Your Inner Critic Is Not You

A mistake that I see so many women make is believing that their Inner Critic is them and they are their Inner Critic.

I get it. For years, I thought my Inner Critic was me, too. The voice of your Inner Critic sounds like you. It talks like you. It says words that you would say.

Although the words coming from your Inner Critic sound like they are coming from you, this voice is not who you are.

Tara Mohr, author of "Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead" and expert on women's leadership and well-being, calls it, “the voice of not-me”.

Shadé Zahrai, Former Forbes Councils Member and Director of Influenceo Global Inc., describes our Inner Critic is “a sub-personality that judges us, demeans us, and indiscriminately shines a spotlight on our weaknesses.”

The reason believing your Inner Critic is you is dangerous because it is difficult to look objectively at what the Inner Critic is saying when you think that the thoughts are coming from you.

It is difficult to challenge those thoughts when you think that what your Inner Critic is saying to you is the gospel truth because it is coming from inside your own head.

It is difficult to put that critical voice into perspective and stop believing it so much because it feels like you.

To tame your Inner Critic, you must be able to look at it objectively, put it in perspective, challenge the thoughts, and stop believing every word that the Inner Critic says to you. Otherwise, it is going to continue to control your thoughts. You will continue to be powerless over your Inner Critic.

So how do you stop believing that your Inner Critic is you? 

You separate yourself from your Inner Critic as you would from a really toxic person in your life.

You do that through a technique called SLP. SLP stands for Stop, Label, and PQ Reps. It’s one of the three Inner Critic taming strategies I teach in my 8-week Tame Your Inner Critic Bootcamp.

Step 1: Stop: Whenever you become aware that you are criticizing yourself, comparing yourself to someone else, generalizing your faults, using “Should” statements, or personalizing, immediately stop what you are doing.

Step 2: Label: Observe your Inner Critic and simply call it out on what it is saying to you (as if you were calling out someone who was saying mean things to you.) 

Label it. Say "That is my Inner Critic talking." Say something like, “my Inner Critic thinks that I [fill in the blank with what the Inner Critic said]. 

For example, you might say, "There goes my Inner Critic again, judging me. My Inner Critic thinks that I am a failure because I made a mistake."

You might wonder how this simple act of observing and labeling could possibly have a big impact on you. It does and here’s why: Your Inner Critic does far greater damage when it does its work while hiding under the radar, pretending it is you. Observing and labeling it blows its cover and discredits its voice. 

Step 3: Do PQ Reps. A PQ Rep is the way you shift your attention from what your Inner Critic is saying. You shift as much of your attention as you can to your body and any of your five senses for at least ten seconds. For example, you rub two fingertips together with such attention that you can feel the fingertip ridges on both fingers or you listen intently to the farthest away sound you can hear. 

Paying attention to the sensations of your body essentially takes your Inner Critic offline for a few minutes so the part of your brain that serves you can take over.

So let me ask you. Do you really want to keep believing that your Inner Critic is you and continue to let it drown out the voice in your head that serves and supports you? Or do you want to weaken your Inner Critic so you can be in control of your thoughts and feelings?