Why your mind criticizes you and what to do about
“When perfectionism is driving, shame is riding shotgun, and fear is the annoying backseat driver.”
Imagine the inner monologue of someone with a strong inner critic (this may sound familiar…). The volume is cranked high, spouting warnings. It’s trying to keep to you safe from others’ criticism. Every task, every encounter, the inner critic yells, “do it like this, no, don’t do that!” And then – it has the nerve to judge your performance. The inner critic’s judgement typically goes along the lines of “that was terrible…not good enough…come on, get it together.”
Why does this inner critic exist? What is it doing in your head besides torturing you? Well, it’s been argued that this inner critic evolved to prevent us from putting ourselves in danger. Really – it’s a safety mechanism! Researchers theorize that the inner critic is an extension of our “threat defence system.”
Picture this: Your ancestor from waaaay back jumps down from a tree and is almost eaten. The thought might pass through their mind, “Well that was dumb, never doing that again.”
The threat defence system was activated, they felt unsafe, and the inner critic knows to speak up next time to help us manage our future behaviour. Fear/anxiety successfully trained their mind to be safe, and to live to procreate. The inner critic was helpful with survival.
In addition, we have evolved in social settings, and we are also highly motivated to maintain our status within the group. Getting kicked out of the group or being knocked down in the hierarchy makes us less likely to pass our genes on.
The ones who survived and had many progeny had some way of monitoring whether their position in the group was at risk. Guess who is good at speaking up when it spots possible (dangerous) transgressions? Yep! You’re right – the inner critic.
“She’s collecting more than I am, step it up,”
or
“She did this and got the attention of the best mating partner.”
The general gist is “you should do it too.”
We can imagine the inner critic as an over-tuned, too effective part of the threat defense system. Think of a continuum:
The person with the weak inner critic likely did not fare well within the group or with survival. The ancestor with the strong inner critic likely held a good position within the group and avoided danger quite well. The ability to reflect critically on yourself is passed on to future generations. Only problem is - we don’t have tigers and lions, oh my.
What’s the sweet spot then?
What do we do with that voice that drives us to misery (albeit very safe and possibly accomplished misery!)? You’ve spent your lifetime listening to it, and it’s brought you unhappiness, anxiety, and poor self-worth. We can try changing the way we think about our flaws or mistakes. We can stop comparing every little piece of ourselves to the 7 billion people around us. We can set new self-standards. We can drop the connection between performance and worthiness. In other words, we can separate thought from the emotion.
If we learn to shift our attention to what we want to pay attention to, we can create distance between the thoughts and the emotion it creates. Notice the thought, shift your attention away from it.
You can use other thoughts to help:
“Ah, there’s that inner critic shouting again. Thanks, but not needed!”
“Hmmm…nice try critic. That’s not helpful.”
“Okay, stop. Enough of you today.”
“A thought is just a thought. You’re not bossing me around.”
“Interesting, that’s a new one. Good try inner critic.”
2. You can use action to help:
Sarah notices the inner critic chattering away. It wants her to be afraid of ordering a seven-adjective-long drink at Starbucks. She wants to be able to live her life free of anxiety. So she takes a few grounding breaths, puts on her signal, turns into the drive-thru, and gives her order. Sarah can have the anxious thought and do it anyway.
Practicing shifting your attention takes work, practice, and more practice. Did I mention practice? Practice it with your bored thoughts, your happy thoughts, your work thoughts, your loving thoughts, any thought! Then you’ll be ready to use it when you feel a big emotion come up with a thought. Let me know if you need help learning how to do this skill.
Kira
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