Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it - Edmund Burke
What does history have to do with our inner critic? Well, a lot actually. Before I go into this, let me first explain to you what is an "inner critic".
Psychologist Eugene Sagan described the inner critic as the negative inner voice in your mind that attacks and judges you. It blames you for things that go wrong, compares you to others and sets impossible standards of perfection, and then it beats you up for the smallest mistake. This inner critic keeps a record of all your past failures but never applauds you for your successes and achievements in life.
The inner critic has a script defining how to live your life, what you should be like, and how you should behave. It screams at you when you are wrong, and may even call you names - stupid, ugly, incompetent, useless, weak, unworthy - and makes you believe that all of them are true.
This inner critic is a mind reader and convinces you that your friends or others don't like you, think you are boring or that they don't want you around. It exaggerates your weaknesses by insisting that you always say stupid things or that you always screw up or that you are not a good friend/parent or person. It reminds you that you are not good enough.
Can you relate to any or all of this? Not very long ago, I could too. I, too, had my own version of an inner critic.
The inner critic causes a lot of damage - and it is sneaky you see! While it is at work undermining your self-worth every single day of your life, it is so insidious, so woven into the fabric of your mind, you aren't even noticing the damage it is causing!!
It hacks your mind and with every attack, it weakens and breaks down any good feelings you have about yourself until your self-worth is completely destroyed. We all have an inner critic, and it varies in degree of harm, but it is there.
So where does it come from and why is it there in the first place?
Remember my post when I spoke on the conscious and unconscious mind? (If not, go take a look, it is worth the read!) To a large degree, we inherit our unconscious beliefs through our genetic and environmental conditioning. When you were a child, everything you experienced was influenced by those around you including their beliefs, values, traditions, expectations, etc.,
As a child, you had no capacity to reject ideas so everything you learned and experienced embedded itself directly into your subconscious. So, any ideas you were exposed to repeatedly were being planted into the fertile soil of your mind and took root into your subconscious which controls almost every aspect of your life. Some ideas were positive, others not so much.
Consider moments as a child when you were disciplined by your parents, teachers, or others in your life. They praised and hugged you for the appropriate behaviour or choices and punished or scolded you for dangerous, wrong, or annoying behaviour. Let's call these punishing events "forbidden gestures".
By design, these "forbidden gestures" are rejecting and frightening. For example, a child who is disciplined through a spanking or scolding feels the withdrawal of parental approval very acutely. For a while, a child might label him or herself as a bad person and feel rejected. The more frequent the occurrences of these experiences, the more impact they have on the child's psyche and the stronger the emotional residues. The experience of being bad can be very deeply felt by a child who depends on their parents for emotional and physical nourishment.
Please understand, that as children, we must make mistakes to learn. That is a critical and healthy part of child development. What I am trying to say is that the occasional scolding or slap on the hand or bum isn't going to destroy a child's sense of worth. The frequency and severity of these experiences will. If a child is constantly being yelled at, scolded, slapped, ignored, neglected, or criticized, they retain conscious and unconscious memories of these experiences and grow up with unavoidable emotional scars that consequently affect their self-worth.
So as a child, if I was criticized by my parents for the way I dressed, did my hair, talked, or for the way I expressed myself, I might walk away from that experience feeling rejected by my family. Or if I was constantly yelled at for requesting a hug, for juice, or for attention, I likely would feel a sense of rejection. I think you understand.
And so, the volume and viciousness of an inner critic's attack are directly linked to the strength of a child's feelings of rejection in childhood. If the early forbidding gestures were relatively mild, the adult critic may only rarely attack. But if a child is given very strong messages about their wrongness, unwantedness, or badness, then the adult critic will attack with strength.
Do you understand why history plays a big role in how you experience your inner critic?
The point of this exercise was not to relive the past - the past is done and there is nothing about it that we can change. I was merely trying to help you understand where your inner critics come from and now that you know and understand, let's come back to the now!
So why do we listen to it then?
It's simple really. We reinforce it.
Wait, what!?
Yep, it's true!
Here is how this happens. (Please note the following ideas are not mine. I am sharing with you the knowledge I have acquired through my research on this topic. These examples are from McKay and Fanning's book on Self-Esteem.)
The need to do right. We all have internal "rules" and values that regulate our behaviour. These rules are mostly helpful because they control dangerous impulses and provide a sense of structure in your life. They create a sort of ethical framework by defining what is moral and immoral, how to act in certain scenarios, and so on. When you violate these rules, your life begins to feel chaotic and you lose your sense of worth. So, your critic helps you follow these "rules". It, relentlessly, reminds you how bad you are when you break these rules. Reinforcement.
The need to feel right. Even when it is telling you that you are no good, the critic can paradoxically help you feel a greater sense of self-worth - but, only temporarily. The critic helps you feel better for a bit by comparing you to others and by setting high, perfectionist standards. The inner critic continually judges how you stack up in terms of intelligence, achievements, salary, attractiveness, openness, social competence, etc., Many times we may find ourselves lacking and less worthy, but, sometimes, once in a while, we decide that we are prettier, better looking, smarter, whatever, and that moment's satisfaction is reinforcing. Most efforts to compare ourselves will leave us feeling pretty crappy, but those moments when it pays off, keep us caught up in the cycle of comparison.
Another way our critic is reinforced is by setting up incredibly high standards for our performance at work, as a lover, parent, or what have you. Most of the time we fail to live up to the critic's demands, but if everything miraculously comes together in perfection, things feel really good, temporarily. The critic keeps insisting on perfection because it feels so good when we are, even for a short while, "perfect".
A final example here. Feeling accepted by critical parents. To meet this need our inner critic joins forces with your parents in attacking you. Every time we use a critical self-statement that agrees with our parents' negative judgments, we are reinforced by feeling close to them. We may even feel safer, more accepted, and loved. I know this sounds crazy, but familiarity can sometimes be comfortable.
The need to achieve. Our critic in this sense helps us achieve goals by whipping us into shape. Our critic adopts a vicious position on achieving our goals, and if we don't, it reminds us of our incompetence. And every time the critic drives us to achieve these goals, its battering is reinforced.
The need to control painful feelings. When the critic helps us to diminish or minimize painful feelings, it is highly reinforced. On a deep level, we all have doubts about our worth. This doubt can lead to extreme feelings of inadequacy, which can be so extremely painful we will do anything to escape the pain. Enter the critic. the critic helps us cope by creating impossible standards of perfection, but as long as these standards drive us to be perfect, we no longer feel inadequate.
The fear of failure. Our inner critics will often remind us of our incompetence by telling us we can't do something or that we aren't smart enough, or whatever. Under this barrage of self-rejecting statements, we decide to delay the goal or abandon it altogether, and immediately our anxiety lowers. Our critic is very useful in protecting us against anxiety relating to change and risk-taking.
The fear of rejection. Mind reading is a skill adopted by our inner critic which serves to protect us by helping us to "anticipate" rejection, failure, or defeat, which won't hurt so badly when it does come. The critic's mind reading is reinforced on a ratio schedule. That means that once in a while, the critic correctly predicts some hurt or rejection lessening the pain.
In addition, our inner critic attacks us for all our flaws and shortcomings, leaving nothing for others to say we haven't yet heard which helps relieve anxiety about being attacked by others.
This process is the same for feelings of anger and guilt. One way to control the anxiety about making others angry, our critic turns the anger on ourselves.
These examples are but a few. Outlining them in this way was meant to encourage you to think about your own inner critic and how its attacks are being reinforced within and by you! So now that you have an idea of what an inner critic looks like, now it's time to catch it in the act!
The good news is that, as an adult, you have the capacity to reject ideas and thoughts that do not serve you and replace them with a new story, or positive affirmations!
To gain control of the inner critic, you must start by hearing it. You must start noticing when it is speaking to you. And when it does, you must actively tell it to stop. Replace its negative message with the truth.
For the next week, monitor your critic. Keep track, on paper, of when your critic attacks. Take note of the time, place, or event and the message it is telling you. Notice patterns and trends of when your inner critic attacks.
You will begin seeing times during which you are the most vulnerable.
For example, you might notice your anxiety and inner critic being at their worst when you need to complete a certain task. Your inner critic might be reminding you of your incompetence. You can address its message of incompetence with "I have done it successfully many times because I AM capable". The more you do this, over time, your inner critic will be silenced.
The inner critic can be tough on you, but you can be harder on it. Remember, the only limits you have are the limits you believe!
Perfectly Imperfect,
Stephanie
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