Quieting our Inner Critic

Most of us at some moments in our lives have experienced self-doubt in the form of an inner voice: our Inner Critic. I recently listened to a webinar by Tara Mohr, an expert on women's leadership and well-being, which focused on practices for quieting our Inner Critic.

Identify it as a Voice

As a first step, we have to notice and name it - practice awareness on when our Inner Critic pops up and name it in the moment.

This voice is usually harsh, rude, mean; it seems to be on our side by saying things like "you are not ready yet"; it is irrational and persistnent.

We should separate the "I" from the inner critic, this voice is not us.

A good practice for doing that is to create a character that personifies the Inner Critic – think about your inner critic, is it female or male, is it older or younger? Make up a character, think about its personality; give them a name, (this needs to be fictional, do not give it the name of someone close to your it might remind you of); picture the character, think about it talking, about its voice, etc.

Find a New Perspective

We also need to compassionately see our inner critic's motives.

Ask, "What is my Inner Critic trying to protect me from?" "What is it really worried about here?"

Look for the humour in what it is saying.

Finally, we could choose a core value to let lead us instead - what core value of ours can guide our actions in this situation?

Practical tools

Remove the critic from the scene.

Pantomime putting all Inner Critic thoughts into a box and locking them up.

Picture the voice receding into space.

Imagine we can turn down the volume on the critic's voice.

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