In “Dethroning the Inner Critic: Part I,” (4/23/10) I explain that the Inner Critic develops in childhood to help you adapt to your parents or other caretakers. If pleasing your parents was hard, your Critic learned what you had to do to win their approval. Of course, its understanding of what you needed to do came from a kid’s point of view. This gives us a really valuable insight about your Inner Critic: Although your Critic may sound or appear for all the world like a ferocious adult, it really is just a kid. While the rest of you grew up, your Critic and its view of the world never did. When people I work with discover this, I’m always reminded of the scene in The Wizard of Oz in which Toto pulls away the curtain beneath Oz, the Great and Terrible, to reveal an ordinary little old man pulling the levers.
Your Inner Critic has held tyrannical power over you. The revelation that it is actually just a very young part of you opens up new pathways for dealing with its tyranny. Remember that its intentions are protective. It wants you to behave in ways that will make others accept and love you. It doesn’t want you to experience the shame of being judged inadequate. It’s the keeper of the rule book for how to accomplish these goals. But now that we know your Critic is still stuck in your childhood, we can say that its rules were relevant for you then but not now.
You may wish to take a moment to imagine how your Critic would appear if you “pulled away the curtain.” How old would it look? What stage in your life might it come from? If it feels comfortable, you might wish to start thinking about the experiences in your early life that could have given rise to the rules your Inner Critic enforces. (Here and elsewhere, stop if the exercise makes you uncomfortable.) The following is an example of how this process might look:
Karen (a fictitious but representative example) hears her Critic’s voice anytime someone she knows needs something from her, no matter how inappropriate the request or how it affects her. It says, “You must always take care of other people’s needs; you must always put them before your own.” Or: “This person won’t like you if you don’t do what she wants.” Karen thinks of her mother who was selfless to a fault and always expected the same of Karen. What’s more, her mother always appeared profoundly disappointed if Karen failed to live up to this standard. The shame and anxiety Karen felt under her mother’s disappointed gaze became powerful motivators. Her Critic came into being to help Karen remember and avoid feeling like a disappointment to others in the future.
Locating your Critic’s demands and character attacks back where they originated can be a starting point for developing some distance and objectivity. That is, you can start to question them. Here’s how this looks for Karen:
Karen had no way of knowing as a little girl that such excessive, unbalanced selflessness was evidence of her mother’s own Inner Critic and her particular life experiences. Back then Mother was taken to be an accurate representative of the larger world. Karen concluded, largely unconsciously, that she better learn the lesson if she didn’t want to be shamed or rejected by others. Of course, as Karen moved out into the larger world she encountered people who reinforced her mother’s teachings. But she also met people with more balanced views. The problem was that her mother’s teachings had so much fear attached to them that it always felt too risky to think any other way. Now, as Karen begins to assign the lessons on selflessness back to her mother and not the world, she can dare to consider more balance between her own needs and those of others.
In my experience, when people do this contextualizing work, in time their Inner Critics tend to shrink, soften and lower the volume. As with Karen, who begins to value her own needs alongside those of others, people become freer to develop previously undervalued and underused aspects of themselves. They experience more flexibility and more options for living.
Okay. So now you’ve uncovered your Inner Critic’s childhood origins and realize that the rigid rules it wants you to live by don’t actually apply in your current life. You’ve begun to work on updating the rules to take into account what your older self knows and to establish more balance and humanity in the way you live. Does this mean it’s time to chuck the Inner Critic? Some take that view. I always try to remember that the Inner Critic is actually on your side, however misguided its methods. It seems to me that you can never have too many resources on your side! If you’re of the same mind, you may wish to consider giving your Critic a more adult role in your personal guidance system.
A modernized Critic’s judgments would be ruled by wisdom and compassion, not fear. A part that can think wisely about what’s best for you without terror of humiliation or abandonment can be a mighty valuable ally. As an ally, the Inner Critic might act more like a consultant, for example, helping you stay on track toward your goals, reminding you of your standards or encouraging you to put out your best effort—but only for objectives that are right for who you are. This updated Critic’s tone would always be encouraging and advisory, never threatening or demeaning.
So you’re working on maturing and modernizing your Critic, what do you do when the old, familiar voice pops up? Here are some responses that may help:
- Imagine what the voice would be saying if it were speaking from its adult viewpoint: For example, you failed the exam for a driver’s license, even though you worked so hard to prepare. The old Critic stops by to tell you: “You’re so stupid! Only an idiot would have made that left turn. You should just forget it.” A consultant Critic, by comparison, would help you review what you got right and go over the areas where you need more practice. It might encourage you to think of whether you need other assistance, like a professional driving instructor. It would remind you of how much having that license is going to mean to you, that the effort will really be worth it. Most of all, it reminds you that failing from time–to–time is human, that failing proves you’re taking risks and trying.
- Bring in your “pride resources” (See “Countering Shame with Pride Resources,” 10/2/09) This could be a great time to remember what you do well: using your high school Spanish to get around in Mexico, building those shelves, wowing everyone with your salsa… Or think of setbacks you’ve overcome: you had to rip out a whole sweater you made and start over, you failed that audition but came back the next year and got chosen, they didn’t make you committee chairperson but you made a big contribution anyway…
- Use this as a chance to practice tolerating imperfection In my post “Doing Nothing Usefully in Eating disorder Recovery” (10/16/09) I discuss how increasing your capacity to tolerate difficult feelings gives you more flexibility and options. Tolerating difficult feelings about yourself gets extra credit, especially when you’ve been used to a harsh Inner Critic. Your old Critic will tell you your imperfections are the final, fatal word on your worth. From a more grown–up perspective, you can learn that your imperfections are only a part of a bigger you and just make you human.
- Limit the air time the old Inner Critic gets If all else fails or you just need a breather, you don’t have to sit around and listen until the old Critic has spent itself. Change channels! Think about something else. Get involved in something else. The old Critic’s voice may be familiar, but it doesn’t have anything useful to tell you. You won’t be rude if you interrupt!
