# Challenging and Silencing Your Inner Critic



## David Baxter PhD (Sep 8, 2017)

*How to Stop Your Inner Critic from Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success*
by Christiana Star, _World of Psychology_ 
September 8, 2017     

Most people believe and feed an inner critic who points out  faults and flaws, dwells on the negative, and is often downright  abusive. This can lead to procrastination, inactivity or avoidance. It  affects your emotions, your self-esteem, confidence, courage and joy of  life.  And most of all it diminishes your trust in your own strengths  and abilities.

*Self-Criticism
*


Being overly critical and dissatisfied with yourself. 
Often based on unrealistic and unreasonable expectations about who you should be and how you should act. 
Judging yourself negatively. 
Comparing yourself to others who seem superior in some way. 
Being full of self-condemnation. 

*Self-Doubt
*


Taunting yourself ? N_ot capable, experienced or good enough ?_ 
Diminishing yourself ? _It?s only me; I know it?s not very good ?_ 
Finding it hard to make decisions. 
Avoiding new challenges. 
Needing reassurance from others. 

*Self-Recrimination
*


Results from a sense of failure, guilt or regret. 
Reprimanding yourself:_ How did I get into this situation? I should have known better?_ 

*Self-Neglect
*


Indifference or denial of your own needs. 
Discouraging or ignoring your aspirations and dreams. 

*Self-Rejection, Self-Loathing or Self-Hate
*


Ranging from vague feelings of low self-worth to severe self-hatred. 
Expressed in extreme ways ? destructive and dangerous behaviours, self-harm, suicide. 
Associating with negative people who drag you down. 
Sabotaging chances at living a fulfilling life. 

*Shame
*


This is not about having done something wrong and being ashamed of it. 
It is the sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with you as a person -worthless to the core ?_ If people saw the real me, they would reject me. I am not okay as I am._ 
It is the (warped) ?knowledge? that in your very essence you are flawed. 

 You may not be aware of that kind of shame. It may not even appear as  a problem. But hidden shame affects your life in every possible way. It  is the master of toxic self-evaluation and poisons everything you do.  You connect with people who (also) do not value you. You tolerate  disrespect, humiliation, neglect and abuse. After all, you do not  deserve better. You keep yourself small because shame causes you to hide  your light. Success, joy, love would create unbearable dissonance with  the negative self-beliefs underlying shame so you sabotage yourself in  every possible way. But worst of all, it blinds you to the beautiful  soul you are in your essence.

*Change Your Self-talk
*
 It is important never to beat yourself up, even if you have  done something inappropriate, made a mistake or look like a fool.  Instead, replace merciless censorship with a nurturing voice: I_ can do this; It?s okay to slip up sometimes; I did my best. _ Have a look at the two different ways below:


*Nurturing**Abusive*encouragingdemeaningfairunfairsupportivedisempoweringcompassionatecruelrealisticnegativeproactiveundermining confidenceattentivedestructivehopefuldepressingempathiccritical

*Follow the steps below to change your negative self-talk:
*


Notice when you are being self-critical. Get a clear sense of how you talk to yourself ? abusive or nurturing? 
Challenge the self-critical voice. Question the harshness of  your thoughts and your extreme censoring, demeaning and exaggerating.  Are you actually correct in what you are thinking? Are you really that  bad? Where did you learn to think about yourself in that way? Who made  you believe it? 
Reframe the comments made by your inner critic. Replace them  with new realistic and more positive ways of thinking about yourself. If  you find this difficult, imagine what a compassionate friend would say  to you in this situation. You may also need to do deeper work on your  beliefs. 

*Acknowledge the Real You
*
 The following strategy of ?Acknowledgments? is potentially very  uncomfortable but also very powerful. Acknowledgements are different to  affirmations. They are statements that acknowledge something you did  well that day. If you are not used to look at yourself in such a  positive way, just finding something might seem really hard. Also, you  have to overcome the idea that giving yourself credit is the same as  being self-satisfied and conceited. It is not! You are not praising  yourself without justification or puffing yourself up as superior. You  are simply looking at yourself realistically and formulating a sentence  about something positive you did: 



Every day reflect on how the day went. 
For whatever you did, thought, felt or noticed that day, formulate three acknowledgements in the present tense:_  Today I acknowledge myself for doing ?; I acknowledge myself for  overcoming ?;  I acknowledge myself for taking ?; I acknowledge myself  for not ?; etc etc. _ 
 

 Doing this exercise may feel as if you are doing something  forbidden, wrong or odd. This is normal if you are not used to  acknowledging positive things about yourself. But don?t give up. The  strategy is very effective if you take it seriously and persist. With  practice, it can disable poisonous attitudes you hold about yourself and  teach you a realistic and accepting evaluation of yourself. You will  realize that you are not so deficient after all and whoever made you  believe it imposed their own destructive agenda on you.

*Reflections*
 What is your own self-evaluation? Is it kind and rational, or  dark and almost abusive? How does your own inner critic sabotage your  best efforts? What can you do to re-claim your power?


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## Daniel (Mar 16, 2022)

"Mistakes are proof that you are trying."

~  Jennifer Lim


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