SILENCING THE INNER CRITIC

Have you ever wonder, why there is a voice that lives inside of us, it doesn’t speak loudly and sometimes it seems to be consistent and you hear it perfectly.  You are not good at all, you are the list among them.it chuckles when you make a little mistake, whispering, you always mess things up. Some time it pulls out a checklist of every awkward thing ever said or done.  This inner voice is called the inner critic. In most cases people spent  years believing everything it says.

You may wonder where on earth does this voice comes from. Is it from our environment or from the things we have done before or about to do? Your inner critic was not born evil, it was forged in childhood, assembled from every disappointed sigh, every comparison to a sibling, every teacher who circled your mistakes in red ink without ever noticing what you got right. In most cases, you internalized those external voices, believing that being hard on oneself is the price of being good enough.  This critic seems to be an internal guidance and your drill sergeant. Here is the irony of it all: it believes it’s helping you. It thinks that by keeping you small, it’s keeping you safe. The critic is not your enemy; it’s a broken protection system.

The problem is not that we have an inner whisperer, but the fact that we believes what it says is truth. We treat it like a stern but fair judge, when in reality; it’s more like a frightened guard dog that never learned to stop barking. Sometimes we overlook it, try to silence it, yet it keeps on coming. One best way of silencing this inner critics is to change the conversation, try to focus on something else for a while, gradually the inner critic will stop.  The moment you stop treating your inner critic as an all-knowing oracle, you have won half the battle. This technique is known as externalization, its creates distance between you and the voice. You are not your thoughts, you are the one hearing your thoughts. And that means you get to choose which ones to believe. The one you believe or chose is what you are at that point in time!

Another practical way of silencing the inner critic, is the “third person” reframe. For example, when the critic says, “you are such an idiot for forgetting the deadline”, just pause and ask yourself: “Would I say that to a friend who forgot a deadline?” of course No! “You would probably say  people do slips sometimes and that you are not an idiot. You are a human being with a lot on your plate”. You see, self-compassion brings motivation. According  Dr. Kristin Neff, self-compassion leads to greater resilience, motivation, and mental health than self-criticism ever will. Try speaking to yourself the way you’d say to someone you truly love. 

Finally, you can silence the inner critic by audit your environment. Who are those around you ? Does your boss speak to you in criticism disguised as feedback? Does your partner roll their eyes when you share an idea? Your inner critic did not develop in a vacuum. It was fed, watered, and encouraged by the voices around you. Sometimes, it is not easy to change your environment, but you can start setting boundaries. You can mute everything that makes you feel small. You can limit time with people who leave you drained. By doing these, you become the curator of your own mental space.