Hello!
In case you missed them, you can read:
And I really recommend that you read those parts before diving into today’s work - as today’s work won’t make much sense without the context of those two articles!
Today we are going to dive into WHY most of us have that ‘inner critic’ we can’t seem to get rid of.
Why we struggle to find self compassion even when we want to, why we default to blame, shame and guilt even when we’re practicing showing up for ourselves with love and compassion, and why getting that inner critic to shift gears to being on our side is so challenging.
This is not because the inner critic is bad, or because it’s something we actively need to fight or try to get rid of.
This is because the inner critic is actually trying to HELP us.
As counter-intuitive as it may seem at first, when we understand the ROOTS of the inner critic/self hating voice, when we get where this voice is coming from and what it’s trying to do, we are likely going to find that we have a MUCH easier time working with it and a much easier time shifting from self hate to self love.
Let’s dive into the positive intention of the inner critic today, so that we can better learn how to deal with this voice and we can give this voice what it NEEDS so that it can feel safe enough to allow us to step into compassion and curiosity instead of being stuck in shame, blame and guilt.
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The Inner Critic - A Voice Of PROTECTION
The reality is, your inner critic is a voice that is trying to help you.
It’s a part of you that genuinely believes that if it can figure out how your pain is your fault, if it can place all the blame of the pain you’re feeling on you and your behavior, if it can sort out how YOU are to blame for what’s happening in your life that hurts - that in this you’re going to be able to find your agency and way forward in life.
As you read in the previous articles, your inner critic, that shame, blame and guilt voice, those thoughts that tell you that YOU are the cause of all of your pain, that voice that blames and shames you for your coping mechanisms and self sabotage, that voice that comes to tell you how your sadness, fear, loneliness and anger are a flaw in you that must be fixed, that voice that tells you that you’re inadequate and never good enough, the voice that tells you that the reason others treat you in a way that’s painful is because you deserve it/have manifested it/aren’t doing life right, that voice that constantly shows up to remind you of your mistakes, that voice that tells you that the reason your life isn’t good is because you are weak, lazy, unmotivated, incapable and stuck, that voice that tells you it’s shameful to be codependent, to need others, to fear others, to long for validation and approval and the voice that tells you that who and what you are is simply not good - is a voice that’s trying to HELP you.
It’s a voice that was developed in your childhood where the only control you had over your life and thus how you felt, was within the realm of your own behavior.
This is the voice that was born when you were totally dependent upon the people around you to care for you, understand you and to meet all of your needs - and where the ONLY influence you had over how they treated you was to learn what they wanted/didn’t want/liked/disliked and to try to BE that for them.
This is the voice that believes that if it can pinpoint your pain as being caused by something that YOU are doing/not doing/being/not being that in THIS you will have the POWER to change that pain into pleasure.
The inner critic is trying to figure out how you are failing to live up to the expectations of those around you/your past conditioning of what it meant to be ‘good’ and therefore acceptable and lovable - so that it can change you.
It wants to figure out how to get out of pain when you’re in pain. It want’s to rescue you from possible rejection. It wants to keep you in line with your conditioning and it wants you to be what those around you in your childhood wanted you to be and what those around you now want you to be - because it still believes that to be accepted, approved of and to live in alignment with your conditioning IS to be loved and that to be LOVED is the one way to get your needs met.
It is the part of you that can’t yet see that you are an adult with adult autonomy, power and choice.
It is the part of you that just wants you to fit in so that you will be SAFE and thus you will be given what you NEED in order to grow.
Because in your childhood, this is exactly how it appeared to you that life worked.
It appeared to you that if you could be pleasing enough, if you could fit in enough, if you could live up to expectation enough, that in THIS you would be PERFECTLY loved.
That if you could be perfectly loved, you would then get all of your needs met - it believes that in order to be SAFE, in order to be provided for, in order to have access to all that you need to grow, learn, express and be yourself - you first need PERFECT acceptance, approval and love from those around you.
It believes that any deviation from pleasure, safety and getting your needs met is a result of being rejected somehow, and that the SOLUTION to all pain is ALWAYS to figure out who was upset by what we just did, and how to fix that by fitting back in, so that we will be loved and therefore safe.
It is the part of you that doesn’t understand that we don’t live in a perfect world, that perfect safety doesn’t exist, that there isn’t actually a way to never experience pain and that doesn’t see that now that you are an adult you can be rejected and still get your needs met, still have what you want, still express and still be ok.
The inner critic is a young part of you that is stuck in the childhood perspective that the way to getting what you want is through approval and approval only.
Any part of you that perpetually seemed to cause you pain, was naturally going to become a part of you that you learned to resist, to see as evil, to see as wrong or bad and to see as an existential threat to you and your survival.
So it’s natural from there, to try to change/fix/get rid of/fight against/criticize or otherwise try to alter these parts of yourself in an attempt to MAKE yourself safe.
The more we were antagonized, unsupported, directly or indirectly told that parts of ourselves were bad, wrong, shameful, the reason people didn’t like us/didn’t care for us, the more we were going to learn coping strategies that involved trying to get rid of/change/fix parts of ourselves in order to try to get TO a place of safety.
The ways that we try to fix/change/alter/get rid of parts of ourselves can now be overt or covert as well - we may be directly trying to change our personality/way of being through things like personal growth, self help and spirituality, or we may find ourselves using substance, other forms of numbing or stimulating, self sabotage, and outright faking who we are in order to change ourselves.
We may find that now we have that inner critic that is constantly ‘on alert’ for any sense that someone around us may be upset with us as a way of trying to ‘get out ahead’ of attack and ridicule by being our OWN worst critic.
We may find that we are hyper defensive and isolated in order to protect ourselves.
We may find that we have automatic assumptions about what’s ‘good enough’ in terms of what we should be and do - and that we are assuming the whole world is judging us based on this criteria and finding us coming up short.
We may find ourselves as either workaholics or people who continually over-extend and give way too much to the point of resentment and burnout - trying to ‘earn’ our goodness, or that we end up in a situation where we are constantly in a state of overwhelm and shutdown - not really able to be and do what we set out to be and do for fear that we won’t do it perfectly (and thus we will fail/be criticized) and thus shouldn’t bother doing it at all.
There are SO many ways this can manifest - but again we have to remember that at it’s CORE - this self hate is a protective mechanism.
It’s our way of trying to make ourselves safe by attempting to make ourselves ‘perfect’ - because deep down we believe that if we ARE to perfect ourselves, we will then be able to find a PERFECT and SAFE environment where no pain ever happens again, and in that we believe we will FINALLY be free to express ourselves and grow in all the ways we want to express ourselves and grow.
THAT Is what we’re actually reaching for with all the self help, spirituality, personal growth, coping, numbing, self sabotage and scapegoating.
We are trying to get rid of the pain of rejection - and all the ways that we weren’t supported/were antagonized - so that we can FINALLY have that PERFECT space to EXPRESS.
THAT’S why we hate ourselves.
What We Actually Want
Again, this all boils down to wanting one thing.
Safety.
We want a safe environment where we are free to be our true selves, where we are free to express as we really are - so that we can GROW into what is natural for us to grow into.
THAT is what’s at the CORE of all of our self hate, and all of the ways we try to change, fix and alter our natural selves.
It’s a snake eating its own tail situation that many of us never realize we’re in.
We are stuck in a situation where we are trying to make ourselves what we think the outside world wants us to be - in the hopes that if we do this enough we will finally be LOVED.
We hope that in this LOVE we will then be seen and appreciated for who we ARE.
Then from there, we have an unconscious belief that with this perfect love, THEN we will finally be perfectly provided for, all pain will go away, and we will be allowed to BE. To be our full selves, to express what’s true for us, to explore what’s real for us and to become all that we are naturally meant to become.
THAT’S what we want.
Safety, so we can have our needs met, so we can be protected from pain and so we can focus on growth and expansion.
So what do we do with this information?
First. Sit with it.
Don’t take my word for it - rather I would like to encourage you to really consider if what I am saying feels TRUE and real for YOU.
Because if it doesn’t - then discard it! This isn’t about just believing me - rather it’s about you taking the time to really consider and assess what you are feeling, where you’re at and what’s true for you in this moment.
Check out this video for more as well
Next, if this DOES feel pertinent to you - for most of us we need to go through a phase of grieving.
We need to go through a period of time where we allow ourselves to get mad, sad, resentful and down right UPSET about all the ways we were taught that who and what we are is the reason we didn’t get what we needed. We need to move past the shame, guilt and all the ways we believe OURSELVES to be inadequate, horrible, wrong and bad - so that we can see the TRUE emotions we have laying wait underneath.
Because the reality it, shame and guilt are ALWAYS lies - they are our childhood protective mechanism driving us to focus on ourselves, to try to fix ourselves so that we will fit in, as a way of trying to get rid of whatever pain we’re in.
Check out this video for more on this
We need to let ourselves get upset about what we went through, how we were hurt and harmed and how we were convinced either overtly or covertly that our suffering was our fault so we can start to get out of our shame and guilt spirals. This will allow us to contact the REAL emotions we are feeling - the anger, sadness, repulsion, awareness of what wasn’t ok and what hurt us, awareness of what didn’t work and awareness of what we ACTUALLY did want and need and how we didn’t get that - and this will lead us to new awareness.
From here, as we start to really understand where our TRUE emotions are coming from, we can start to understand what we actually want and need.
We don’t actually want to perfect ourselves. We don’t actually want to change for the sake of change.
What we WANT is to feel GOOD.
So as we move past shame and guilt and get into our REAL emotions, we can then start to see more clearly what has hurt us, why it hurt, what we wanted, what we needed, what we didn’t want, what we didn’t need - and in THIS we are going to start to become aware of what’s ACTUALLY important to us, what we need to thrive and what we need to change in our lives or ways of being that will ACTUALLY make things better for us.
We will start to see what we wanted out of that safe space - we wanted a safe love, we wanted to be able to explore this or that interest, we wanted freedom from this or that pattern or way of being that didn’t feel good for us, we wanted out of a religion, we wanted to explore this academic pursuit, we wanted to be able to express ourselves in this or that way - and then we can start to see that we are now adults who have POWER.
We can start to grieve the fact that we will never have a ‘perfect’ situation. That no perfect love will ever exist that allows for us to escape all pain and to live only in pleasure.
We may have to grieve not having access to what we actually want. Not being able to create the circumstances that we feel we need. Not being able to change our own way of being to be healthier and more supportive for how we want and need to live.
THIS is all part of growing into adult reality.
Realizing what we want and need, and then having to be realistic about what’s actually available to us and what isn’t in our current ADULT lives - and learning to work with that.
We are going to come to the harsh realization that that perfect love, that perfect environment can’t ever exist - no matter how much we perfect ourselves and no matter how loved we are - we aren’t ever going to find perfect safety - and that is a hard pill to swallow.
But if we are able to, if we are able to process the grief and loss of that, we are going to find a lot of empowerment on the other side.
We are then going to find that while we don’t have perfect control, while others still do affect us and our outcomes, that while we may not be able to create an ideal situation for ourselves right now - that we can always take STEPS.
We can learn to become our own safe place, and we can learn to handle that inner critic with love and compassion. We can learn to witness all the ways we beat ourselves up, criticize ourselves and run from ourselves as that childhood coping mechanism that it is - we can thank that inner critic for trying to protect us from pain.
Then we can realize that we ARE IN PAIN.
Then rather than trying to fix ourselves, we can look deeper - what are we ACTUALLY feeling if it’s not shame, blame and guilt? What are the ACTUAL emotions? What are the actual circumstances and why don’t they feel good for us? Is this something that hurts in REAL reality or something we THINK is going to lead to pain based on the past?
Then we can start to show up for who and what we are, validating our current state and emotions, and processing that in any way we can. Allowing ourselves to be upset, to be sad, to be mad, to feel helpless or hopeless for a while.
Then from there, we can start to assess the power we now have as an adult. We can look for where we are capable of shifting or changing what’s happening to make it BETTER.
Not perfect.
Not ideal.
But what are the steps we are capable of taking that will move the life needle in the direction we want it to move in?
Can we take those little steps, allow them to be enough for now, and look for our next steps later?
Whether that be changing something in the internal or the external - the new goal is no longer trying to perfect ourselves by some external standard, but rather it’s looking pragmatically at what will ACTUALLY make us feel better - learning to regulate emotions in a new way, learning to support ourselves in a new way, asking for help, asking for support, shifting a relationship, starting a job, quitting a job - all of these things will be a part of it! - so we can work TOWARDS taking those steps the best that we can, one step at a time.
THAT’S the process.
It’s not easy.
It’s going to be slow, messy and all over the place.
That inner critic will come up and convince you that it really IS your fault that you aren’t being loved, that you are to blame, that you are bad, wrong and shameful - and that’s ok.
Learning to recognize what you are ACTUALLY feeling and wanting isn’t easy - and it takes lots of time and self reflection.
Letting go of the hope of perfect love and validation so we can finally be our full selves without pain is not easy. This takes a lot of time.
So be patient with yourself.
Go slow.
Use the videos in my youtube channel to help.
Work with a trusted therapist.
Follow other self help teachers.
Take it SLOW and be really, really gentle on yourself.
There is no bad part of you, and you are doing your best.
One step at a time.
That’s all this is.
<3
Are you sick of the self help roller coaster that leaves you constantly striving and never arriving?
Are you ready for a true spiritual path that connects you to yourself and reality so you can feel good about your life?
Then come check out the Mystery School.
The school is a 4-5 year self paced program that includes written lectures, videos, worksheets, practices and a community all designed to help you develop a clearer view of yourself, your life and reality at large so that you can better design a life that actually works for you.
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