So You've Got a Loud Inner Critic?
So you’ve got a loud inner critic? Now what? How on earth am I going to turn her down, she’s constantly running in my head! Or maybe, you’re not even sure what an inner critic is, but you just know that you have all these negative thoughts in your head and you’re sick of all the mean things it tells you and all the pressure you put on yourself. Before we dive in though, let’s take it back a notch and learn a bit more about the inner critic.
What is an inner critic?
Your inner critic is the negative self-talk that says “you’re not pretty enough, smart enough, skinny enough, funny enough, you’ll never get the job, the car, the house, the boy…” blah blah blah. It’s those negative and very critical thoughts that run around in your head and keep you in a world of pain and fear.
Where did it even come from then!?
We all have two main operating systems – love or fear. We can have thoughts that are either from a place of love or or a place of fear. Our behaviours and actions can either be from love or fear. For example, you can choose to exercise from a place of love. You love the way that exercise makes you feel, you love going to an exercise class and socialising. Or you could choose to exercise from a place of fear, where your inner critic tells you that you must exercise to loose weight, to be skinny, to fit into those jeans of yours… etc. Can you see how the decision to exercise can come from two very different places and make you feel two very different feelings.
The inner critic, as you guessed, is from a fear-based thinking system. It’s very harsh and so often thinks of the worst cause scenario. Some people call it the ‘ego’ or your ‘inner mean girl’. I like to call it the inner critic, because it is just that – it critiques us, the world, situations and scenarios.
We ALL have an inner critic and it’s designed to keep us safe. It doesn’t want us getting hurt, or “failing” so it prevents us from even trying. It’s very sneaky and clever! For some of us, we may not know any different, we’ve just been listening to our inner critic on repeat in our heads all day. But there is another way…
The voice of intuition
Your intuition is the opposite to your inner critic. The intuition is that deep sense of knowing, it’s the voice of love or of your soul. Some people call it your soul’s voice, intuition, love, the divine, the universe. Your intuition comes from a place of love. It’s soft and gentle, yet firm and strong. It’s that gut feeling you get about someone or something, when you just KNOW something is just not quite right, or you get the urge that you just have to do something.
So how do you stop listening to your inner critic and start to listen to your intuition more?
1. Firstly, we have to realise that the inner critic will never go away. It will always be there, but we can learn to start to turn the volume down on it, recognise it and then gently close the door on it and choose to listen to your intuition.
2. Becoming aware of your inner critic is vital.
Your inner critic sounds like this: “You should” or “shouldn’t do xyz”,
“you’re not pretty/smart/skinny/strong/worthy enough for that….”
“Who do you think you are, you’ll never get the job, the success, the house, the relationship…..”
3. When your inner critic pops up, recognise that it’s just the inner critic up to it’s nasty ways again, say thanks critic, but “I got this!”. Close the door on that thought and instead, choose a more loving one.
Now this doesn’t happen overnight, it takes practice, but it will become easier to catch it in its sneaky ways!
4. Choose to listen to your loving voice of intuition.
Turning the volume down on your inner critic takes time and practise, but I promise is does get easier, and once you get really good at seeing the inner critic for what it is, you’ll smile to yourself as you catch it when it’s up to no good again.