grace and compassion towards myself, even when I fall short of my own lofty expectations. We talk about strategies to reframe the inner critic from a backseat driver to a silent passenger—one who's along for the ride but not dictating the journey. Join me as we discuss practical ways to cultivate a kinder internal conversation, embracing curiosity as a tool to shift our perspective. By the end of our talk, you'll have a fresh outlook on how to manage that inner voice, making way for a gentler, more forgiving approach to the challenges and triumphs of everyday life.
As the year unfolds, I've been wrestling with an uninvited companion: my inner critic. But instead of trying to kick it out, I found that getting to know it—understanding where it's coming from and why it's so relentless—can actually change the game. In our latest episode, we navigate the tricky terrain of self-criticism, exploring its roots and the societal pressures that feed it. It's about turning that criticism into constructive, critical thinking and celebrating our wins just as much as we scrutinize our setbacks. If you've ever felt like you were your own worst enemy, this conversation is an invitation to a more compassionate self-dialogue.
This episode isn't just about understanding our inner critic; it's about learning to live with it more harmoniously. I'll share how I've been practicing grace and compassion towards myself, even when I fall short of my own lofty expectations. We talk about strategies to reframe the inner critic from a backseat driver to a silent passenger—one who's along for the ride but not dictating the journey. Join me as we discuss practical ways to cultivate a kinder internal conversation, embracing curiosity as a tool to shift our perspective. By the end of our talk, you'll have a fresh outlook on how to manage that inner voice, making way for a gentler, more forgiving approach to the challenges and triumphs of everyday life.
Hey Bestie, what's up? How are you doing today? I hope that you're having a beautiful day. It's May, can you believe it? I can't believe that it's May already. Where is 2024 even going?
Speaker 1:
I feel like I got sort of off to a rough start because I was like still post-COVID at the beginning of the year and, quite frankly, on the struggle bus and on top of being on the struggle bus and I was also having to like work and sort of start building things at SoulCycle, which you know that has was was hard doing, coming off of COVID and not feeling like I was like at my best. So, yeah, 2024 was a rough start. I feel like I'm finally gaining my footing, and maybe you're feeling that way too, and that's why I want to talk about what we're talking about today, which is how to silence your inner critic, because I know that I found myself being really really hard on myself throughout the first few months of this year when I just wasn't really at my best, and so that was hard for me. It was really really hard for me and I had a lot of thoughts about it, and I still have a lot of thoughts about it and I still have a lot of thoughts about where I'm at and and so I know that that's my inner critic and I just want to talk to you about your inner critic as well and just kind of help us all to sort of get to a place where that inner critic is not maybe having as big an impact on our lives. So I did title this episode Silencing the Inner Critic, but I just I want to say that I don't think that that's actually possible.
Speaker 1:
I don't think that we're ever going to fully silence that voice, and one of the reasons is like where did that voice even come from? And as we talked about in a few episodes ago about internalizing stigma, that inner critic is very much the voice that comes from the outside and then we make part of us and so we're constantly going to be bombarded with the same images and messages and thought processes and socializations. That's not going anywhere and it's all based in, like the white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy and we're not getting rid of that. And so that voice keeps being reinforced. Anytime we look outside of ourselves, anytime we look to social media, anytime we look to the news, celebrity, whatever's being sort of pumped out toward us, that voice is being reinforced, divorced, so we're not silencing her, she's not going away, but we can make friends with her, and so that's what I want to talk about today.
Speaker 1:
But first of all, I want to sort of kind of piece out like what we're talking about when we're talking about the inner critic. I think this can get confusing too, because there's a part of us that believes that listening to that voice is actually going to make us better, which that's a problem in and of itself. Why do we need to be better? But if the base assumption is that I need to be doing better, then that voice is going to come in and it's going to really be very convincing about the fact that, like, yeah, it's true, I need to be doing better, and here are all of the reasons why. So we need to kind of address that portion of it.
Speaker 1:
But let's talk a little bit about criticism, and I think that you know criticism in and of itself. I looked up the definition of criticism and it is like the connotation behind criticism is very negative. So the definition for criticism when we're talking about criticism is the expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes. So, like already, yeah, thinking about criticism like being critical of ourselves or someone else. Right, there is already negative connotation there. It is a negative practice which I think is a little bit of a mindfuck, because then we think about critical thinking and critical thinking is not based in that same sort of negativity bias. So I did look up like what is critical thinking even about? Just to kind of get a definition, and one that I really liked that came up was critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way, and that is completely the opposite of criticism and of being critical, if we look at that definition of it being rooted in someone's faults or mistakes. So I think this is where we need to kind of separate those two out. And when I'm thinking about moving myself forward in a positive way, I can apply critical thinking, but I don't want to be critical, I don't want to be criticizing myself. And so the criticism right, that's going to be based in things we've talked about before Very black or white, all or nothing, good or bad thinking talked about before very black or white, all or nothing, good or bad thinking.
Speaker 1:
Again, criticism, that inner critic, is going to be focused more on our problems and our mistakes, it's not going to ever recognize any of the stuff that we do well. And that's a really big problem, because in order to continue to move forward in life and toward our goals, like, we have to be able to recognize the wins, and so that inner critic is never going to be able to do that Right, and I see this so often with my dance students, with clients, with everybody where they discount any of the good stuff. You ask how that went, like, how you're feeling about a particular thing, and it's like, oh, not very good. And it's always focused on the problems and it's never focused on what actually went well. And the inner critic is also going to be really hurtful and mean. It's that mean voice that is trying to use like shame. It's trying to tell you how, like again, good or bad, you are based on what you're doing, and you're never going to be good enough. You're just never going to be good enough for that inner critic to be silenced.
Speaker 1:
And so the antidote to it is, first of all, our favorite emotion, which is curiosity. Right, can we get really curious about what's going on? And this is where critical thinking comes in, right, when we're in that critical thinking place and we're thinking about trying to be what they said was fair minded. How can you be more compassionate toward yourself? How can you be more fair, give yourself more grace when especially when something happens where you're not maybe necessarily happy with your behavior or the outcome? How can you give yourself more grace? How can you be more compassionate and show up for yourself right as that sort of compassionate observer?
Speaker 1:
I think this starts with trying to work on having more of a positive regard for ourselves overall. This is something that I think is really important, right as a coach, to with my clients have sort of this unconditional positive regard where nothing they you know, say or do, like I have judgment about, it's just all fair game. We can talk about it all and there's no criticism of their behavior or anything that they've done. It's just like okay, let's look at why, let's have some compassion for ourselves, let's be nicer to ourselves around the behavior or the you know, inability to have gotten to the goal that we wanted to get to, or whatever it is, and so we can have this with ourselves. We can have this like, can have this with ourselves. We can have this like unconditional positive regard for ourselves, and I think that's really where it starts, and an easy way to tap into that is to think about if someone came to you with the same problem and even were saying the same things that maybe you're saying about yourself, how would you talk to them? What would you say to them? Because you're going to be so much more compassionate and have so much more love and positive regard for somebody else, and that's a way for you to tap into it for yourself.
Speaker 1:
And so this is where your self-coaching comes in handy. It's so good to write down what you're thinking and then kind of project it onto somebody else and, if someone else said that to you, write down the reply that you might have had for that person if they came to you with the same thing. And we take that a step further right after we do that and we start to just gently challenge it. And that's where our curiosity is really going to come into play, where we're just kind of like okay, so like, what do you even mean by you weren't, like that wasn't good? What do you even mean by you're not, you're not successful, like whatever your mean? Like voice is saying right, can you get in there and start kind of questioning what that mean voice is saying. Right, can you get in there and start kind of questioning what that mean voice is saying, and that's going to start to kind of disempower it a little bit.
Speaker 1:
Other things that you can do is if it's really gotten you into a state where you're riled up, where you have like big emotions about it, you've got to change your state. Oftentimes we're not really able to access our thinking brain when we're in a charged emotional state. So how can you change your emotional state? Can you focus on your breathing? Can you get more present in the moment, get up, take a walk, go outside, jump up and down, bounce your heels, whatever you can do to kind of physically shift your energy, and then it's going to be a little bit easier to kind of challenge the thinking that you have going on there. Another thing that really sort of disarms that voice is by actually like connecting with other people. So if you find that you're really like being so negative with yourself about something, right, you're really.
Speaker 1:
You did something that you're just like, oh, I'm so embarrassed by that. Like, take it to a friend, share your embarrassment with a friend Nine times out of 10, your friend is going to be like I've done the exact same thing, girl. Like don't even worry about it. I know it feels like shit right now, but like you're not going to die, everything's going to be okay, and like let's just talk it out, let's just. You know, like I'll feel it with you. I'll feel the embarrassment, because that's the antidote to shame. When we're willing to share something with someone, we take away the power of the shame. It becomes something that we no longer have to hide.
Speaker 1:
I was listening to You're Wrong About the podcast and they were talking about George Michael and when he was caught cruising in the park, he just refused to feel shame about it and he talked about it in interviews and he was just like I'm not going to feel bad about who I am, I'm not going to feel bad about this particular aspect of my gay culture, and he just refused to let people take the wind out of his sails. Now in the States here we like branded him as a bad person and sort of like forgot about him, which is so interesting because, like we're so concerned with ourselves that we don't think about the fact that like he was still a huge success in Europe, but like our whole gauge is like if you're not successful here, then like it doesn't matter, which is, you know, ridiculous anyway. Right, he just took the power away and he refused to be ashamed, and, and I think that that's like one of the best lessons that we can learn from anyone who decides to be unapologetically themselves. Um, is that like leaning in, letting it be awkward, letting it be uncomfortable, but like refusing to back down on loving ourselves, and so maybe this should be the first thing, but the last thing is expect that your inner critic is going to show up. Like I said, I don't think that there's an ability for us to completely silence it, but If we spend more time investing in that positive self-regard, we're definitely going to turn the volume down on it and lessen its impact and its hold on us, but let's expect that it's going to be there. Let's not believe that there is an actual way to completely get rid of that little voice inside of our head that sure, maybe started out as someone else externally saying these things to us, but like they're ingrained. We've practiced these things for so many years, for our entire life. Some of this stuff dates back to childhood and you know, you've got a good 40 years, maybe for some of us right where you've been practicing this way of thinking, and so let's not expect that it's all of a sudden one day just going to disappear Because we did a little work around it.
Speaker 1:
So when it shows up, maybe you want to name that voice, like who is that person? Give it a name, and then you're like oh, cheryl's, here, you know, like whatever I know, very lovely Cheryl's, I don't know why. That was just the first name that came to my mind, but maybe there's somebody in your life that, or somebody like out there in the world who you find to be like a very critical, negative person, and maybe you want to give them, give it that name, and like have a relationship where that which it could also help maybe like deescalate the way you feel about that person being like oh, of course, like this is just the way that you are. You just show up this way and that's okay. You're allowed to be here, you're allowed to have your opinion, but I'm not going to let your opinion about what I'm doing impact what I continue to do and how I move forward in my life, and that is the most important part. That is how we actually take back the power and take back control over our brains and our nervous systems by acknowledging it, but taking the wind out of its sails by being like you're fine, anything.
Speaker 1:
It doesn't get to control the radio, it doesn't get to tell you where to turn. It gets nothing, but it can be there. It can be a silent passenger, but no backseat driving from the inner critic. These are the things that I've been trying to practice with my own inner critic around, like just everything that I have going on I'm not going to get into my entire life right now, but like just my inability to show up in a way that I've wanted to show up. In the last few weeks especially, has been really frustrating and I've just been trying to give myself grace and I've just been noticing the quality of my thinking and trying to interact with my thinking in a way that is generous and compassionate and curious. So I hope that this helps you to do the same thing and I'll talk to you again soon. All right, friends, bye.