Did You Know?
Did you know that we all experience our Inner Critic voice.
Some even have an outer critic voice.
The role of either critic is to protect you from harm. Though these critics can also leave you feeling stuck and impacting your life in a negative way.
It is important to become familiar with your critic to move forward towards well-being.
Inner Critic
You can try to ignore your inner critic, but that doesn't resolve the reason it is there in the first place. You can try to rid yourself of your inner critic but it will return, louder than before.
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Internal Family System explains the inner critic as follows:
Our psyche is made up of different parts called subpersonalities and they each have feelings, memories, goals and motivations. Often these parts are in conflict with one another i.e. one part wants to lose weight and another wants to eat for comfort.
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The key is to become familiar with your critics to understand what they are trying to protect you from. Give your inner critic a name such as: The perfectionist, the guilt tripper and so forth.
Let's find out what your inner critic is doing for you and create a positive connection to it.
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The more you know about yourself, the more you grow!
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Outer Critic
Your outer critic also has the job of protecting you. Your outer critic wants to keep others at a distance so it finds a laundry list of fault with another to justify the space created.
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But why do you need that space?
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Perhaps you have a fear of getting close to others. You may avoid emotional connections in relationships because there was an earlier experience where you did not feel safe, nor could you trust another individual or individuals, whether it be your early caregivers, family, friends, etc.
However, the outer critic can lead to feeling isolated and alone. Though it is trying to protect you from the fear of being abandoned, it actually scares you further into your fear.
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Let's work with that outer critic to help you facilitate safety in connection with others.
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