A theme in my practice is helping a client renegotiate their relationship with their inner critic, and I've developed a set of principles that guide our work together on this topic:
- Our inner critic has our best interests at heart.
- And until now they've served us well.
- But our life has changed since they first emerged, as have we.
- So their guidance is increasingly unhelpful.
- But efforts to banish them will generate fierce resistance.
- The solution: Renegotiate the relationship.
What do I mean by all this? And how can we put these ideas into practice?
Our inner critic has our best interests at heart.
We often apply disapproving labels to our inner critic such as "gremlin" or "saboteur." There can certainly be value to this approach, not only because it allows us to establish a sense of distance from this aspect of ourselves and view it more objectively, but also because it helps us envision and personify our inner critic, which is helpful in engaging it in a dialogue. But a problem with these labels is that they presume an antagonistic relationship, and in my experience the opposite is far more common: Our inner critic desperately wants us to succeed. It may be hopelessly misguided or tragically inept, but rather than deliberately seeking to undermine us, it has our best interests at heart. By assuming good intentions, we can engage our inner critic far more productively.
And until now they've served us well.
The paradox is that until our inner critic became an obstacle to be overcome, it served a useful purpose in our lives. It motivated us to raise our aspirations and do better work. It encouraged us to shake off complacency and try harder. It protected us from embarrassing oversights and fateful missteps. This was often unpleasant, of course--inner critics aren't known for their subtlety or tact. They probably used harsh language or employed crude tactics, such as reminding us of the cost of failure and stoking our fears and anxieties. But in the initial stages of our life and career when our inner critic first emerged, this may have been the only way we knew how to motivate ourselves.
But our life has changed since they first emerged, as have we.
And yet we're no longer at the outset of our life and career, nor are we the same person we once were. The irony is that our inner critic may have played a significant role in this evolution. By motivating, encouraging and protecting us in an earlier era, our inner critic enabled us to tackle new challenges and alter our circumstances, and in the process we became a different person. We're more capable and thus more confident. We feel a greater sense of agency and control. We're less fearful and anxious. Our inner critic may even go silent for while--until, suddenly, they come roaring back to life. If we've grown used to their absence, this can be profoundly confusing and alienating: Who is this critical voice in my head, and why are they so negative?
So their guidance is increasingly unhelpful.
This is the root of the problem: Inner critics aren't particularly flexible or responsive to change. They emerged in response to a particular set of challenges at a particular time in our life, and they developed their motivational repertoire in that context. But even as they enabled our own evolution, their limited perspective has prevented them from evolving in turn. This is entirely predictable--our inner critic is, of course, an aspect of our own personality that we differentiated from our conscious self at a time of need to serve a specific purpose. Having done so, we relied upon our inner critic to play their part in the pursuit of our own growth and development. We valued the results they helped to bring about, but we didn't like how they made us feel, and so we kept our distance whenever possible, leading them to stagnate.
But efforts to banish them will generate fierce resistance.
The dilemma is that although our inner critic works for us, they have lifetime job security. Any attempts to fire them will be futile and counter-productive. This is a function of our inner critic's lack of sophistication, noted above. They can't grasp that we've evolved to the point where their guidance is no longer needed, and thus they interpret efforts to dislodge them as signs that we're about to make a grave mistake. Red alert! they shriek in protest. The more we try to ignore them, the more agitated they become. This is usually the point at which a client raises the issue with me.
The solution: Renegotiate the relationship.
The starting point in this process is exploring the points above. They're not all equally valid for everyone, of course--we're dealing in metaphors and archetypes here. But I've found most of them resonate with people in one way or another, which normalizes their struggle and allows them to relax. And once we've acknowledged that our inner critic has our best interests at heart and has served us well, but their approach is increasingly out-of-date and unhelpful, we can stop fighting our inner critic and begin collaborating with them. Rather than demonize our inner critic for its shortcomings, we can adopt a more compassionate stance toward them--which, of course, means being more compassionate toward ourselves. Our inner critic is doing the best it can--as are we.
Most inner critics emerge as authority figures--when personifying our inner critic, many of us see or hear a parent, a teacher, an athletic coach, an early manager. So it's understandable that in a previous era our inner critic took charge, and we deferred to them. They claimed the seat at the head of the table, and we assumed that they deserved it. But today that arrangement no longer meets our needs. Rather than try to exclude them altogether, we can invite them to take their rightful place. Rather than feel hectored and oppressed by them, we can appreciate their efforts on our behalf. Rather than seek to ignore them, we can engage them on our own terms. Someday we may even be able to thank them for their service and convince them to take some well-deserved time off.
For Further Reading
Doing the Work (Reflection, Journaling, Dialogue)
The Traps We Set for Ourselves
Stop Trying to Be "Good Enough" by "Getting Better"
Photo by Craig Oppenheimer.
