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Befriend your inner critic
You can do this in retrospect or in the moment you catch your inner critic speaking to you.
Imagine your inner critic as a being that lives inside your brain and talks to you. Rather than taking what it says (eg, ‘You’re so pathetic’) to be true or criticizing it for speaking up at all, approach your inner critic with curiosity — an ‘Oh, it’s you again’ attitude. Reflect, either internally or through journaling, on what your inner critic is trying to tell you.
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Self-criticism doesn’t work
- When we respond with self-criticism in moments of emotional pain, we’re making a deliberate effort to reduce our suffering.
- But it’s not that simple. Self-criticism doesn’t increase your sense of control, but rather tricks your brain into feeling in control. Instead of prote...
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Self-compassion: the beneficial alternative
Self-compassion is being an ally to yourself rather than an enemy.
It involves three closely connected components:
- Self-kindness is as it sounds: it’s the act of treating yourself kindly, rather than with harsh criticism.
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Identify your values
You’ll find that practicing self-compassion is more effective when directed towards supporting your needs, rather than being a vague promise to be kinder to yourself.
To understand your needs, you must first have some sense of what you value most in life. It’s in the momen...
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Talk to a younger version of yourself
When you offer compassion to a younger version of yourself, you’re stepping out of the cognitive rigidity that typically fuels your self-criticism and feelings of shame.
By externalizing and connecting with a version of yourself that isn’t technically present, you might find you can more e...
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Learn to identify self-criticism
Recognizing that you’ve fallen into self-criticism is the crucial first step in saving yourself from it and practicing more self-compassion:
- Did I call myself names?
- Was I looking for the worst-case scenario?
- Did I use words like ‘should’ or ‘must...
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Self-compassion doesn’t always come easy
Despite the extensive research demonstrating the mental and physical benefits of self-compassion, it’s an often unknown, overlooked, or even avoided practice.
- Some people are unfamiliar with self-compassion because it was never, or only infrequently, modeled by their parents or ca...
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Reframe judgmental thoughts as factual ones
If your inner critic said: ‘I’m so nosy. I shouldn’t have asked such personal questions,’ you would restate this as factually as possible. For example: ‘I asked one question about my boss’s marriage that, in this moment, I wish I hadn’t asked.’
Stripping down the situation to its i...
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Other curated ideas on this topic:
Say stop to your inner critic.
We all have an inner critic.
You can do this by creating a stop-word or stop-phrase.
- As the critic says something – in your mind – shout: STOP!
- Or No, no, no, we are not going there.
Then refocus your thought...
Your Inner Critic
While you're trying to follow your resolution, there will be inevitable obstacles and slip-ups that will discourage you. Do not punish yourself, just stop your inner critic from whispering negative things in your mind and carry on with your good work.
You can also try to reward yoursel...
Your inner critic was always an outer critic
... who has been internalized. You're speaking to yourself as someone else once talked to you or made you feel.
You should acknowledge your failures and be happy to make amends. But you also have to stand back from this critic and question what they are doing in your mind....
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