Silencing Your Inner Critical Voice
That critical voice in your head is part of who you are. Built up from years of negative experiences, the inner critic filters new experiences through the scars of these past wounds.
You can’t silence the inner critical voice in our heads, but you can acknowledge its presence and manage its influence. A simple ‘thanks, not now’ can be a powerful ‘in the moment’ strategy in this journey. This, however, is a short-term solution as we know they will return, and as the saying goes, “In order to get to it, you need to go through it.”
It is important to know that your inner critic is you, and its intent is to protect us, however often misinformed by old stories. Knowing this, when you are ready to dialogue with your inner critical voice, enter into the conversation with a state of grace and compassion, as you may find it has something good to say to protect you from repeating past mistakes or jumping into dangerous waters.
How is The Inner Critic Formed?
The inner critic comes from how we receive and process information. It’s a confirmation bias that feeds us a story of our lives that may not be true. It comes from the challenges we have faced, how we have dealt with them, and even how we have inherited critics from others.
We don’t know how that voice first forms. Michael Singer in ‘The Untethered Soul’ does a good job explaining it, however, we know it forms slowly over time, repeatedly telling us the same story and controlling our perception to strengthen its novel.
The critic says, ‘This has happened before, ‘filtering our experience to show that it’s happening again.
Inner Critic Work Leads to Curiosity and Compassion
Working on your inner critic has a ripple effect on how you treat yourself and others. Acknowledging and appreciating your inner critic allows you to be more self-compassionate.
The same pausing and dialoguing can be used in relationships with others.
Pausing allows you to look at your internal dialogue from another perspective and see what you can learn about yourself through the conversations that are happening in your mind.
It can also show you the filters you apply to others, aka your internal critics, twin siblings, your internal judges, and give you a healthy curiosity about how you exist in the world and relate to others.
Successful inner critic and judge work also affects your relationships and increases your curiosity about yourself and others. You learn to pause and reflect, which enables you to focus more on the truth in this moment and the task at hand and prevents you from getting sidetracked by old stories blurring what’s happening in this moment.
As you manage your own inner critics, you can recognize relationship barriers within yourself and those getting in the way of connecting with others.
Inner Critic Worksheet
This worksheet is intended to identify, track and manage your inner critic.
First, a journal or reflection on when your inner critic has been active will help you understand and even name it.
Then, by acknowledging and dialoguing with your inner critic, you can learn from your past but prevent your inner critic from taking the stage and misinforming the moment.
With a clearer heart and headed perspective, we can choose what to do with the inner critic’s input when it appears and threatens to take center stage. Proactively taking the time to listen, leverage/or not and let go of the inner critic opens space to hear and access our inner champion. Our inner champion is our unique wisdom, experience and skills that often get silenced by the energy of our critics and judges. Our critic and judge conversation gets quicker and less frequent with practice as our inner champion confidence enhances and takes top billing on our center stage.
At Lighthouse NINE Group, we believe that personal self-awareness is at the heart of the best leaders. Our personal development pathway guides leaders first to Knowing (getting clarity around their inner champion, including what they are good at and what they aren’t); Growing (developing a learning mindset to strengthen their champion); Letting Go (recognizing and addressing what is getting in the way); and Showing Up (thoughtfully and pro-actively choosing what is most needed of me in this moment).
Creating awareness of your inner champion and learning to manage both your inner critics and judges is just a few of the frameworks that we often include in both our coaching packages and leadership programs. To find out more about these concepts or offerings, feel free to reach out to me at greg@lighthouse9.ca.
Go Boldly into the World
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