Dear Inner Critic of mine,
Wow you’ve been strong lately. As I try to take steps forward, follow my heart, my dreams, you show up.
“It won’t work out”,
“Who are you to be doing this?”
“It’s not good enough”.
You ask for perfectionism, and so you keep me paralyzed in this safe space of nonaction where I cannot risk doing anything wrong since I’m not doing anything at all.
But in this space it hurts, my heart cries out, it has dreams, desires, things to express, a path to walk.
Dismissing you, pushing you away, doesn’t help either. It only deepens the cycle. You quiet down for a while, but you always return.
We all hold dreams in our hearts; things we want to do, things we wish to express, words we need to say, songs to sing, books to write. We have aspirations. We were all once children dreaming of a life ahead, full of hope and ambition.
For most of us, somewhere along the way came a voice of criticism: “Who are you to do that?”
We look at those who dare with admiration: the writers, speakers, etc, but cast ourselves into some separate category, as if we don’t have what it takes.
The critic is a scary part of us; we often don’t like to look at it, to try to understand it. So we may experience the critic strongly, then try our best to push it away to save ourselves from the sting of its judgments. We can go on and on like this.
But what if we learn to own this part of us? What if we decided it’s time to stop pushing it away and dare to look at it face-to-face when it shows up?
To get to know it, be curious about it, understand it, transform our relationship with this part to one of friendship, where our critics can be our advisors rather than enemies.
How the inner critic is born
We live in societies and cultures with high demands. From childhood, there are many expectations placed on us by parents, schools. Pretty early on, we are exposed to the harshness of life, from parents, teachers, friends, and the culture. We may have experienced rejection, being shamed, being emotionally neglected, or being punished for having feelings and needs, maybe we felt unsafe sometimes.
These experiences, even if not so dramatic or threatening, often cause deep pain for a child. This is where the inner critic is born. A voice starts to form within us, one that resembles what we heard from the outside. This voice tries to manage us and our lives, controlling us, in order to keep us away from feeling the pain from these early experiences, and to avoid new pain.
The critic has the logic of “If I judge you first, then no one else will”. It’s the part that holds you back from showing yourself, because if you show yourself, maybe you are rejected, and that hurts, so it’s safer to not do anything at all.
Another example: you want to do something for yourself, and the critic may say, “you’re selfish”. This sounds harsh and cruel, but often it is saying “stop! You’re about to do something that once made you lose love”.
In Internal Family Systems (IFS), the inner critic is considered a protector part that is simply trying to keep you safe from getting hurt again and from having experiences that trigger past pain.
We get frustrated at this critic that appears to want to keep us small, stuck, suppresses our needs, prevents us from speaking our truths, stating our boundaries, and being authentic.
But the only reason it does so is that it feels that by staying small, quiet, by fitting in, by pleasing, we will stay connected, we will be accepted and loved.
My take on the critic and women
In my own journey, I’ve come to see that my inner critic is also tied to being a woman.
I come from women who had to be small. Who served their husbands. Who lived inside an Asian culture where women were expected to be passive, to follow, to take up as little space as possible. More rules. More expectations. More ways to do wrong.
They were put in boxes. Small boxes.
I feel this memory living on inside me, turning into a critic that speaks the same expectations, the same harsh judgements, trying to put me in a similar box.
Part of my work has been slowly seeing that things have changed. That for me to have a loud voice, to be fully myself, is safe now. That I don’t have to follow what my mother and grandmother had to do.
That there is space for me. That I am allowed to take my place.
This is bigger than just me.
It lives in the body, in the nervous system, across generations. And it takes time, and tenderness, to unlearn.
Transforming the critic
We see now that our mean inner critics are vulnerable parts of us that are so scared of being disconnected, scared to be hurt.
Often when the critic emerges, it makes life harder, it puts us in our heads, we get overthinking, we start spiraling, and we cannot take action – it can be paralysing. So we look to our critics in frustration, wishing and praying that they would leave us alone.
At least for me, this was very much the case. I have been confronted by my critic many times, and often I would be in full resistance. I would notice how I would feel less confident, small, and insecure, and I would get so frustrated by this.
The critic felt like this big antagonist, villain, trying to sabotage me and keep me weak and disempowered. I would be in an angry dialogue with my critic, “Come on, just let me be, let me do my thing.” But it would show up again and again.
Then I saw this critic is so scared, is hurt, and feels rejected. And my reaction and response to it was a mean one of rejection. It was like a cycle:
Inner critic is mean to me → I am mean to the critic → critic continues to be mean → and so the cycle continues.
This is a counterintuitive process. How can we expect to transform this critic by rejecting it?
When we reject our critic, we are doing exactly what caused the critic to be born in the first place.
This hurts to see, doesn’t it?
What did we need when we were younger and showed our feelings and were put down and dismissed? We may have felt deep abandonment and pain. Then came our inner critic.
What did we need in that moment? I bet most of us just needed someone to see we were in pain, someone to take their time to console us, to support us, to hold us, to ease our pain, to reassure us that things are okay, that we are okay, and we need to keep shining bright.
We all missed this in some moments, and this is the medicine we can work towards offering to our inner self, especially our inner critic.
Take a moment to meet your critic, to get to know it with curiosity and kindness. When it plays up again, see what it’s doing.
What is it trying to protect you from?
What is it scared may happen?
What feelings and pain may be keeping it in this pattern?
What is it that needs to be processed, release these feelings and pain?
Can you offer it this? Can you be there for it?
I learned the hard way that when I want to take action, and my critic is present, the solution is not to push her away and try to keep going, but to take a moment to acknowledge that she is present, to make contact with curiosity, and reassure her. To be sweet.
The critic needs deep love; it’s that simple. It needs to be cared for like a hurt child. It needs patience, care, and softness, even if it tries to fight you away at first.
What the critic teaches me
In this way, our critics become a doorway to ourselves, our inner worlds, our past hurts, our deep pain, and trauma. Learning to be with the critic builds resilience, self-trust, and our capacity to remain present with difficult parts of ourselves. I bet some of us have had external manifestations of this critic in the form of colleagues, partners, friends?
When able to befriend the critic, it will be less strong; it can perhaps transform into an advisor. Our critic can show us where we must be careful, where we can be more thorough, and it can keep us sharp, keep high quality in our work.
Our critic can show up with such a force sometimes; this energy, this force can be transformed into a force that protects us and keeps us true to ourselves. The very things it can keep us away from – authenticity, expressing our feelings, boundaries – it can support us in sticking to.
So, dear sweet Inner Critic of mine,
You are still here today. But you are more relaxed now. You trust me more. And I have so much more love for you.
Thank you for your hard work in protecting me.
You’ve been working hard for a long time.
I hope you can see now that I grew up, I’m an adult now, and I’m doing quite well, and I’m happy.
I don’t need you to work so hard to protect me anymore.
It’s my turn now to look after you, to understand you, and to be there for you.
I invite you to join me as a friend and advisor as we navigate through this crazy life.
Trust in me, dear critic
Let me be me
Let me speak my truth
Let me show myself
Let me shine.
Love,
Upeka
If this resonated with you…
The relationship we have with our inner critic can change. We don’t have to spend our lives fighting ourselves.
If you’re longing to understand these protective parts more deeply and cultivate a gentler relationship with yourself, I’d be honoured to walk alongside you.