Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mum with Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: I have this constant feeling that everything is my fault
Speaker 2: no matter what I do, I always blame myself for everything,
Speaker 2: even if I have nothing to do with it. Did
Speaker 2: you have a parent who never really apologized when they
Speaker 2: made mistakes?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: What if a child never witnessed their parent apologize.
Speaker 2: The child then internalizes that and says, well, then it
Speaker 2: must be my fault.
Speaker 1: For Mama Mia.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Ashani Dante. Welcome to But are you happy?
Speaker 3: Because regulating your nervous system takes more than a macha
Speaker 3: and a mantra?
Speaker 4: And I'm doctor Anastagia hernis a clinical psychologist passionate about
Speaker 4: happiness and mental health. A question for you listener. Do
Speaker 4: you sometimes hear a voice in your head that says
Speaker 4: mean things about you, things you would never say about
Speaker 4: someone you cared about?
Speaker 3: Oh that old chestnut I call my inner meaning Luke.
Speaker 4: Look, most of us have this voice from time to time.
Speaker 4: But when this voice starts to impact our mental health
Speaker 4: or our quality of life, that's when we really need
Speaker 4: to learn to quieten it down.
Speaker 3: So you're going to tell us what's going on here,
Speaker 3: right and how to make our looks a.
Speaker 1: Little bit kinder to ourselves.
Speaker 3: Right, yep, can't wait, let's get into it, okay. So, Anastasia,
Speaker 3: the question I have is that inner critic voice isn't
Speaker 3: all that bad? Like should we actually get rid of it?
Speaker 4: My favorite first question, Yes and no, Like, yes, the
Speaker 4: inner critic can be really destructive when we experience it
Speaker 4: in excess, or when what it says to us is
Speaker 4: really unhelpful. So there's kind of two things we want
Speaker 4: to look at here. How much we experience the inner critic,
Speaker 4: how often it comes up into our head, how often
Speaker 4: it talks to us, how loudly it talks to us, right,
Speaker 4: So the kind of intensity and frequency of it. But
Speaker 4: then we also want to look at the content of
Speaker 4: what it says. Sometimes the inner critic might say things
Speaker 4: that gives us a bit of a push or a nudge.
Speaker 4: You know, if you're studying for a UNI assessment and
Speaker 4: it's like, well, you didn't get a great mark because
Speaker 4: you didn't really study that hard. Maybe next time you
Speaker 4: should try a bit harder. It's probably some truth to that,
Speaker 4: and that could actually be helpful and useful for us.
Speaker 4: So we've got to really examine the usefulness of the
Speaker 4: content along with how frequently we experience that inner critic.
Speaker 3: I really love that because also when we think of
Speaker 3: an acritic, we often just want to like push it
Speaker 3: away and not listen to it at all. But what
Speaker 3: I'm hearing is that we actually should be curious about
Speaker 3: it because it's telling us more right.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And the reality is, try as we might, we
Speaker 4: will never fully get rid of an inner critic. We're
Speaker 4: all always going to have an inner critic. So part
Speaker 4: of the challenge for us is to get comfortable with
Speaker 4: that fact and to be able to tone it down
Speaker 4: and moderate it. But it serves a function. It does
Speaker 4: exist to give us a bit of a sort of
Speaker 4: moral framework and compass right, to let us know when
Speaker 4: we think we've done the wrong thing or we should
Speaker 4: have done something better than what we did, and to
Speaker 4: be a bit of a guide in life to give
Speaker 4: us that feedback that we sometimes need to hear. So
Speaker 4: it's always going to exist for that purpose.
Speaker 3: And I guess, like with that, when you said that
Speaker 3: there's different types of the inner critic, what are some
Speaker 3: other ways that we can really label like the different types.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to break it down into three types
Speaker 4: of inner critics, and listeners out there follow along and
Speaker 4: see if you can identify your inner critic and what
Speaker 4: type it might fall into. First type is what we
Speaker 4: call a demanding in a critic. Now, this is the
Speaker 4: type of inner critic that puts pressure on us. When
Speaker 4: we have this inner critic, we feel pressure. We feel
Speaker 4: that push feeling, and it sounds like a lot of
Speaker 4: should you should do better, you should try harder, you
Speaker 4: should have known better, you shouldn't have got such a
Speaker 4: bad mark, you should have got that promotion. Right. It's
Speaker 4: that feeling of forward pressure. But pressure can sometimes feel
Speaker 4: crippling as well. Right, So the demanding in a critic
Speaker 4: pushes us. Sometimes it pushes us a bit too hard
Speaker 4: and a bit too much. If we have this type
Speaker 4: of inner critic in and of itself, it's fundamentally not bad.
Speaker 4: But if we experience it in excess, we want to
Speaker 4: be able to turn down the volume and tone it
Speaker 4: down a little bit if we're feeling like it's too overwhelming.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so that's demanding.
Speaker 4: So that's first type.
Speaker 1: Okay, first type.
Speaker 4: Next type is what we call a punitive in a critic. Now,
Speaker 4: this looks and feels very different. If we have a
Speaker 4: punitive in a critic, we feel squashed, right, and the
Speaker 4: punitive in a critic sounds very different. It sounds like
Speaker 4: you're you're a terrible person, You're worthless. No one's ever
Speaker 4: going to love you, everyone will leave you your shit, why
Speaker 4: even bother. You'll never get anything right in your life.
Speaker 4: So it's a real squashed feeling. It doesn't push us
Speaker 4: forward like the demanding in a critic does. It squashes
Speaker 4: us down and it makes us feel shit about ourselves.
Speaker 4: When we have a punitive in a critic that doesn't
Speaker 4: serve any functional purpose. There's nothing useful or helpful about
Speaker 4: having that style of in a critic. And so in
Speaker 4: the therapy room, if I'm working with someone who's got
Speaker 4: a punitive in a critic, our goal is to get
Speaker 4: rid of it. We don't want it around. It's not helpful,
Speaker 4: it's not useful.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: It's so if we look at the difference so far,
Speaker 3: so is that does that mean like the demanding it's
Speaker 3: more action orientated, whereas the punitive's more like internal criticism?
Speaker 3: Or how would you like discern between the two.
Speaker 4: That's that's the difference. That one is functional and one
Speaker 4: is not. So the demanding in a critic can be
Speaker 4: functional because it can motivate us. It can push us.
Speaker 4: It can give us feedback when we've done something wrong
Speaker 4: and we need to correct it, you know, so, it
Speaker 4: can motivate us towards action when we've got it in
Speaker 4: the right degree. The punitive one, if I'm telling myself
Speaker 4: that I'm a terrible, worthless person, I don't feel like
Speaker 4: getting up and being motivated to do things. I feel
Speaker 4: like lying in bed, and I probably feel pretty awful
Speaker 4: about myself. The third is what we call a guilt
Speaker 4: inducing in a critic. This is the inner critic that
Speaker 4: makes you feel riddled with guilt even when you shouldn't
Speaker 4: feel guilty, even when you haven't done anything wrong. So
Speaker 4: I'm going to throw back to the exit we heard
Speaker 4: at the start where that girl was like, I see
Speaker 4: someone walk down the street and fall down, and I
Speaker 4: feel guilty and bad about it, like it was my
Speaker 4: fault even though it's clearly not. The guilt inducing in
Speaker 4: a critic is the one that tells us we're selfish.
Speaker 4: We should care about other people more. Why didn't we
Speaker 4: look after others? If we say no to going to
Speaker 4: our parents' house for lunch this weekend. We feel really
Speaker 4: bad about saying. No one really guilty about it. So
Speaker 4: that guilt inducing in a critic. Again, we can have
Speaker 4: it in excess. Sometimes it's useful to feel guilty, but
Speaker 4: if someone's got this style of inner critic, they're probably
Speaker 4: feeling it way too much and in circumstances that don't
Speaker 4: warrant them feeling guilty.
Speaker 3: It's really funny because now that you've spoken about all three,
Speaker 3: I'm just like, I feel like I've got all three?
Speaker 1: Is that a bad thing?
Speaker 4: Well, it's it's it's not ideal.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well it's a therapy, guys, but.
Speaker 4: It's common, right, It's common for people to have combinations.
Speaker 4: It's some people might be listening and think, okay, I've
Speaker 4: only got that one. Other people will be like, I
Speaker 4: can see combinations of all of them. And that's not
Speaker 4: an uncommon experience for people to have.
Speaker 3: Okay, So where does the inner critic come from?
Speaker 4: We're not born naturally with an inner critic, right, We
Speaker 4: don't come out of the womb hating on ourselves. It's
Speaker 4: something we develop throughout our life. Life. The inner critic
Speaker 4: is first formed during our early childhood years through those
Speaker 4: formative years, and it's very much influenced by the messages
Speaker 4: that we hear from people around us. Now, they might
Speaker 4: be messages that are modeled to us, or they might
Speaker 4: be messages that we are told directly. So if you know,
Speaker 4: little Sally goes to school and she comes home from
Speaker 4: school and she's like, I got ninety five out of
Speaker 4: one hundred in my maths test, and Mum and dad
Speaker 4: say to her, well, what the hell happened to the
Speaker 4: other five percent, little Sally's going to start to develop
Speaker 4: an inner critic that says, I should always be doing better.
Speaker 4: Nothing I do is good enough. I can't even get
Speaker 4: ninety five. That's not good enough. Only one hundred is
Speaker 4: good enough. So we start to internalize That would be
Speaker 4: an example of a demanding inner critic that starts to
Speaker 4: develop if from a young age we hear messages where
Speaker 4: we are invalidated, where our experiences are invalidated, where we're
Speaker 4: told you're a bad child for behaving that particular way. Right,
Speaker 4: when terms like good and bad use towards children, they
Speaker 4: can also start to develop that in a critic. But
Speaker 4: it's not just what message is told to us as kids.
Speaker 4: It's also what we see modeled. So if I'm growing
Speaker 4: up and I see that every time Mum, I don't know,
Speaker 4: makes a wrong turn when she's driving the car, and
Speaker 4: she goes, gosh, I'm such an idiot. Why did I
Speaker 4: do that? I always stuff up for I can never
Speaker 4: get anything right. We see other peoples in a critic
Speaker 4: coming to the forefront, and we also then start to
Speaker 4: internalize if I take a wrong turn when I drive,
Speaker 4: I must be an idiot as well, because that's what
Speaker 4: Mum said. Right now, All this happens on a very
Speaker 4: subconscious level. But if we add another layer of society
Speaker 4: to that, society and culture also give us messages about
Speaker 4: what is or isn't quote unquote good or bad behavior right.
Speaker 4: Society in our culture tells us how we should be
Speaker 4: in the world, and if we don't fit that mold,
Speaker 4: we develop inner criticisms around it.
Speaker 3: There really is so many layers to it, isn't it
Speaker 3: when you actually unpack it like that as well? And
Speaker 3: I think it's it's interesting we're talking about, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of the things that shaped you when you
Speaker 3: were a child, and I know that's been a theme
Speaker 3: throughout a lot of the episodes, and I feel like
Speaker 3: it's very easy to blame our family, right, being like, Oh,
Speaker 3: if you didn't say that thing, I wouldn't be like this.
Speaker 3: And I think it's probably later in life, when we're
Speaker 3: a little bit older, that we build our awareness. But
Speaker 3: I think also it's remembering that, you know, our parents
Speaker 3: are human too, and they're doing the best that they
Speaker 3: can with the capacity that they have, right, So it's like,
Speaker 3: how do we balance it all out when we do
Speaker 3: find the source of why we're being so mean to ourselves?
Speaker 4: And I think you make a good point there, because
Speaker 4: it's never one isolated experience, right. It's not because Mum
Speaker 4: said that one time. Oh I'm such an idiot? Why
Speaker 4: did I do that? That we internalize that. It's when
Speaker 4: we see these patterns through our life, or patterns in
Speaker 4: the people or the culture around us that give us
Speaker 4: these really strong messages about what is or isn't acceptable,
Speaker 4: that we then really internalize those patterns.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's interesting too because with a lot of
Speaker 3: the workshops I around with teenage girls, one of the
Speaker 3: first things we do get them to do is in
Speaker 3: order to build self awareness. It's been able to discern
Speaker 3: you know, where did these negative thoughts come from? And
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of the time girls are saying
Speaker 3: things like, oh, society tells us we need to, you know,
Speaker 3: have it all together, be perfect, but don't be too perfect,
Speaker 3: and you've got to be slim thick, and they break
Speaker 3: it all down. It's the same narrative I hear all
Speaker 3: the time, and it breaks my heart, like thinking about
Speaker 3: it because it's just, oh, I'm getting emotional.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're going to cut this out,
Speaker 1: but it's something.
Speaker 3: I'm really passionate about because they feel really deflated, you know,
Speaker 3: they feel disempowered, they feel trapped because that's just how
Speaker 3: they've grown up, that's just what they've seen. And it's
Speaker 3: really coming back to a lot of the tools that
Speaker 3: we've been you know, weaving through all the episodes. It's like,
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, what can we control?
Speaker 3: And it is our self empowerment and our environment as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And the unfortunate thing is that kids and teens
Speaker 4: don't yet have the skills to be able to really
Speaker 4: fact check their inner critic, right, they just believe it. Well,
Speaker 4: you know, as kids and teenagers, we don't have that
Speaker 4: cognitive capacity. Yet like we do as adults, we can
Speaker 4: take that step back and really kind of examine our
Speaker 4: inner critic from a really critical lens, But as kids,
Speaker 4: we don't yet have that ability developed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, and I think it all exists in conversations, right.
Speaker 3: It's only once we have the courage to have these
Speaker 3: conversations know that we're not alone, because what we're getting
Speaker 3: is that we all haven't in a critic, and it's
Speaker 3: around how do we learn to work with it.
Speaker 4: I've seen so many people come to the clinic who
Speaker 4: have that loud, debilitating in a critic and you would
Speaker 4: not pick it looking at them from the outside. I
Speaker 4: have people who come to the clinic. They're lawyers and
Speaker 4: their judges and their CEOs, and they're you know, also
Speaker 4: their public figures. They're in sorts of work. I guess
Speaker 4: that requires them to be very front facing and have
Speaker 4: a confidence to them when they carry out the skill
Speaker 4: set they're required to do in their career. And if
Speaker 4: you looked at them from the outside, you would not
Speaker 4: pick that they had this really strong inner critic, because
Speaker 4: it is something that some people can hide from the
Speaker 4: outside world. So exactly to your point, we don't know
Speaker 4: what someone else's inner critic is saying to them. We
Speaker 4: do sometimes meet people on the flip side where we
Speaker 4: can hear their inner critic. They literally say out loud,
Speaker 4: oh no, I'm so sorry I did that wrong. I
Speaker 4: was such a bad friend. I should have called you,
Speaker 4: I didn't call you enough, and were like, well, stop,
Speaker 4: it's okay. You know, some people will literally talk out
Speaker 4: there in a critic. Other people will mask it really
Speaker 4: really well. But what we can see it's sort of
Speaker 4: manifest as in terms of behaviors, is chronic depression. So
Speaker 4: people who have a very loud and particularly punitive in a.
Speaker 1: Critic that is washing one.
Speaker 4: That's the squashing one. Yep. That's really hard to manage
Speaker 4: in the long run, and it is very much correlated
Speaker 4: with having long standing depression, but also low self esteem.
Speaker 4: If we have a little voice in our head telling
Speaker 4: us every day how terrible we are, we're not going
Speaker 4: to feel particularly good about ourselves.
Speaker 3: And do you have any like examples of any clients
Speaker 3: you've worked with recently, obviously like keeping confidentiality and everything
Speaker 3: like that, of like what you worked on.
Speaker 4: Yes, honestly, it's one of the most common things that
Speaker 4: we do in therapy, and so I'm thinking about, you know,
Speaker 4: clients that I've seen recently, where I mean, part of
Speaker 4: the work we do is unpack, firstly, what is your
Speaker 4: inner critics saying to you, so we can identify what
Speaker 4: type of inner critic have you got? What is the
Speaker 4: inner critics saying? And so I'm thinking of someone I
Speaker 4: worked with who was in sort of corporate sort of space,
Speaker 4: and they were really great at their job, but they
Speaker 4: worked excessively long hours. They would come home at the
Speaker 4: end of the night and still tell themselves I haven't
Speaker 4: done enough. I'm not going to get that promotion. I'm
Speaker 4: doing a terrible job. Other people are doing better than me.
Speaker 4: Why am I not able to achieve the things I want?
Speaker 4: Why don't I have enough energy? Why can't I seem
Speaker 4: to do all these things? Right? Just really really harsh, demanding,
Speaker 4: but flavors of punitive as well, right, And so it
Speaker 4: was really about us trying to understand what's your inner
Speaker 4: critics saying to you? And is it helpful? Like, if
Speaker 4: your goal is to get that promotion at work, is
Speaker 4: the inner critic actually helping you get there? Or is
Speaker 4: it making you feel exhausted and terrible about yourself so
Speaker 4: that when you go home, you can't sleep, you don't
Speaker 4: eat much, you know, perpetuate the cycle of exhaustion, and
Speaker 4: then you probably don't get the promotion that you're after. Like,
Speaker 4: is it actually helping you get where it wants you
Speaker 4: to go? Because it's pushing you in a direction, but
Speaker 4: is it helping you get there?
Speaker 3: So would you say that the inner critic is the
Speaker 3: same as intrusive thoughts?
Speaker 4: I'll answer that by explaining what intrusive thoughts are. So
Speaker 4: every single one of us has intrusive thoughts, right, intrusive thoughts.
Speaker 4: Many of our thoughts are automatic. We don't choose them,
Speaker 4: they pop into our head. Right, So if I'm walking
Speaker 4: down past the road and I see a cafe with
Speaker 4: some donuts, my brain will be like, ooh, yom donuts.
Speaker 4: I didn't choose to think that, My brain just thought it, right,
Speaker 4: So it's an automatic thought. A lot of our thoughts
Speaker 4: are automatic. We don't have control over their initial kind
Speaker 4: of being, but we can choose what we then do
Speaker 4: with them. Right, So we all have automatic thoughts. We
Speaker 4: all have intrusive thoughts. Okay, so intrusive thoughts are and
Speaker 4: listen out at home, because I'm sure everyone will have
Speaker 4: had them. Intrusive thoughts are these thoughts where we're walking
Speaker 4: down the street and something really weird and random pops
Speaker 4: into our head and we go, oh, my god, what
Speaker 4: the hell where did that just come from? So, for example,
Speaker 4: I'm walking down the street and I go, what if
Speaker 4: I just stepped out on the road in front of
Speaker 4: all this traffic? And I'm like, what on earth? Why
Speaker 4: did I think that? For I don't want to step
Speaker 4: out into the road in front of all the traffic. Thanks,
Speaker 4: I'm happy. You walk into work, Or we walk to
Speaker 4: the edge of the cliff and we go, what if
Speaker 4: I just jumped off this cliff. Or we're in the
Speaker 4: kitchen and there's a knife and we go, what if
Speaker 4: I just picked up this knife and stabbed my hand. Now,
Speaker 4: intrusive thoughts, we all have them, right, so most of
Speaker 4: us will go, whoa, what was that? That was strange?
Speaker 4: Put that aside and carry on, right, So I want
Speaker 4: to normalize intrusive thoughts happened to everyone for some of us,
Speaker 4: And this is where this is actually more kind of
Speaker 4: into the things like OCD. Some of us will notice
Speaker 4: that intrusive thought and go, oh, my goodness, why did
Speaker 4: I think that Maybe there's something in me that wants
Speaker 4: to do that or that wishes that to happen. Because
Speaker 4: we can have intrusive thoughts about other people, right, what
Speaker 4: if my mum's driving home from work and she gets
Speaker 4: hit by a car. So they're all these kind of
Speaker 4: they usually got this like harm element to them, and
Speaker 4: they're quite confronting for us to think, but they're often
Speaker 4: not congruent with how we feel or what we actually
Speaker 4: want in life. So it's important for us to be
Speaker 4: able to notice them and be like, well, no, no,
Speaker 4: thank you, put that out of head. Keep going. Now,
Speaker 4: in the context of the inner critic, the inner critic
Speaker 4: can be automatic, so those thoughts can automatically come in
Speaker 4: where the inner critic goes, god, you did a shit
Speaker 4: job at that, right, So we don't have too much
Speaker 4: control over that initial thought, but we can choose whether
Speaker 4: we then give it more weight and we think about
Speaker 4: it more and more we put it to the side.
Speaker 3: So is it kind of like do we act the
Speaker 3: same way, like how we respond to intrusive thoughts or
Speaker 3: intrusive thoughts? It's more of like, okay, put that away.
Speaker 3: In a critic do you feel like you need to
Speaker 3: work with it? More like I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 3: the difference.
Speaker 4: We want to question how much validity we give any
Speaker 4: thought that pops in our head, whether it's the thought
Speaker 4: that says, hey, you're standing near the edge of a cliff,
Speaker 4: what if you jumped off? Or hey, you're a shit
Speaker 4: person because you didn't say good morning to your friend, right.
Speaker 4: Any thought we have that's automatic that we don't choose.
Speaker 4: We want to be able to take that moment and
Speaker 4: be like, is this true, is this helpful? Is this
Speaker 4: something I should listen to, is it something I should
Speaker 4: think about more? Or is it not actually congruent with
Speaker 4: my experience of what's happening, in which case I want
Speaker 4: to try and put it to the side.
Speaker 3: It's really good that we're talking about intrusive thoughts too,
Speaker 3: because as you're talking about it, I'm like, oh, I've
Speaker 3: had intrusive thoughts, but it's just it's something that's popped up.
Speaker 3: But then you just you can't wigs you out a
Speaker 3: little bit because it literally comes out of nowhere. So
Speaker 3: it's good to know that that can be somewhat of
Speaker 3: a normal experience that people experience.
Speaker 1: It all the time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So, how does imposter syndrome flow into all of this?
Speaker 4: Imposter syndrome and the inner critic go hand in hand, right,
Speaker 4: This idea of the imposter syndrome is where we doubt ourselves,
Speaker 4: we doubt our ability, we doubt our capacity, we doubt
Speaker 4: our achievements, and we think we're not good enough. In fact,
Speaker 4: one of the most common inner critic, deep seated beliefs
Speaker 4: is the I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, And
Speaker 4: so imposter syndrome tells us you're not good enough for
Speaker 4: that job, you're not good enough in this relationship, You're
Speaker 4: not good enough in some way, shape or form. And
Speaker 4: what this can result in is compensating for that. So
Speaker 4: maybe if we think we're not good enough or we
Speaker 4: doubt ourselves, we don't apply for that job, or we
Speaker 4: don't apply for the promotion, or we don't go on
Speaker 4: that first date. Right, So we might avoid situations that
Speaker 4: bring up and trigger up the self doubt, the imposter syndrome,
Speaker 4: and the inner critic, or we might do the opposite.
Speaker 4: We might overcompensate. We might make sure that when we
Speaker 4: go on that first date, we put tons of makeup
Speaker 4: on and we've got our hair professionally done, and we're
Speaker 4: wearing our best outfit, and we have, you know, prepared
Speaker 4: ten questions that we're gonna ask the person that we're
Speaker 4: on a date with. Right, we might overcompensate, we might
Speaker 4: overwork in the workplace to try and get that promotion.
Speaker 4: So the experience of imposter syndrome and self doubt and
Speaker 4: the inner critic can play out differently for different people.
Speaker 3: It sounds like there really is different flavors of imposter syndrome.
Speaker 3: And it's funny when you were talking about imposter syndrome
Speaker 3: being like holding hands with inner critic, I literally got
Speaker 3: a visual of that being like, oh wow, they really
Speaker 3: are friends. Like they are friends because the inner critics
Speaker 3: like you're bad, and then imposter Syndrome's like you're bad
Speaker 3: because of you know, that job or the way that
Speaker 3: you said that thing. It's like they are this kind
Speaker 3: of team.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, And I think as well. The reason I
Speaker 4: like this conversation is because we're getting into the nuance
Speaker 4: of the inner critic, and I imagine that many people
Speaker 4: listening may have heard about the inner critic or imposter
Speaker 4: syndrome or self criticism at some point and the automatic
Speaker 4: advice is to be less critical, be less hard on yourself,
Speaker 4: love yourself more. It's kind of a very blanket approach,
Speaker 4: but actually there's so many ways in which we can
Speaker 4: experience the inner critic, and then so many different things
Speaker 4: we do as a result of the inner critic that
Speaker 4: we really want to approach this topic with some nuance
Speaker 4: so that we can have the best outcomes.
Speaker 3: Love that. So with this theme around negative self talk,
Speaker 3: it's interesting because I find, you know, after working with
Speaker 3: lots of teenage girls, body image is one of the
Speaker 3: common issues that we see when it comes to inner critic.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 4: My thoughts is, man, I've been a psychologis for what
Speaker 4: ten years, and I have a PhD. And I sometimes
Speaker 4: struggle with this, right like, our society and our culture
Speaker 4: infiltrates these messages about body image, and so I think
Speaker 4: for so many of us as adults, we would struggle
Speaker 4: with it. How can we expect kids and teens not
Speaker 4: to be impacted by the constant messaging that we receive
Speaker 4: around what is or isn't the ideal body?
Speaker 3: And I think as well, as much as it is
Speaker 3: hard with society and what we see on social media.
Speaker 3: We are starting to make change. You know, we are
Speaker 3: celebrating more body diversity. We're seeing it more, which I
Speaker 3: think is something to celebrate too.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, absolutely, we've made moves in the right direction.
Speaker 4: We still have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 1: Do a lot of work.
Speaker 4: And it's not just young women, young men as well
Speaker 4: impacted by the stereotype of what the ideal body is.
Speaker 4: So I think, yeah, if we've got a lot of
Speaker 4: work still to.
Speaker 3: Do after this shop break, doctor Anastasia is going to
Speaker 3: teach us exactly how to work with that inner critic
Speaker 3: rather than allowing it to take over. Stay with us, Anathasia.
Speaker 3: I already feel so much better knowing that we all
Speaker 3: have an inner critic, not alone, not alone, So how
Speaker 3: do we exactly work with it?
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm going to talk us through four different strategies
Speaker 4: today as to how to work with the inner critic,
Speaker 4: but they're all going to be grounded in this concept
Speaker 4: of self compassion. Now, what is self compassion? Let's just
Speaker 4: talk about that for one minute. Self compassion is different
Speaker 4: to self esteem. Right, often when people hear, oh I
Speaker 4: feel bad about myself, I need to build my self esteem?
Speaker 4: Is the automatic reaction. I say, let's build self compassion instead.
Speaker 4: Self esteem is dependent on how good I am. It
Speaker 4: requires me to find things about myself or my life
Speaker 4: life that I feel good about. I got a really
Speaker 4: good mark on that assessment, I got that job that
Speaker 4: I went for. I've got a close circle of five
Speaker 4: friends that I feel really good about. Right. It requires
Speaker 4: me to identify things to make me feel good. That's
Speaker 4: what self esteem is all about. Self compassion is different.
Speaker 4: Self compassion says we are all human, we are all flawed,
Speaker 4: we all make mistakes, and we all struggle, and that
Speaker 4: is what being human is. So instead of trying to
Speaker 4: constantly be perfect and strive for the ideal version of
Speaker 4: ourselves where we don't make mistakes and we don't stuff up,
Speaker 4: let's work to instead accept the fact the stuff ups
Speaker 4: will happen, the mistakes will happen, the ugly moments in
Speaker 4: life will happen that we wish we could go back
Speaker 4: and redo. But instead of beating ourselves up about those moments,
Speaker 4: can we instead meet ourselves with kindness and compassion. So
Speaker 4: what we know from the research is that people who
Speaker 4: are compassionate towards themselves generally feel more kind of satisfied
Speaker 4: and optimistic about their life. They're generally able to forgive
Speaker 4: themselves more easily. They have a strong sense of self
Speaker 4: worth and identity, and they can focus more on kind
Speaker 4: of the learning and the personal growth rather than getting
Speaker 4: stuck down in the negative feelings attached to the inner critic.
Speaker 3: This is really good you're laying it out like this,
Speaker 3: because if we did take self compassion out, it's just
Speaker 3: self esteem, but it's still performative based, like it's still
Speaker 3: based on external So I like that we're coming back
Speaker 3: to a foundation of self compassion.
Speaker 4: Yes, perfect. So four different strategies. First one is reframe,
Speaker 4: and reframe through the lens of self compassion. So if
Speaker 4: you find that your inner critic is giving you a
Speaker 4: hard time and it's talking to you in a really
Speaker 4: mean way on the fact that you are human, you
Speaker 4: are imperfect. Anyone hearing this right now feeling triggered, You've
Speaker 4: got some inner work to do. My friends, you are
Speaker 4: all imperfect. We are all imperfect. We have to learn
Speaker 4: to accept that fact right rather than fight against it,
Speaker 4: because we will forever be trying to fight against it
Speaker 4: if we can't accept it. So reframe your self criticism,
Speaker 4: to be kind to yourself, to be able to tell yourself,
Speaker 4: I'm struggling right now, and that's okay. Everyone has bad moments.
Speaker 4: Everyone has the moments they're not proud of. Everyone struggles sometimes,
Speaker 4: it's part of being human. I'm not the only person
Speaker 4: to have ever felt this experience. I'm not the only
Speaker 4: person to have ever struggled. I'm not the only person
Speaker 4: to have ever failed at something. This is a shared
Speaker 4: human experience. No one gets it right all the time.
Speaker 4: That's not to say that I can't try and do
Speaker 4: better next time or try and improve myself. But in
Speaker 4: this moment, I'm going to give myself compassion and kindness
Speaker 4: and acceptance that I'm just a real human being in
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 3: And I can imagine, like even with this first step,
Speaker 3: like that would take time, right because we're changing patterning
Speaker 3: and how we've been talking to ourself for I don't know,
Speaker 3: twenty thirty forty years.
Speaker 4: Right, Absolutely, it takes time. If we're you still launching
Speaker 4: in automatically with the harshness and the self criticism, stepping
Speaker 4: back and going, you know what, I'm gonna just be
Speaker 4: kind and accepting towards myself right now that takes time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, It's like we're building our own self trust as
Speaker 3: well in that because for so long we've been speaking
Speaker 3: another language, and all of a sudden, you're speaking a
Speaker 3: new language.
Speaker 1: And we're like, wait, what, yes, might being so nice
Speaker 1: to me?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean? Exactly? It feels different?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so that's number one reframe. What about number two?
Speaker 4: Okay. Another strategy you can try if you find yourself
Speaker 4: bogged down in the inner critic is ask yourself the question,
Speaker 4: how would I speak to a friend in this situation.
Speaker 4: If it was my friend who came and told me
Speaker 4: that she was really disappointed in herself because she applied
Speaker 4: for a job and she didn't get it and she
Speaker 4: was really hoping she did, and she just felt crap
Speaker 4: about herself and like she wasn't good enough. Would I
Speaker 4: sit there and go, oh, yeah, you know what, does
Speaker 4: sound like you're a bit crap? Actually, maybe you just
Speaker 4: weren't good enough for the job, right. No, we wouldn't
Speaker 4: say that to someone else. We would meet them with
Speaker 4: kindness and compassion. We would try to be non judgmental
Speaker 4: about the situation. But often what we say to ourselves
Speaker 4: is so much meaner than what we would say to
Speaker 4: other people. So if you're struggling with your inner critic
Speaker 4: being really loud and really tough on you ask yourself
Speaker 4: the question, what would I say to someone else in
Speaker 4: the same situation as me?
Speaker 3: I feel like I've loved that because us having a
Speaker 3: different perspective really can shift it. Because you know, if
Speaker 3: a friend was to say, oh, like, you're a crap person.
Speaker 1: Like, we wouldn't be friends with them anymore.
Speaker 3: But the reality is we're stuck with ourselves for the
Speaker 3: rest of our lives. Yes, and we should be empowered
Speaker 3: by that, right, Yes.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, absolutely. We want to give ourselves doses of reality. Sure,
Speaker 4: but we don't want to be excessively mean and harsh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything in moderation. Balance, as you say.
Speaker 4: Balance is key.
Speaker 3: Yes, Okay, So now how about number three?
Speaker 4: Okay, this leads us nicely on to the third one.
Speaker 4: If you've tried the reframe and you've tried to think
Speaker 4: about what you tell a friend and it's not working,
Speaker 4: I want you to name your inner critic. Now you
Speaker 4: mentioned good old Luke.
Speaker 1: Luke, we go way back, Luke Luke.
Speaker 4: I'd call my inner critic Frank. Why they're men? Something
Speaker 4: will unpack another time.
Speaker 1: That's another episode.
Speaker 4: But name the inner critic now, now, why do we
Speaker 4: do this? Okay? Our sense of self is built up
Speaker 4: in parts. Okay, we have the part of us that
Speaker 4: is the confident self that rocks up and goes to
Speaker 4: work and can connect with other people. We have a
Speaker 4: really confident part of ourself. We have the feelings part
Speaker 4: to ourself, the part that feels vulnerable, the part that
Speaker 4: feels lonely sometimes, the part that feels self conscious. We
Speaker 4: have a part of ourselves that might be the part
Speaker 4: that can detach from things. Right, we have all these
Speaker 4: different parts. We can have all sorts of parts, but
Speaker 4: we all have this part of us that is the
Speaker 4: inner critic. Now, when the inner critic comes to the
Speaker 4: forefront and it speaks to us, it's like we are
Speaker 4: consumed by that experience. Right, We don't necessarily identify it
Speaker 4: as simply one part of who we are. So by
Speaker 4: naming the inner critic, what we're essentially doing is providing
Speaker 4: a little bit of operation from me to the inner critic.
Speaker 4: It's there, yep. I'm not trying to get rid of
Speaker 4: it completely. I'm just identifying it as one part of
Speaker 4: my internal experience, but it's not all of my experience.
Speaker 4: Not everything it says is true and I have to
Speaker 4: believe it right, It's just one part. So naming the
Speaker 4: inner critic can be helpful to give us that space
Speaker 4: and distance from it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like with my relationship with Luke, it's
Speaker 3: very layered. But you know, I've learned to love Luke
Speaker 3: as well. I mean I go through different seasons, like
Speaker 3: definitely there's times.
Speaker 1: Where I get.
Speaker 3: Scared of Luke or like I love Luke, or I
Speaker 3: don't want to listen to Luke. Like it really does change.
Speaker 4: Yes, I love Luke and look, listeners out there, if
Speaker 4: you're struggling to come up with a name for your
Speaker 4: inner critic. While I was having my coffee this morning,
Speaker 4: I did a little bit of a quick AI and
Speaker 4: I asked, AI, can you like give me some example
Speaker 4: names for what we might be able to call out
Speaker 4: in a critic? And I've got to share these with you.
Speaker 4: Some of them are kind of funny.
Speaker 1: AI, SA, this is great.
Speaker 4: So we got Luke, we got Frank Mins Frank. But
Speaker 4: here's what AI gave us, Captain Nitpick. What imagine next
Speaker 4: time your in a critic comes up? You're like, oh,
Speaker 4: there's Captain Nitpick. Okay, another one. I like this one.
Speaker 4: Grumble gasoo alliteration, grumble gas is in the house. Yep,
Speaker 4: mister sassy pants, the Judge mcjudgson. Oh my god, negative
Speaker 4: ned or negative Nancy right, whiney wonder Now these are laughable, right.
Speaker 4: But I also think that bringing humor into this conversation
Speaker 4: is helpful because next time your in a critic comes
Speaker 4: up and it says, mayor mayor mayor, what a terrible
Speaker 4: person you were. You didn't text your friend because you
Speaker 4: forgot it was their birthday, and you go, oh, there's
Speaker 4: Judge mcjudgson again, give me a hard time. It provides
Speaker 4: that distance and that space and that lightness to otherwise
Speaker 4: would have been a moment that we get super bogged
Speaker 4: down in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely feel like joy can really lift lift it.
Speaker 1: All up again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, bit of space and distance between that mean part
Speaker 4: of us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 4: The fourth thing I'd recommend people try is a compassionate letter. Right,
Speaker 4: we're going to write a letter to ourselves that is
Speaker 4: kind and compassionate. Now, I recommend if people want to
Speaker 4: give this a go, you do it when you're not
Speaker 4: in the thick of the inner critic. Right, if you
Speaker 4: feel like you're having a calm evening, you're feeling like
Speaker 4: you're in a good place, like you connected with yourself,
Speaker 4: sit down and try to write yourself a letter and
Speaker 4: channel the part of you that is kind, that is forgiving,
Speaker 4: that is accepting, that has some wisdom, but that's ultimately
Speaker 4: empathetic and compassionate, the part of you that can acknowledge
Speaker 4: that imperfection is part of the human experience. And what
Speaker 4: I want you to do is write a letter to
Speaker 4: yourself giving yourself kindness and love and forgiveness and compassion.
Speaker 4: So literally, dear whatever your name is, and then write
Speaker 4: what comes to mind. Don't be too structured, don't be
Speaker 4: too formal. Doesn't matter about accuracies. This is a letter
Speaker 4: that's designed to channel an emotion. It's meant to be
Speaker 4: in emotive experience. Many times when I get my clients
Speaker 4: to do this, they will say that while they wrote it,
Speaker 4: they actually cried, they felt something, And that's what we want.
Speaker 4: We want to change that internal emotional experience from being
Speaker 4: one of harshness to one of compassion. So if you
Speaker 4: write this letter, see how you feel as you write it,
Speaker 4: and then if you feel brave enough and if you've
Speaker 4: got someone in your life you can share it with,
Speaker 4: I would encourage you find a close, safe friend and
Speaker 4: actually read it out loud to them. The experience of
Speaker 4: saying this out loud in front of someone else gives
Speaker 4: it this other layer of emotion that we can tap into.
Speaker 4: So again, when I do this with my clients, I
Speaker 4: encourage them to go away and write it as homework
Speaker 4: and then bring it back into the therapy room and
Speaker 4: read it out loud to me, and sometimes we're both
Speaker 4: in tears. I'm not gonna lie, right. It's quite an
Speaker 4: emotional experience, particularly for people who have just been stuck
Speaker 4: in that harshness and that self criticism for so long.
Speaker 4: So if you feel brave, give the letter writing a go.
Speaker 3: Oh. I love that, and I really love that as
Speaker 3: an activity. I get my clients to do that too,
Speaker 3: And it is so profound because I feel like so
Speaker 3: much gets stuck inside of us. And I feel like
Speaker 3: even when I did workshops of teenage girls, they would
Speaker 3: be writing til the cows come home, like they're writing pages,
Speaker 3: because there's so much that comes out when we're just
Speaker 3: in a space of just stillness. So if we follow
Speaker 3: all of these techniques that you've given us, what happens, Like,
Speaker 3: what are the actual benefits from it?
Speaker 4: The benefit is that overall we build that muscle of
Speaker 4: self compassion. And what we know is that having a
Speaker 4: strong capacity for self compassion means that we're more resilience
Speaker 4: against potentially developing depression. We have greater sense of self worth,
Speaker 4: we have quite a stable sense of identity. We can
Speaker 4: be more appreciative and kind to ourselves in relation to
Speaker 4: body image like we were talking about before, more sort
Speaker 4: of accepting and satisfied with our bodies. We also develop
Speaker 4: higher levels of emotional intelligence, so that capacity for me
Speaker 4: to be able to know what my emotions are telling me,
Speaker 4: but also work with other people's emotional states as well.
Speaker 4: Building self compassion helps us be more resilient when we're
Speaker 4: faced with life's hardships and challenges, and it helps us
Speaker 4: build that sort of grit and resilience and determination for
Speaker 4: us to be able to get through tough times in life.
Speaker 3: After this shopbreak, I'm going to meet Sam and he's
Speaker 3: very loud in a critic stay with us, berb hereb Bibby.
Speaker 4: I'm having a serious Christian berb having a crisis.
Speaker 3: We had so many people share their inner critic dilemmas
Speaker 3: with us. It's such a common experience, Anastasia.
Speaker 1: This is Sam.
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm constantly walking on eggshells with how
Speaker 5: I communicate with friends. I try and be lighthearted and funny,
Speaker 5: but sometimes my jokes miss the mark, or worse, they
Speaker 5: offend someone, and I'm left wondering if I accidentally hurt
Speaker 5: their feelings. At work, it's a different kind of pressure.
Speaker 5: I'm naturally casual and conversational, but I worry that I
Speaker 5: come across as too informal or unprofessional, especially in meetings
Speaker 5: or over email. The hardest part is laying awake at
Speaker 5: night replaying everything I said, cringing at things I thought
Speaker 5: sounded stupid or inappropriate, and spiraling into overthinking what should
Speaker 5: I do to stop this?
Speaker 4: Oh, Sam, this sounds like hard work for you, buddy,
Speaker 4: I'm siren.
Speaker 3: Staying up at night thinking about it. Oh so relatable.
Speaker 4: So one thing Sam might want to do, and anyone
Speaker 4: who can relate to Sam's experience is go back to
Speaker 4: episode one and listen to us talking about getting into
Speaker 4: worry spirals, because it feels like there's some elements of
Speaker 4: worry coming into this experience, laying awake at night overthinking things.
Speaker 4: The other thing I'd say is that it sounds like
Speaker 4: you're in a critic definitely is coming to the forefront
Speaker 4: and making you question yourself a lot. Now, if someone
Speaker 4: walked into the therapy room and they said to me,
Speaker 4: I think I say some weird things at work, or
Speaker 4: I make some jokes and they don't quite land, or
Speaker 4: maybe I made a joke and someone didn't quite like it,
Speaker 4: or I said something weird, I would say, in the
Speaker 4: nicest way possible, with all the love I have, so what,
Speaker 4: And that's not meant to be judgment. I'm not like
Speaker 4: so what? Right, it's like so what? So what feels
Speaker 4: so bad about that? The thing is, most of the
Speaker 4: time we think about ourselves more than anyone else thinks
Speaker 4: about us. Right, So I would be quite skeptical as
Speaker 4: to whether your work colleagues or your friends are going
Speaker 4: home and thinking about you as much as you're thinking
Speaker 4: about you in those moments. Right. We all say things
Speaker 4: that we think they're funny and then turns out they're
Speaker 4: not sometimes, right, Shani, And I'll probably do that at
Speaker 4: points in this podcast, where we make jokes that no
Speaker 4: one else thinks is funny, it'll happen. That's part of
Speaker 4: being human. I accept that I'll make jokes that are
Speaker 4: not funny. We make mistakes, we say things we don't
Speaker 4: always mean right. So that's why I bring this question
Speaker 4: of what's so bad about that? Maybe it feels really
Speaker 4: bad when we give ourselves a hard time about it,
Speaker 4: But in the grand scheme of life, that one joke
Speaker 4: that didn't land is one spec in time and in
Speaker 4: two days, two weeks, two months, two years.
Speaker 3: Okay, I think a lot of us will be writing
Speaker 3: self compassion letters tonight. Ata Stagiak, we covered a lot
Speaker 3: of ground today. Can you give us a recut?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? First up, we all have an inner critic. It's
Speaker 4: normal and it's natural for it to exist. Second, some
Speaker 4: people have an inner critic that is louder and meaner
Speaker 4: than other people's. Third, we can tame our inner critic
Speaker 4: through self compassion. Fourth, self compassion requires us to acknowledge
Speaker 4: that our mistakes and disappointments are all part of the
Speaker 4: human experience. No one else is perfect and neither are we.
Speaker 4: And lastly, self compassion can be harnessed by treating ourselves
Speaker 4: with the same kindness and understanding that we would approach
Speaker 4: a friend with. Now next week, we are diving into
Speaker 4: a topic that is very close to my heart. The
Speaker 4: biggest misconceptions and mistakes people make the.
Speaker 1: Therapy I cannot wait.
Speaker 3: If you have a burning question, there are a few
Speaker 3: ways to get in touch with us.
Speaker 1: Links are in the show notes.
Speaker 4: And remember, while I am a psychologist, this podcast isn't
Speaker 4: a diagnostic tool, and the advice and ideas we present
Speaker 4: here should always take into account your personal history. The
Speaker 4: executive producer of But Are You Happy is Niama Brown.
Speaker 3: Tarlie Blackman is our senior producer.
Speaker 4: Sound design and editing by Jacob Brown.
Speaker 1: I'm a Shani Dante and.
Speaker 4: I'm doctor Anastasia Heronis. The names and stories of clients
Speaker 4: discussed have been changed for the purpose of maintaining anonymity.
Speaker 4: If this conversation brought up any difficult feelings for you,
Speaker 4: we have links for more resources in the show notes
Speaker 4: around the topics we discussed today. You can also reach
Speaker 4: out to organizations like Beyond Blue or Lifeline if you're
Speaker 4: wanting more immediate support. Thanks for listening, Mamma Mia acknowledges
Speaker 4: the traditional owners of the land and waters that this
Speaker 4: podcast is recorded on.