July 11, 2025 • 43 mins
Do you ever notice that inner voice—the one that’s quick to judge or put you down, even though you’d never speak to a friend that way?
In this episode of But Are You Happy, clinical psychologist Dr. Anastasia Hronis talks about how to deal with your inner critic, especially when it starts affecting your mental health, and how to start building a more supportive voice instead.
You'll also learn:
- Where that critical voice comes from
- Whether it gets easier to manage as we get older
- Signs someone might be struggling with self-worth
- Practical ways to build self-compassion
If you or someone you know needs support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. Both services are available 24/7 for free, confidential mental health support.
Want to get in touch with us? DM @butareyouhappypod on Instagram or send us a voice memo. Our hosts are ready to hear your dilemmas—think of it as free therapy!
CREDITS:
Hosts: Ashani Dante & Dr Anastasia Hronis
Executive Producer: Naima Brown
Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
Our studio is styled with furniture from Fenton and Fenton.
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Support the show: https://www.mamamia.com.au/mplus/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mamma Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
waters that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I have this constant feeling that everything is my fault.
No matter what I do, I always blame myself for everything,
even if I have nothing to do with it. Did
you have a parent who never really apologized when they
made mistakes?
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
What if a child never witnessed their parent apologize.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
The child then internalizes that and says, well, then it
must be my fault.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
For Mama Maya.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
I'm your host, Ashani Dante. Welcome to But are you happy?
Because regulating your nervous system takes more than a marcha
and a mantra?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
And I'm doctor Anastagia Herness, a clinical psychologist passionate about
happiness and mental health. A question for you listener. Do
you sometimes hear a voice in your head that says
mean things about you, things you would never say about
someone you cared about.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Oh, that old chestnut I call my inner meanie Luke.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Look, most of us have this voice from time to time.
But when this voice starts to impact our mental health
or our quality of life, that's when we really need
to learn to quieten it down.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
So you're going to tell us what's going on here, right,
and how to make our lukes a.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Little bit kinder to ourselves.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Right? Yep, can't wait, let's get into it, okay. So, Anastasia,
the question I have is that inner critic voice isn't
all that bad? Like should we actually get rid of it?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
My favorite first question, yes and no, like, yes, the
inner critic can be really destructive when we experience it
in excess, or when what it says to us is
really unhelpful. So there's kind of two things we want
to look at here, how much we experience the inner critic,
how often it comes up in to our head, how
(02:11):
often it talks to us, how loudly it talks to us, right,
So the kind of intensity and frequency of it. But
then we also want to look at the content of
what it says. Sometimes the inner critic might say things
that gives us a bit of a push or a nudge.
You know, if you're studying for a UNI assessment and
it's like, well, you didn't get a great mark because
(02:31):
you didn't really study that hard. Maybe next time you
should try a bit harder. It's probably some truth to that,
and that could actually be helpful and useful for us.
So we've got to really examine the usefulness of the
content along with how frequently we experience that inner critic.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
I really love that because also when we think of
an acritic, we often just want to like push it
away and not listen to it at all. But what
I'm hearing is that we actually should be curious about
it because it's telling us more.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Right, absolutely, And the reality is, try as we might,
we will never fully get rid of an inner critic.
We're all always going to have an inner critic. So
part of the challenge for us is to get comfortable
with that fact and to be able to tone it
down and moderate it. But it serves a function. It
does exist to give us a bit of a sort
(03:19):
of moral framework and compass right, to let us know
when we think we've done the wrong thing or we
should have done something better than what we did, and
to be a bit of a guide in life to
give us that feedback that we sometimes need to hear.
So it's always going to exist for that purpose.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
And I guess, like with that when you said that
there's different types of the inner critic. What are some
other ways that we can really label, like the different types.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So I'm going to break it down into three types
of inner critics, and listeners out there follow along and
see if you can identify your inner critic and what
type it might fall into. First type is what we
call a demanding in a critic. Now, this is the
type of inner critic that puts pressure on us. When
(04:08):
we have this inner critic, we feel pressure, We feel
that push feeling, and it sounds like a lot of shoulds.
You should do better, you should try harder, you should
have known better, you shouldn't have got such a bad mark,
you should have got that promotion. Right. It's that feeling
of forward pressure. But pressure can sometimes feel crippling as well. Right,
(04:30):
So the demanding in a critic pushes us. Sometimes, it
pushes us a bit too hard and a bit too much.
If we have this type of inner critic in and
of itself, it's fundamentally not bad. But if we experience
it in excess, we want to be able to turn
down the volume and tone it down a little bit
if we're feeling like it's too overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Right, Okay, so that's demanding.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So that's first type.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Okay, first type.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Next type is what we call a punitive in a critic. Now,
this looks and feels very different. If we have a
punitive in a critic, we feel squashed, right, and the
punitive inner critic sounds very different. It sounds like you're
a terrible person, You're worthless, no one's ever going to
(05:18):
love you, everyone will leave you your shit, why even bother.
You'll never get anything right in your life. So it's
a real squashed feeling. It doesn't push us forward like
the demanding in a critic does. It squashes us down,
and it makes us feel shit about ourselves. When we
have a punitive in a critic, that doesn't serve any
functional purpose. There's nothing useful or helpful about having that
(05:43):
style of inner critic. And so in the therapy room,
if I'm working with someone who's got a punitive in
a critic, our goal is to get rid of it.
We don't want it around. It's not helpful, it's not useful.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Okay, it's so if we look at the difference so far,
so is that does that mean like the demanding it's
more action orientated, whereas the punitive's more like internal criticism,
or how would you like discern between the two.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
That's that's the difference, that one is functional and one
is not. So the demanding in a critic can be
functional because it can motivate us. It can push us,
It can give us feedback when we've done something wrong
and we need to correct it, you know, so, it
can motivate us towards action when we've got it in
the right degree. The punitive one, if I'm telling myself
that I'm a terrible, worthless person, I don't feel like
(06:30):
getting up and being motivated to do things. I feel
like lying in bed, and I probably feel pretty awful
about myself. The third is what we call a guilt
inducing in a critic. This is the inner critic that
makes you feel riddled with guilt even when you shouldn't
feel guilty, even when you haven't done anything wrong. So
(06:51):
I'm going to throw back to the excerpt we heard
at the start where that girl was like, I see
someone walk down the street and fall down, and I
feel guilty and bad about it, like it was my
fault even though it's clearly not. The guilt inducing in
a critic is the one that tells us we're selfish.
We should care about other people more. Why we look
after others? If we say no to going to our parents'
(07:14):
house for lunch this weekend, we feel really bad about
saying no. One really guilty about it. So that guilt
inducing in a critic. Again, we can have it in excess.
Sometimes it's useful to feel guilty. But if someone's got
this style of inner critic, they're probably feeling it way
too much and in circumstances that don't warrant them feeling guilty.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
It's really funny because now that you've spoken about all three,
I'm just like, I feel like I've got all three?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Is that a bad thing?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, it's it's it's not ideal, Okay, Well it's a therapy, guys.
But it's common, right, It's common for people to have combinations.
It's some people might be listening and think, Okay, I've
only got that one. Other people will be like, I
can see combinations of all of them. And that's not
an uncommon experience for people to have.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Okay, So where does the inner critic come from?
Speaker 2 (08:06):
We're not born naturally with an inner critic, right, we
don't come out of the womb hating on ourselves. It's
something we develop throughout our life. The inner critic is
first formed during our early childhood years, through those formative years,
and it's very much influenced by the messages that we
(08:26):
hear from people around us. Now, they might be messages
that are modeled to us, or they might be messages
that we are told directly. So if you know, little
Sally goes to school and she comes home from school
and she's like, I got ninety five out of one
hundred in my maths test, and Mum and dad say
(08:48):
to her, well, what the hell happened to the other
five percent, Little Sally's going to start to develop an
inner critic that says, I should always be doing better.
Nothing I do is good enough. I can't even get
ninety five. That's not good enough. Only one hundred is
good enough. So we start to internalize. That would be
an example of a demanding inner critic that starts to
develop if from a young age we hear messages where
(09:11):
we are invalidated, where our experiences are invalidated, where we're
told you're a bad child for behaving that particular way. Right,
when terms like good and bad use towards children, they
can also start to develop that in a critic. But
it's not just what message is told to us as kids,
it's also what we see modeled. So if I'm growing
(09:32):
up and I see that every time Mum, I don't know,
makes a wrong turn when she's driving the car, and
she goes, gosh, I'm such an idiot. Why did I
do that? I always stuff up for I can never
get anything right. We see other peoples in a critic
coming to the forefront, and we also then start to
internalize if I take a wrong turn when I drive,
(09:54):
I must be an idiot as well, because that's what
Mum said. Right now, All this happens on a very
subconscious level. But if we add another layer of society
to that, society and culture also give us messages about
what is or isn't quote unquote good or bad behavior right.
Society in our culture tells us how we should be
(10:16):
in the world, and if we don't fit that mold,
we develop inner criticisms around it.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
There really is so many layers to it, isn't it
when you actually unpack it like that as well? And
I think it's it's interesting we're talking about, you know,
a lot of the things that shaped you when you
were a child. And I know that's been a theme
throughout a lot of the episodes. And I feel like
it's very easy to blame our family, right, being like, Oh,
if you didn't say that thing, I wouldn't be like this.
(10:43):
And I think it's probably later in life, when we're
a little bit older, that we build our awareness. But
I think also it's remembering that, you know, our parents
are human too, and they're doing the best that they
can with the capacity that they have, right, So it's like,
how do we balance it all out when we do
find the source of why we're being so mean to ourselves?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And I think you make a good point there, because
it's never one isolated experience, right. It's not because Mum
said that one time. Oh I'm such an idiot? Why
did I do that? That we internalize that. It's when
we see these patterns through our life, or patterns in
the people or the culture around us that give us
these really strong messages about what is or isn't acceptable,
(11:24):
that we then really internalize those patterns.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Yeah. And it's interesting too because with a lot of
the workshops I around with teenage girls, one of the
first things we do get them to do is in
order to build self awareness. It's been able to discern,
you know, where did these negative thoughts come from? And
you know, a lot of the time girls are saying
things like, oh, society tells us we need to, you know,
have it all together, be perfect, but don't be too perfect,
(11:48):
and you've got to be slim thick, and they break
it all down. It's the same narrative I hear all
the time, and it breaks my heart like thinking about
it because it's just, oh, I'm getting emotional.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I don't know if we're going to cut this out,
but it's something I'm.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Really passionate about because they feel really deflated, you know,
they feel disempowered, they feel trapped because that's just how
they've grown up.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
It's just what they've seen.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
And it's really coming back to a lot of the
tools that we've been you know, weaving throughout all the episodes.
It's like, at the end of the day, what can
we control? And it is our self empowerment and our
environment as well.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, And the unfortunate thing is that kids and teens
don't yet have the skills to be able to really
fact check their inner critic, right, they just believe it. Well,
you know, as kids and teenagers, we don't have that
cognitive capacity yet like we do as adults. We can
take that step back and really kind of examine our
inner critic from a really critical lens. But as kids,
(12:48):
we don't yet have that ability developed.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Yeah, I agree, and I think it's it all exists
in conversations, right. It's only once we have the courage
to have these conversations know that we're not alone, because
what we're getting is that we all haven't in a
critic and it's around how do we learn to work
with it.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I've seen so many people come to the clinic who
have that loud, debilitating in a critic and you would
not pick it looking at them from the outside. I
have people who come to the clinic. They're lawyers and
their judges and their CEOs, and they're you know, also
their public figures. They're in sorts of work. I guess
(13:29):
that requires them to be very front facing and have
a confidence to them when they carry out the skill
set they're required to do in their career. And if
you looked at them from the outside, you would not
pick that they had this really strong inner critic, because
it is something that some people can hide from the
(13:50):
outside world. So exactly to your point, we don't know
what someone else's in a critic is saying to them.
We do sometimes meet people on the flip side where
we can hear their inner critic. They literally say out loud,
oh no, I'm so sorry I did that wrong. I
was such a bad friend. I should have called you,
I didn't call you enough, and were like, well, stop,
it's okay. You know, some people will literally talk out
(14:10):
they're in a critic. Other people will mask it really
really well. But what we can see it sort of
manifest as in terms of behaviors is chronic depression. So
people who have a very loud and particularly punitive in.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
A critic that is washing one.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
That's the squashing one. Yep. That's really hard to manage
in the long run, and it is very much correlated
with having long standing depression, but also low self esteem.
If we have a little voice in our head telling
us every day how terrible we are, we're not going
to feel particularly good about ourselves.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
And do you have any like examples of any clients
you've worked with recently? Obviously like keeping confidentiality and everything
like that of like what you worked on.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yes, honestly, it's one of the most common things that
we do in therapy. And so I'm thinking about, you know,
clients that I've seen recently, where I mean, part of
the work we do is unpack, firstly, what is your
inner critics saying to you, so we can identify what
type of inner critic have you got? What is the
inner critic saying? And so I'm thinking of someone I
worked with who was in sort of corporate sort of space,
(15:20):
and they were really great at their job, but they
worked excessively long hours. They would come home at the
end of the night and still tell themselves, I haven't
done enough. I'm not going to get that promotion. I'm
doing a terrible job. Other people are doing better than me.
Why am I not able to achieve the things I want?
Why don't I have enough energy? Why can't I seem
to do all these things? Right? Just really really harsh, demanding,
(15:43):
but flavors of punitive as well, right, And so it
was really about us trying to understand what's your inner
critics saying to you? And is it helpful? Like if
your goal is to get that promotion at work? Is
the inner critic actually helping you get there? Or is
it making you feel exhausted and terrible about yourself so
(16:03):
that when you go home, you can't sleep, you don't
eat much, you know, perpetuate the cycle of exhaustion, and
then you probably don't get the promotion that you're after. Like,
is it actually helping you get where it wants you
to go? Because it's pushing you in a direction, But
is it helping you get there?
Speaker 4 (16:19):
So would you say that the inner critic is the
same as intrusive thoughts?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I'll answer that by explaining what intrusive thoughts are. So
every single one of us has intrusive thoughts, right, intrusive thoughts.
Many of our thoughts are automatic. We don't choose them,
they pop into our head. Right, So, if I'm walking
down past the road and I see a cafe with
(16:46):
some donuts, my brain will be like, ooh, yom donuts.
I didn't choose to think that, My brain just thought it, right,
So it's an automatic thought. A lot of our thoughts
are automatic. We don't have control over their initial kind
of being, but we can choose what we then do
with them, right, So, we all have automatic thoughts. We
all have intrusive thoughts. Okay, so intrusive thoughts are and
(17:13):
listen out at home, because I'm sure everyone will have
had them. Intrusive thoughts are these thoughts where we're walking
down the street and something really weird and random pops
into our head and we go, oh my god, what
the hell where did that just come from? So, for example,
I'm walking down the street and I go, what if
(17:34):
I just stepped out on the road in front of
all this traffic? And I'm like, what on earth? Why
did I think that? For I don't want to step
out into the road in front of all the traffic. Thanks,
I'm happy. You walk into work. Or we walk to
the edge of the cliff and we go, what if
I just jumped off this cliff. Or we're in the
kitchen and there's a knife and we go, what if
I just picked up this knife and stabbed my hand. Now,
(17:56):
intrusive thoughts, we all have them, right, so most of
us will go, whoa, what was that? That was strange?
Put that aside and carry on, right, So I want
to normalize intrusive thought happen to everyone. For some of us,
and this is where this is actually more kind of
into the realm of things like OCD. Some of us
(18:19):
will notice that intrusive thought and go, oh, my goodness,
why did I think that? Maybe there's something in me
that wants to do that or that wishes that to happen,
Because we can have intrusive thoughts about other people, right,
what if my mum's driving home from work and she
gets hit by a car. So they're all these kind
of they usually got this like harm element to them,
(18:39):
and they're quite confronting for us to think, but they're
often not congruent with how we feel or what we
actually want in life. So it's important for us to
be able to notice them and be like, well, no, no,
thank you, put that out of head. Keep going now
in the context of the inner critic, the inner critic
(18:59):
can be automatic, so those thoughts can automatically come in
where the inner critic goes, god, you did a shit
job at that, right. So we don't have too much
control over that initial thought, but we can choose whether
we then give it more weight and we think about
it more and more, or we put it to the side.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
So is it kind of like do we act the
same way like how we respond to intrusive thoughts or
intrusive thoughts, it's more of like, okay, put that away
in a critic do you feel like you need to
work with it? More like I'm trying to figure out
the difference.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
We want to question how much validity we give any
thought that pops in our head, whether it's the thought
that says, hey, you're standing near the edge of a cliff,
what if you jumped off? Or hey, you're a shit
person because you didn't say good morning to your friend, right.
Any thought we have that's automatic that we don't choose.
We want to be able to take that moment and
(19:52):
be like, is this true, is this helpful? Is this
something I should listen to? Is it something I should
think about more? Or is it not actually congruent with
my experience of what's happening, in which case I want
to try and put it to the side.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
It's really good that we're talking about intrusive thoughts too,
because as you're talking about it, I'm like, oh, I've
had intrusive thoughts, but it's just it's something that's popped up.
But then you just it kind of wigs you out
a little bit. Because it literally comes out of nowhere.
So it's good to know that that can be somewhat
of a normal experience that people experience it all the time.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Absolutely, So, how does.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Imposter syndrome flow into all of this?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Imposter syndrome and the inner critic go hand in hand, right,
This idea of the imposter syndrome is where we doubt ourselves,
we doubt our ability, we doubt our capacity, we doubt
our achievements, and we think we're not good enough. In fact,
one of the most common inner critic, deep seated beliefs
(20:49):
is the I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, And
so imposter syndrome tells us you're not good enough for
that job, you're not good enough in this relationship, You're
not good enough in some way, shape or form. And
what this can result in is compensating for that. So
maybe if we think we're not good enough or we
doubt ourselves, we don't apply for that job, or we
(21:11):
don't apply for the promotion, or we don't go on
that first date. Right, So we might avoid situations that
bring up and trigger up the self doubt, the imposter syndrome,
and the inner critic, or we might do the opposite.
We might overcompensate. We might make sure that when we
go on that first date, we put tons of makeup
on and we've got our hair professionally done, and we're
(21:32):
wearing our best outfit, and we have, you know, prepared
ten questions that we're gonna ask the person that we're
on a date with. Right, we might overcompensate. We might
overwork in the workplace to try and get that promotion.
So the experience of imposter syndrome and self doubt and
the inner critic can play out differently for different people.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
It sounds like there really is different flavors of imposter syndrome.
And it's funny when you were talking about imposter syndrome
being like holding hands with inner critic, I literally got
a visual of that being like, oh wow, they really
are friends. Like they are friends because the inner critics
like you're bad, and then imposter syndrome's like you're bad
because of you know that job or the way that
(22:14):
you said that thing. It's like they are this kind
of team.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yes, yes, And I think as well. The reason I
like this conversation is because we're getting into the nuance
of the inner critic. And I imagine that many people
listening may have heard about the inner critic or imposter
syndrome or self criticism at some point, and the automatic
advice is to be less critical, be less hard on yourself,
(22:39):
love yourself more. It's kind of a very blanket approach.
But actually there's so many ways in which we can
experience the inner critic, and then so many different things
we do as a result of the inner critic that
we really want to approach this topic with some nuance
so that we can have the best outcomes. Love that.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
So with this theme around negative self talk, it's interesting
because I find, you know, after working with lots of
teenage girls, body image is one of the common issues
that we see when it comes to in a critic.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (23:13):
My thoughts is, man, I've been a psychologist for what
ten years, and I have a PhD. And I sometimes
struggle with this, right like, our society and our culture
infiltrates these messages about body image, and so I think
for so many of us as adults, we would struggle
with it. How can we expect kids and teens not
to be impacted by the constant messaging that we receive
(23:36):
around what is or isn't the ideal body.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
And I think as well, as much as it is
hard with society and what we see on social media,
we are starting to make change. You know, we are
celebrating more body diversity. We're seeing it more, which I
think is something to celebrate too.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely, we've made moves in the right direction.
We still have a lot of work to do, do
a lot of work and it's not just young women,
young men as well impacted by the stereotype of what
the ideal body is. So I think, yeah, if we've
got a lot of work still to.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Do after this shop break, doctor Anastasia is going to
teach us exactly how to work with that inner critic
rather than allowing it to take over. Stay with us, Anathasia.
I already feel so much better knowing that we all
have an inner critic, not alone, not alone, So how
do we exactly work with it?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Okay, I'm going to talk us through four different strategies
today as to how to work with the inner critic,
but they're all going to be grounded in this concept
of self compassion. Now, what is self compassion? Let's just
talk about that for one minute. Self compassion is different
(24:55):
to self esteem. Right, often, when people hear oh I
feel bad about myself, I need to build my self
esteem is the automatic reaction, I say, Let's build self
compassion instead. Self esteem is dependent on how good I am.
It requires me to find things about myself or my
(25:16):
life that I feel good about. I got a really
good mark on that assessment, I got that job that
I went for. I've got a close circle of five
friends that I feel really good about. Right, it requires
me to identify things to make me feel good. That's
what self esteem is all about. Self compassion is different.
Self compassion says we are all human, we are all flawed,
(25:40):
we all make mistakes, and we all struggle, and that
is what being human is. So instead of trying to
constantly be perfect and strive for the ideal version of
ourselves where we don't make mistakes and we don't stuff up,
let's work to instead accept the fact the stuff ups
will happen, the mistakes will happen, the ugly moments in
(26:03):
life will happen that we wish we could go back
and redo. But instead of beating ourselves up about those moments,
can we instead meet ourselves with kindness and compassion. So
what we know from the research is that people who
are compassionate towards themselves generally feel more kind of satisfied
(26:24):
and optimistic about their life. They're generally able to forgive
themselves more easily, they have a strong sense of self
worth and identity, and they can focus more on kind
of the learning and the personal growth rather than getting
stuck down in the negative feelings attached to the inner critic.
(26:46):
This is really good.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
You're laying it out like this, because if we did
take self compassion out, it's just self esteem, but it's
still performative based, like it's still based on external So
I like that we're coming back to a foundation of
self compassion.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yes, perfect. So four different strategies. First one is reframe,
and reframe through the lens of self compassion. So if
you find that you're a critic is giving you a
hard time and it's talking to you in a really
mean way, reflect on the fact that you are human,
(27:19):
you are imperfect. Anyone hearing this right now feeling triggered,
You've got some inner work to do. My friends, you
are all imperfect. We are all imperfect. We have to
learn to accept that fact, right, rather than fight against it,
because we will forever be trying to fight against it
if we can't accept it. So reframe your self criticism,
(27:42):
to be kind to yourself, to be able to tell yourself,
I'm struggling right now, and that's okay. Everyone has bad moments.
Everyone has the moments they're not proud of. Everyone struggles sometimes,
It's part of being human. I'm not the only person
to have ever felt this experience. I'm not the only
person to have ever struggled. I'm not the only person
(28:04):
to have ever failed at something. This is a shared
human experience. No one gets it right the time. That's
not to say that I can't try and do better
next time or try and improve myself. But in this moment,
I'm going to give myself compassion and kindness and acceptance
that I'm just a real human being in the world.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
And I can imagine, like, even with this first step,
like that would take time, right because we're changing patterning
and how we've been talking to ourself for I don't know,
twenty thirty forty years.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Right, Absolutely, it takes time. If we're you still launching
in automatically with the harshness and the self criticism, stepping
back and going, you know what, I'm gonna just be
kind and accepting towards myself right now. That takes time. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
It's like we're building our own self trust as well
in that because for so long we've been speaking another language,
and all of a sudden, you're speaking a new language.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
And we're like, wait, what, yes, might being so nice
to me?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You know what I mean? Exactly? It feels different.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yeah, okay, so that's number one. Reframe. What about number two?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Okay. Another strategy you can try if you find yourself
bogged down in the inner critic is ask yourself the question,
how would I speak to a friend in this situation.
If it was my friend who came and told me
that she was really disappointed in herself because she applied
for a job and she didn't get it and she
(29:31):
was really hoping she did, and she just felt crap
about herself and like she wasn't good enough. Would I
sit there and go, oh, yeah, you know what, does
sound like you're a bit crap. Actually maybe you just
weren't good enough for the job. Right. No, we wouldn't
say that to someone else. We would meet them with kindness,
and compassion. We would try to be non judgmental about
the situation, but often what we say to ourselves is
(29:54):
so much meaner than what we would say to other people.
So if you're struggling with your inner critic being really
loud and really tough on you, ask yourself the question,
what would I say to someone else in the same
situation as me?
Speaker 4 (30:09):
I feel like I've loved that because us having a
different perspective really can shift it. Because you know, if
a friend was to say, oh, like, you're a crap person.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Like, we wouldn't be friends with them anymore.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
But the reality is we're stuck with ourselves for the
rest of our lives. Yes, and we should be empowered
by that, right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Absolutely, absolutely, we want to give ourselves doses of reality. Sure,
but we don't want to be excessively mean and harsh.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, everything in moderation. Balance, as you.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Say, balance is key.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Yes, Okay, So now how about number three?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Okay, this leads us nicely onto the third one. If
you've tried the reframe and you've tried to think about
what you tell a friend and it's not working, I
want you to name your inner critic. Now you mentioned
good old Luke.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Luke, we go way back, Luke Luke.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I'd call my inner critic, Frank. Why they're men. Something
will unpack another time.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
That's another episode.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
But name the inner critic. Now, why do we do this? Okay?
Our sense of self is built up in parts. Okay,
we have the part of us that is the confident
self that rocks up and goes to work and can
(31:32):
connect with other people. We have a really confident part
of ourself. We have the feelings part to ourself, the
part that feels vulnerable, the part that feels lonely sometimes,
the part that feels self conscious. We have a part
of ourselves that might be the part that can detach
from things. Right, we have all these different parts. We
can have all sorts of parts, but we all have
(31:53):
this part of us that is the inner critic. Now,
when the inner critic comes to the forefront and it
speaks to us, it's like we are consumed by that experience. Right,
we don't necessarily identify it as simply one part of
who we are. So by naming the inner critic, what
we're essentially doing is providing a little bit of separation
(32:17):
from me to the inner critic. It's there. Yep. I'm
not trying to get rid of it completely. I'm just
identifying it as one part of my internal experience. But
it's not all of my experience. Not everything it says
is true and I have to believe it right, It's
just one part. So naming the inner critic can be
helpful to give us that space and distance from it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
I feel like with my relationship with Luke, it's very layered.
But you know, I've learned to love Luke as well.
I mean I go through different seasons, like definitely there's times.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Where I get.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Scared of Luke or like I love Luke, or I
don't want to listen to Luke. Like it really does change.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yes, I love Luke and look listeners out there if
you're struggling to come up with a name for your
inner critic. While I was having my coffee this morning,
I did a little bit of a quick AI and
I asked, AI, can you like give me some example
names for what we might be able to call out
in a critic? And I've got to share these with you.
Some of them are kind of funny.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Okay, into the conversation.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
This is great. So we got Luke, we've got Frank
mins Frank. But here's what AI gave us, Captain Nitpick.
What imagine next time your in a critic comes up,
you're like, oh, there's Captain Nitpick. Okay, another one. I
like this one. Grumble gas alliteration, grumble gas is in
the house. Yep, mister sassy pants. The judge mcjudgson, Oh
(33:42):
my god, negative ned or negative Nancy right, whiney wonder
Now these are laughable, right. But I also think that
bringing humor into this conversation is helpful because next time
you're in, a critic comes up and it says, mayor,
mayor mayor, what a terrible person you were. You didn't
text your friend because you forgot it was their birthday,
(34:04):
and you go, oh, there's Judge mcjudgson again, give me
a hard time. It provides that distance and that space
and that lightness to otherwise would have been a moment
that we get super bogged down in.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I definitely feel like joy can really lift lift it
all up again.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah, bit of space and distance between that mean part
of us.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
The fourth thing I'd recommend people try is a compassionate letter, right,
we're going to write a letter to ourselves that is
kind and compassionate. Now, I recommend if people want to
give this a go, you do it when you're not
in the thick of the inner critic. Right if you
(34:44):
feel like you're having a calm evening, you're feeling like
you're in a good place, like you connected with yourself,
sit down and try to write yourself a letter and
channel the part of you that is kind, that is forgiving,
that is accepting, that has some wisdom, but that's ultimately
empathetic and compassionate, the part of you that can acknowledge
(35:08):
that imperfection is part of the human experience. And what
I want you to do is write a letter to
yourself giving yourself kindness and love and forgiveness and compassion.
So literally, dear whatever your name is, and then write
what comes to mind. Don't be too structured, don't be
(35:28):
too formal. Doesn't matter about accuracies. This is a letter
that's designed to channel an emotion. It's meant to be
in emotive experience. Many times when I get my clients
to do this, they will say that while they wrote it,
they actually cried. They felt something, and that's what we want,
we want to change that internal emotional experience from being
(35:50):
one of harshness to one of compassion. So if you
write this letter, see how you feel as you write it,
and then if you feel brave enough and if you've
got someone in your life you can share it with,
I would encourage you find a close, safe friend and
actually read it out loud to them. The experience of
(36:13):
saying this out loud in front of someone else gives
it this other layer of emotion that we can tap into.
So again, when I do this with my clients, I
encourage them to go away and write it as homework
and then bring it back into the therapy room and
read it out loud to me and sometimes we're both
in tears. I'm not gonna lie, right. It's quite an
(36:34):
emotional experience, particularly for people who have just been stuck
in that harshness and that self criticism for so long.
So if you feel brave, give the letter writing a go.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
Oh. I love that, and I really love that as
an activity. I get my clients to do that too,
And it is so profound because I feel like so
much gets stuck inside of us, and I feel like
even when I did workshops of teenage girls. They would
be writing till the cows come home, like they're writing pages,
because there's so much that comes out when we're just
in a space of just stillness. So if we follow
(37:06):
all of these techniques that you've given us, what happened,
It's like, what are the actual benefits from it?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
The benefit is that overall we build that muscle of
self compassion. And what we know is that having a
strong capacity for self compassion means that we're more resilience
against potentially developing depression. We have greater sense of self worth,
we have quite a stable sense of identity. We can
(37:35):
be more appreciative and kind to ourselves in relation to
body image like we were talking about before, more sort
of accepting and satisfied with our bodies. We also develop
higher levels of emotional intelligence, so that capacity for me
to be able to know what my emotions are telling me,
but also work with other people's emotional states as well.
(37:57):
Building self compassion helps us be more resilient when we're
faced with life's hardships and challenges, and it helps us
build that sort of grit and resilience and determination for
us to be able to get through tough times in life.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
After the shotbreak, You're going to meet Sam and he's
very loud in a critic.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Stay with us, Berberb Bibby.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I'm having a serious Christian Berb having a crisis.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
We had so many people share their inner critic dilemmas
with us. It's such a common experience, Anastasia.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
This is Sam.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
I feel like I'm constantly walking on eggshells with how
I communicate with friends. I try and be lighthearted and funny,
but sometimes my jokes miss the mark, or worse, they
offend someone and I'm left wondering if I accidentally hurt
their feelings. At work, it's a different kind of pressure.
I'm naturally casual and conversational, but I worry that I
come across as too informal or unprofessional, especially in meetings
(39:02):
or over email. The hardest part is laying awake at
night replaying everything I said, cringing at things I thought
sounded stupid in a appropriate and spiraling into overthinking what
should I do to stop this?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Oh, Sam, this sounds like hard work for you, buddy.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I'm siren staying up at night thinking about it. Oh
so relatable.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
So one thing Sam might want to do, and anyone
who can relate to Sam's experience is go back to
episode one and listen to us talking about getting into
worry spirals, because it feels like there's some elements of
worry coming into this experience, laying awake at night overthinking things.
The other thing I'd say is that it sounds like
(39:47):
you're in a critic definitely is coming to the forefront
and making you question yourself a lot. Now, if someone
walked into the therapy room and they said to me,
I think I say some weird things at work, or
I make some jokes and they don't quite land, or
maybe I made a joke and someone didn't quite like it,
(40:07):
or I said something weird, I would say, in the
nicest way possible, with all the love I have, so what,
And that's not meant to be judgment. I'm not like
so what? Right, it's like so what? So what feels
so bad about that? The thing is, most of the
time we think about ourselves more than anyone else thinks
(40:30):
about us. Right, So I would be quite skeptical as
to whether your work colleagues or your friends are going
home and thinking about you as much as you're thinking
about you in those moments.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
We all say things that we think they're funny and
then turns out they're not sometimes, right, Shani and I'll
probably do that at points in this podcast, where we
make jokes that no one else thinks is funny, It'll happen.
That's part of being human. I accept that I'll make
jokes that are not funny. We make mistakes, we say
things we don't always mean right. So that's why I
bring this question of what's so bad about that? Maybe
(41:06):
it feels really bad when we give ourselves a hard
time about it, But in the grand scheme of life,
that one joke that didn't land is one speck in time,
and in two days, two weeks, two months, two years.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Okay, I think a lot of us will be writing
self compassion letters tonight. Ata Stagiak, we covered a lot
of ground today. Can you give us a recut?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Absolutely? First up, we all have an inner critic. It's
normal and it's natural for it to exist. Second, some
people have an inner critic that is louder and meaner
than other people's. Third, we can tame our inner critic
through self compassion. Fourth, self compassion requires us to acknowledge
(42:01):
that our mistakes and disappointments are all part of the
human experience. No one else is perfect and neither are we.
And lastly, self compassion can be harnessed by treating ourselves
with the same kindness and understanding that we would approach
a friend with. Now next week, we are diving into
(42:25):
a topic that is very close to my heart, the
biggest misconceptions and mistakes people make with therapy.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
I cannot wait.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
If you have a burning question, there are a few
ways to get in touch with us, blinks her in
the show notes.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
And remember, while I am a psychologist, this podcast isn't
a diagnostic tool, and the advice and ideas we present
here should always take into account your personal history. The
executive producer of But Are You Happy? Is Niama Brown.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
Tarlie Blackman is our senior producer.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Sound design and editing by Jacob Brown.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
I'm a Shani Dante and.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I'm doctor Anastasia Heronus. The names and stories of clients
discussed have been changed for the purpose of maintaining anonymity.
If this converse brought up any difficult feelings for you,
we have links for more resources in the show notes
around the topics we discussed today. You can also reach
out to organizations like Beyond Blue or Lifeline if you're
(43:22):
wanting more immediate support.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Thanks for listening.
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mamma Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
waters that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I have this constant feeling that everything is my fault.
No matter what I do, I always blame myself for everything,
even if I have nothing to do with it. Did
you have a parent who never really apologized when they
made mistakes?
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
What if a child never witnessed their parent apologize.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
The child then internalizes that and says, well, then it
must be my fault.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
For Mama Maya.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
I'm your host, Ashani Dante. Welcome to But are you happy?
Because regulating your nervous system takes more than a marcha
and a mantra?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
And I'm doctor Anastagia Herness, a clinical psychologist passionate about
happiness and mental health. A question for you listener. Do
you sometimes hear a voice in your head that says
mean things about you, things you would never say about
someone you cared about.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Oh, that old chestnut I call my inner meanie Luke.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Look, most of us have this voice from time to time.
But when this voice starts to impact our mental health
or our quality of life, that's when we really need
to learn to quieten it down.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
So you're going to tell us what's going on here, right,
and how to make our lukes a.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Little bit kinder to ourselves.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Right? Yep, can't wait, let's get into it, okay. So, Anastasia,
the question I have is that inner critic voice isn't
all that bad? Like should we actually get rid of it?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
My favorite first question, yes and no, like, yes, the
inner critic can be really destructive when we experience it
in excess, or when what it says to us is
really unhelpful. So there's kind of two things we want
to look at here, how much we experience the inner critic,
how often it comes up in to our head, how
(02:11):
often it talks to us, how loudly it talks to us, right,
So the kind of intensity and frequency of it. But
then we also want to look at the content of
what it says. Sometimes the inner critic might say things
that gives us a bit of a push or a nudge.
You know, if you're studying for a UNI assessment and
it's like, well, you didn't get a great mark because
(02:31):
you didn't really study that hard. Maybe next time you
should try a bit harder. It's probably some truth to that,
and that could actually be helpful and useful for us.
So we've got to really examine the usefulness of the
content along with how frequently we experience that inner critic.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
I really love that because also when we think of
an acritic, we often just want to like push it
away and not listen to it at all. But what
I'm hearing is that we actually should be curious about
it because it's telling us more.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Right, absolutely, And the reality is, try as we might,
we will never fully get rid of an inner critic.
We're all always going to have an inner critic. So
part of the challenge for us is to get comfortable
with that fact and to be able to tone it
down and moderate it. But it serves a function. It
does exist to give us a bit of a sort
(03:19):
of moral framework and compass right, to let us know
when we think we've done the wrong thing or we
should have done something better than what we did, and
to be a bit of a guide in life to
give us that feedback that we sometimes need to hear.
So it's always going to exist for that purpose.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
And I guess, like with that when you said that
there's different types of the inner critic. What are some
other ways that we can really label, like the different types.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So I'm going to break it down into three types
of inner critics, and listeners out there follow along and
see if you can identify your inner critic and what
type it might fall into. First type is what we
call a demanding in a critic. Now, this is the
type of inner critic that puts pressure on us. When
(04:08):
we have this inner critic, we feel pressure, We feel
that push feeling, and it sounds like a lot of shoulds.
You should do better, you should try harder, you should
have known better, you shouldn't have got such a bad mark,
you should have got that promotion. Right. It's that feeling
of forward pressure. But pressure can sometimes feel crippling as well. Right,
(04:30):
So the demanding in a critic pushes us. Sometimes, it
pushes us a bit too hard and a bit too much.
If we have this type of inner critic in and
of itself, it's fundamentally not bad. But if we experience
it in excess, we want to be able to turn
down the volume and tone it down a little bit
if we're feeling like it's too overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Right, Okay, so that's demanding.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So that's first type.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Okay, first type.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Next type is what we call a punitive in a critic. Now,
this looks and feels very different. If we have a
punitive in a critic, we feel squashed, right, and the
punitive inner critic sounds very different. It sounds like you're
a terrible person, You're worthless, no one's ever going to
(05:18):
love you, everyone will leave you your shit, why even bother.
You'll never get anything right in your life. So it's
a real squashed feeling. It doesn't push us forward like
the demanding in a critic does. It squashes us down,
and it makes us feel shit about ourselves. When we
have a punitive in a critic, that doesn't serve any
functional purpose. There's nothing useful or helpful about having that
(05:43):
style of inner critic. And so in the therapy room,
if I'm working with someone who's got a punitive in
a critic, our goal is to get rid of it.
We don't want it around. It's not helpful, it's not useful.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Okay, it's so if we look at the difference so far,
so is that does that mean like the demanding it's
more action orientated, whereas the punitive's more like internal criticism,
or how would you like discern between the two.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
That's that's the difference, that one is functional and one
is not. So the demanding in a critic can be
functional because it can motivate us. It can push us,
It can give us feedback when we've done something wrong
and we need to correct it, you know, so, it
can motivate us towards action when we've got it in
the right degree. The punitive one, if I'm telling myself
that I'm a terrible, worthless person, I don't feel like
(06:30):
getting up and being motivated to do things. I feel
like lying in bed, and I probably feel pretty awful
about myself. The third is what we call a guilt
inducing in a critic. This is the inner critic that
makes you feel riddled with guilt even when you shouldn't
feel guilty, even when you haven't done anything wrong. So
(06:51):
I'm going to throw back to the excerpt we heard
at the start where that girl was like, I see
someone walk down the street and fall down, and I
feel guilty and bad about it, like it was my
fault even though it's clearly not. The guilt inducing in
a critic is the one that tells us we're selfish.
We should care about other people more. Why we look
after others? If we say no to going to our parents'
(07:14):
house for lunch this weekend, we feel really bad about
saying no. One really guilty about it. So that guilt
inducing in a critic. Again, we can have it in excess.
Sometimes it's useful to feel guilty. But if someone's got
this style of inner critic, they're probably feeling it way
too much and in circumstances that don't warrant them feeling guilty.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
It's really funny because now that you've spoken about all three,
I'm just like, I feel like I've got all three?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Is that a bad thing?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, it's it's it's not ideal, Okay, Well it's a therapy, guys.
But it's common, right, It's common for people to have combinations.
It's some people might be listening and think, Okay, I've
only got that one. Other people will be like, I
can see combinations of all of them. And that's not
an uncommon experience for people to have.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Okay, So where does the inner critic come from?
Speaker 2 (08:06):
We're not born naturally with an inner critic, right, we
don't come out of the womb hating on ourselves. It's
something we develop throughout our life. The inner critic is
first formed during our early childhood years, through those formative years,
and it's very much influenced by the messages that we
(08:26):
hear from people around us. Now, they might be messages
that are modeled to us, or they might be messages
that we are told directly. So if you know, little
Sally goes to school and she comes home from school
and she's like, I got ninety five out of one
hundred in my maths test, and Mum and dad say
(08:48):
to her, well, what the hell happened to the other
five percent, Little Sally's going to start to develop an
inner critic that says, I should always be doing better.
Nothing I do is good enough. I can't even get
ninety five. That's not good enough. Only one hundred is
good enough. So we start to internalize. That would be
an example of a demanding inner critic that starts to
develop if from a young age we hear messages where
(09:11):
we are invalidated, where our experiences are invalidated, where we're
told you're a bad child for behaving that particular way. Right,
when terms like good and bad use towards children, they
can also start to develop that in a critic. But
it's not just what message is told to us as kids,
it's also what we see modeled. So if I'm growing
(09:32):
up and I see that every time Mum, I don't know,
makes a wrong turn when she's driving the car, and
she goes, gosh, I'm such an idiot. Why did I
do that? I always stuff up for I can never
get anything right. We see other peoples in a critic
coming to the forefront, and we also then start to
internalize if I take a wrong turn when I drive,
(09:54):
I must be an idiot as well, because that's what
Mum said. Right now, All this happens on a very
subconscious level. But if we add another layer of society
to that, society and culture also give us messages about
what is or isn't quote unquote good or bad behavior right.
Society in our culture tells us how we should be
(10:16):
in the world, and if we don't fit that mold,
we develop inner criticisms around it.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
There really is so many layers to it, isn't it
when you actually unpack it like that as well? And
I think it's it's interesting we're talking about, you know,
a lot of the things that shaped you when you
were a child. And I know that's been a theme
throughout a lot of the episodes. And I feel like
it's very easy to blame our family, right, being like, Oh,
if you didn't say that thing, I wouldn't be like this.
(10:43):
And I think it's probably later in life, when we're
a little bit older, that we build our awareness. But
I think also it's remembering that, you know, our parents
are human too, and they're doing the best that they
can with the capacity that they have, right, So it's like,
how do we balance it all out when we do
find the source of why we're being so mean to ourselves?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And I think you make a good point there, because
it's never one isolated experience, right. It's not because Mum
said that one time. Oh I'm such an idiot? Why
did I do that? That we internalize that. It's when
we see these patterns through our life, or patterns in
the people or the culture around us that give us
these really strong messages about what is or isn't acceptable,
(11:24):
that we then really internalize those patterns.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Yeah. And it's interesting too because with a lot of
the workshops I around with teenage girls, one of the
first things we do get them to do is in
order to build self awareness. It's been able to discern,
you know, where did these negative thoughts come from? And
you know, a lot of the time girls are saying
things like, oh, society tells us we need to, you know,
have it all together, be perfect, but don't be too perfect,
(11:48):
and you've got to be slim thick, and they break
it all down. It's the same narrative I hear all
the time, and it breaks my heart like thinking about
it because it's just, oh, I'm getting emotional.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I don't know if we're going to cut this out,
but it's something I'm.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Really passionate about because they feel really deflated, you know,
they feel disempowered, they feel trapped because that's just how
they've grown up.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
It's just what they've seen.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
And it's really coming back to a lot of the
tools that we've been you know, weaving throughout all the episodes.
It's like, at the end of the day, what can
we control? And it is our self empowerment and our
environment as well.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, And the unfortunate thing is that kids and teens
don't yet have the skills to be able to really
fact check their inner critic, right, they just believe it. Well,
you know, as kids and teenagers, we don't have that
cognitive capacity yet like we do as adults. We can
take that step back and really kind of examine our
inner critic from a really critical lens. But as kids,
(12:48):
we don't yet have that ability developed.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Yeah, I agree, and I think it's it all exists
in conversations, right. It's only once we have the courage
to have these conversations know that we're not alone, because
what we're getting is that we all haven't in a
critic and it's around how do we learn to work
with it.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I've seen so many people come to the clinic who
have that loud, debilitating in a critic and you would
not pick it looking at them from the outside. I
have people who come to the clinic. They're lawyers and
their judges and their CEOs, and they're you know, also
their public figures. They're in sorts of work. I guess
(13:29):
that requires them to be very front facing and have
a confidence to them when they carry out the skill
set they're required to do in their career. And if
you looked at them from the outside, you would not
pick that they had this really strong inner critic, because
it is something that some people can hide from the
(13:50):
outside world. So exactly to your point, we don't know
what someone else's in a critic is saying to them.
We do sometimes meet people on the flip side where
we can hear their inner critic. They literally say out loud,
oh no, I'm so sorry I did that wrong. I
was such a bad friend. I should have called you,
I didn't call you enough, and were like, well, stop,
it's okay. You know, some people will literally talk out
(14:10):
they're in a critic. Other people will mask it really
really well. But what we can see it sort of
manifest as in terms of behaviors is chronic depression. So
people who have a very loud and particularly punitive in.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
A critic that is washing one.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
That's the squashing one. Yep. That's really hard to manage
in the long run, and it is very much correlated
with having long standing depression, but also low self esteem.
If we have a little voice in our head telling
us every day how terrible we are, we're not going
to feel particularly good about ourselves.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
And do you have any like examples of any clients
you've worked with recently? Obviously like keeping confidentiality and everything
like that of like what you worked on.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yes, honestly, it's one of the most common things that
we do in therapy. And so I'm thinking about, you know,
clients that I've seen recently, where I mean, part of
the work we do is unpack, firstly, what is your
inner critics saying to you, so we can identify what
type of inner critic have you got? What is the
inner critic saying? And so I'm thinking of someone I
worked with who was in sort of corporate sort of space,
(15:20):
and they were really great at their job, but they
worked excessively long hours. They would come home at the
end of the night and still tell themselves, I haven't
done enough. I'm not going to get that promotion. I'm
doing a terrible job. Other people are doing better than me.
Why am I not able to achieve the things I want?
Why don't I have enough energy? Why can't I seem
to do all these things? Right? Just really really harsh, demanding,
(15:43):
but flavors of punitive as well, right, And so it
was really about us trying to understand what's your inner
critics saying to you? And is it helpful? Like if
your goal is to get that promotion at work? Is
the inner critic actually helping you get there? Or is
it making you feel exhausted and terrible about yourself so
(16:03):
that when you go home, you can't sleep, you don't
eat much, you know, perpetuate the cycle of exhaustion, and
then you probably don't get the promotion that you're after. Like,
is it actually helping you get where it wants you
to go? Because it's pushing you in a direction, But
is it helping you get there?
Speaker 4 (16:19):
So would you say that the inner critic is the
same as intrusive thoughts?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I'll answer that by explaining what intrusive thoughts are. So
every single one of us has intrusive thoughts, right, intrusive thoughts.
Many of our thoughts are automatic. We don't choose them,
they pop into our head. Right, So, if I'm walking
down past the road and I see a cafe with
(16:46):
some donuts, my brain will be like, ooh, yom donuts.
I didn't choose to think that, My brain just thought it, right,
So it's an automatic thought. A lot of our thoughts
are automatic. We don't have control over their initial kind
of being, but we can choose what we then do
with them, right, So, we all have automatic thoughts. We
all have intrusive thoughts. Okay, so intrusive thoughts are and
(17:13):
listen out at home, because I'm sure everyone will have
had them. Intrusive thoughts are these thoughts where we're walking
down the street and something really weird and random pops
into our head and we go, oh my god, what
the hell where did that just come from? So, for example,
I'm walking down the street and I go, what if
(17:34):
I just stepped out on the road in front of
all this traffic? And I'm like, what on earth? Why
did I think that? For I don't want to step
out into the road in front of all the traffic. Thanks,
I'm happy. You walk into work. Or we walk to
the edge of the cliff and we go, what if
I just jumped off this cliff. Or we're in the
kitchen and there's a knife and we go, what if
I just picked up this knife and stabbed my hand. Now,
(17:56):
intrusive thoughts, we all have them, right, so most of
us will go, whoa, what was that? That was strange?
Put that aside and carry on, right, So I want
to normalize intrusive thought happen to everyone. For some of us,
and this is where this is actually more kind of
into the realm of things like OCD. Some of us
(18:19):
will notice that intrusive thought and go, oh, my goodness,
why did I think that? Maybe there's something in me
that wants to do that or that wishes that to happen,
Because we can have intrusive thoughts about other people, right,
what if my mum's driving home from work and she
gets hit by a car. So they're all these kind
of they usually got this like harm element to them,
(18:39):
and they're quite confronting for us to think, but they're
often not congruent with how we feel or what we
actually want in life. So it's important for us to
be able to notice them and be like, well, no, no,
thank you, put that out of head. Keep going now
in the context of the inner critic, the inner critic
(18:59):
can be automatic, so those thoughts can automatically come in
where the inner critic goes, god, you did a shit
job at that, right. So we don't have too much
control over that initial thought, but we can choose whether
we then give it more weight and we think about
it more and more, or we put it to the side.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
So is it kind of like do we act the
same way like how we respond to intrusive thoughts or
intrusive thoughts, it's more of like, okay, put that away
in a critic do you feel like you need to
work with it? More like I'm trying to figure out
the difference.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
We want to question how much validity we give any
thought that pops in our head, whether it's the thought
that says, hey, you're standing near the edge of a cliff,
what if you jumped off? Or hey, you're a shit
person because you didn't say good morning to your friend, right.
Any thought we have that's automatic that we don't choose.
We want to be able to take that moment and
(19:52):
be like, is this true, is this helpful? Is this
something I should listen to? Is it something I should
think about more? Or is it not actually congruent with
my experience of what's happening, in which case I want
to try and put it to the side.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
It's really good that we're talking about intrusive thoughts too,
because as you're talking about it, I'm like, oh, I've
had intrusive thoughts, but it's just it's something that's popped up.
But then you just it kind of wigs you out
a little bit. Because it literally comes out of nowhere.
So it's good to know that that can be somewhat
of a normal experience that people experience it all the time.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Absolutely, So, how does.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Imposter syndrome flow into all of this?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Imposter syndrome and the inner critic go hand in hand, right,
This idea of the imposter syndrome is where we doubt ourselves,
we doubt our ability, we doubt our capacity, we doubt
our achievements, and we think we're not good enough. In fact,
one of the most common inner critic, deep seated beliefs
(20:49):
is the I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, And
so imposter syndrome tells us you're not good enough for
that job, you're not good enough in this relationship, You're
not good enough in some way, shape or form. And
what this can result in is compensating for that. So
maybe if we think we're not good enough or we
doubt ourselves, we don't apply for that job, or we
(21:11):
don't apply for the promotion, or we don't go on
that first date. Right, So we might avoid situations that
bring up and trigger up the self doubt, the imposter syndrome,
and the inner critic, or we might do the opposite.
We might overcompensate. We might make sure that when we
go on that first date, we put tons of makeup
on and we've got our hair professionally done, and we're
(21:32):
wearing our best outfit, and we have, you know, prepared
ten questions that we're gonna ask the person that we're
on a date with. Right, we might overcompensate. We might
overwork in the workplace to try and get that promotion.
So the experience of imposter syndrome and self doubt and
the inner critic can play out differently for different people.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
It sounds like there really is different flavors of imposter syndrome.
And it's funny when you were talking about imposter syndrome
being like holding hands with inner critic, I literally got
a visual of that being like, oh wow, they really
are friends. Like they are friends because the inner critics
like you're bad, and then imposter syndrome's like you're bad
because of you know that job or the way that
(22:14):
you said that thing. It's like they are this kind
of team.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yes, yes, And I think as well. The reason I
like this conversation is because we're getting into the nuance
of the inner critic. And I imagine that many people
listening may have heard about the inner critic or imposter
syndrome or self criticism at some point, and the automatic
advice is to be less critical, be less hard on yourself,
(22:39):
love yourself more. It's kind of a very blanket approach.
But actually there's so many ways in which we can
experience the inner critic, and then so many different things
we do as a result of the inner critic that
we really want to approach this topic with some nuance
so that we can have the best outcomes. Love that.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
So with this theme around negative self talk, it's interesting
because I find, you know, after working with lots of
teenage girls, body image is one of the common issues
that we see when it comes to in a critic.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (23:13):
My thoughts is, man, I've been a psychologist for what
ten years, and I have a PhD. And I sometimes
struggle with this, right like, our society and our culture
infiltrates these messages about body image, and so I think
for so many of us as adults, we would struggle
with it. How can we expect kids and teens not
to be impacted by the constant messaging that we receive
(23:36):
around what is or isn't the ideal body.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
And I think as well, as much as it is
hard with society and what we see on social media,
we are starting to make change. You know, we are
celebrating more body diversity. We're seeing it more, which I
think is something to celebrate too.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely, we've made moves in the right direction.
We still have a lot of work to do, do
a lot of work and it's not just young women,
young men as well impacted by the stereotype of what
the ideal body is. So I think, yeah, if we've
got a lot of work still to.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Do after this shop break, doctor Anastasia is going to
teach us exactly how to work with that inner critic
rather than allowing it to take over. Stay with us, Anathasia.
I already feel so much better knowing that we all
have an inner critic, not alone, not alone, So how
do we exactly work with it?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Okay, I'm going to talk us through four different strategies
today as to how to work with the inner critic,
but they're all going to be grounded in this concept
of self compassion. Now, what is self compassion? Let's just
talk about that for one minute. Self compassion is different
(24:55):
to self esteem. Right, often, when people hear oh I
feel bad about myself, I need to build my self
esteem is the automatic reaction, I say, Let's build self
compassion instead. Self esteem is dependent on how good I am.
It requires me to find things about myself or my
(25:16):
life that I feel good about. I got a really
good mark on that assessment, I got that job that
I went for. I've got a close circle of five
friends that I feel really good about. Right, it requires
me to identify things to make me feel good. That's
what self esteem is all about. Self compassion is different.
Self compassion says we are all human, we are all flawed,
(25:40):
we all make mistakes, and we all struggle, and that
is what being human is. So instead of trying to
constantly be perfect and strive for the ideal version of
ourselves where we don't make mistakes and we don't stuff up,
let's work to instead accept the fact the stuff ups
will happen, the mistakes will happen, the ugly moments in
(26:03):
life will happen that we wish we could go back
and redo. But instead of beating ourselves up about those moments,
can we instead meet ourselves with kindness and compassion. So
what we know from the research is that people who
are compassionate towards themselves generally feel more kind of satisfied
(26:24):
and optimistic about their life. They're generally able to forgive
themselves more easily, they have a strong sense of self
worth and identity, and they can focus more on kind
of the learning and the personal growth rather than getting
stuck down in the negative feelings attached to the inner critic.
(26:46):
This is really good.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
You're laying it out like this, because if we did
take self compassion out, it's just self esteem, but it's
still performative based, like it's still based on external So
I like that we're coming back to a foundation of
self compassion.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yes, perfect. So four different strategies. First one is reframe,
and reframe through the lens of self compassion. So if
you find that you're a critic is giving you a
hard time and it's talking to you in a really
mean way, reflect on the fact that you are human,
(27:19):
you are imperfect. Anyone hearing this right now feeling triggered,
You've got some inner work to do. My friends, you
are all imperfect. We are all imperfect. We have to
learn to accept that fact, right, rather than fight against it,
because we will forever be trying to fight against it
if we can't accept it. So reframe your self criticism,
(27:42):
to be kind to yourself, to be able to tell yourself,
I'm struggling right now, and that's okay. Everyone has bad moments.
Everyone has the moments they're not proud of. Everyone struggles sometimes,
It's part of being human. I'm not the only person
to have ever felt this experience. I'm not the only
person to have ever struggled. I'm not the only person
(28:04):
to have ever failed at something. This is a shared
human experience. No one gets it right the time. That's
not to say that I can't try and do better
next time or try and improve myself. But in this moment,
I'm going to give myself compassion and kindness and acceptance
that I'm just a real human being in the world.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
And I can imagine, like, even with this first step,
like that would take time, right because we're changing patterning
and how we've been talking to ourself for I don't know,
twenty thirty forty years.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Right, Absolutely, it takes time. If we're you still launching
in automatically with the harshness and the self criticism, stepping
back and going, you know what, I'm gonna just be
kind and accepting towards myself right now. That takes time. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
It's like we're building our own self trust as well
in that because for so long we've been speaking another language,
and all of a sudden, you're speaking a new language.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
And we're like, wait, what, yes, might being so nice
to me?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You know what I mean? Exactly? It feels different.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yeah, okay, so that's number one. Reframe. What about number two?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Okay. Another strategy you can try if you find yourself
bogged down in the inner critic is ask yourself the question,
how would I speak to a friend in this situation.
If it was my friend who came and told me
that she was really disappointed in herself because she applied
for a job and she didn't get it and she
(29:31):
was really hoping she did, and she just felt crap
about herself and like she wasn't good enough. Would I
sit there and go, oh, yeah, you know what, does
sound like you're a bit crap. Actually maybe you just
weren't good enough for the job. Right. No, we wouldn't
say that to someone else. We would meet them with kindness,
and compassion. We would try to be non judgmental about
the situation, but often what we say to ourselves is
(29:54):
so much meaner than what we would say to other people.
So if you're struggling with your inner critic being really
loud and really tough on you, ask yourself the question,
what would I say to someone else in the same
situation as me?
Speaker 4 (30:09):
I feel like I've loved that because us having a
different perspective really can shift it. Because you know, if
a friend was to say, oh, like, you're a crap person.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Like, we wouldn't be friends with them anymore.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
But the reality is we're stuck with ourselves for the
rest of our lives. Yes, and we should be empowered
by that, right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Absolutely, absolutely, we want to give ourselves doses of reality. Sure,
but we don't want to be excessively mean and harsh.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, everything in moderation. Balance, as you.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Say, balance is key.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Yes, Okay, So now how about number three?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Okay, this leads us nicely onto the third one. If
you've tried the reframe and you've tried to think about
what you tell a friend and it's not working, I
want you to name your inner critic. Now you mentioned
good old Luke.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Luke, we go way back, Luke Luke.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I'd call my inner critic, Frank. Why they're men. Something
will unpack another time.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
That's another episode.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
But name the inner critic. Now, why do we do this? Okay?
Our sense of self is built up in parts. Okay,
we have the part of us that is the confident
self that rocks up and goes to work and can
(31:32):
connect with other people. We have a really confident part
of ourself. We have the feelings part to ourself, the
part that feels vulnerable, the part that feels lonely sometimes,
the part that feels self conscious. We have a part
of ourselves that might be the part that can detach
from things. Right, we have all these different parts. We
can have all sorts of parts, but we all have
(31:53):
this part of us that is the inner critic. Now,
when the inner critic comes to the forefront and it
speaks to us, it's like we are consumed by that experience. Right,
we don't necessarily identify it as simply one part of
who we are. So by naming the inner critic, what
we're essentially doing is providing a little bit of separation
(32:17):
from me to the inner critic. It's there. Yep. I'm
not trying to get rid of it completely. I'm just
identifying it as one part of my internal experience. But
it's not all of my experience. Not everything it says
is true and I have to believe it right, It's
just one part. So naming the inner critic can be
helpful to give us that space and distance from it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
I feel like with my relationship with Luke, it's very layered.
But you know, I've learned to love Luke as well.
I mean I go through different seasons, like definitely there's times.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Where I get.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Scared of Luke or like I love Luke, or I
don't want to listen to Luke. Like it really does change.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yes, I love Luke and look listeners out there if
you're struggling to come up with a name for your
inner critic. While I was having my coffee this morning,
I did a little bit of a quick AI and
I asked, AI, can you like give me some example
names for what we might be able to call out
in a critic? And I've got to share these with you.
Some of them are kind of funny.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Okay, into the conversation.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
This is great. So we got Luke, we've got Frank
mins Frank. But here's what AI gave us, Captain Nitpick.
What imagine next time your in a critic comes up,
you're like, oh, there's Captain Nitpick. Okay, another one. I
like this one. Grumble gas alliteration, grumble gas is in
the house. Yep, mister sassy pants. The judge mcjudgson, Oh
(33:42):
my god, negative ned or negative Nancy right, whiney wonder
Now these are laughable, right. But I also think that
bringing humor into this conversation is helpful because next time
you're in, a critic comes up and it says, mayor,
mayor mayor, what a terrible person you were. You didn't
text your friend because you forgot it was their birthday,
(34:04):
and you go, oh, there's Judge mcjudgson again, give me
a hard time. It provides that distance and that space
and that lightness to otherwise would have been a moment
that we get super bogged down in.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I definitely feel like joy can really lift lift it
all up again.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah, bit of space and distance between that mean part
of us.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
The fourth thing I'd recommend people try is a compassionate letter, right,
we're going to write a letter to ourselves that is
kind and compassionate. Now, I recommend if people want to
give this a go, you do it when you're not
in the thick of the inner critic. Right if you
(34:44):
feel like you're having a calm evening, you're feeling like
you're in a good place, like you connected with yourself,
sit down and try to write yourself a letter and
channel the part of you that is kind, that is forgiving,
that is accepting, that has some wisdom, but that's ultimately
empathetic and compassionate, the part of you that can acknowledge
(35:08):
that imperfection is part of the human experience. And what
I want you to do is write a letter to
yourself giving yourself kindness and love and forgiveness and compassion.
So literally, dear whatever your name is, and then write
what comes to mind. Don't be too structured, don't be
(35:28):
too formal. Doesn't matter about accuracies. This is a letter
that's designed to channel an emotion. It's meant to be
in emotive experience. Many times when I get my clients
to do this, they will say that while they wrote it,
they actually cried. They felt something, and that's what we want,
we want to change that internal emotional experience from being
(35:50):
one of harshness to one of compassion. So if you
write this letter, see how you feel as you write it,
and then if you feel brave enough and if you've
got someone in your life you can share it with,
I would encourage you find a close, safe friend and
actually read it out loud to them. The experience of
(36:13):
saying this out loud in front of someone else gives
it this other layer of emotion that we can tap into.
So again, when I do this with my clients, I
encourage them to go away and write it as homework
and then bring it back into the therapy room and
read it out loud to me and sometimes we're both
in tears. I'm not gonna lie, right. It's quite an
(36:34):
emotional experience, particularly for people who have just been stuck
in that harshness and that self criticism for so long.
So if you feel brave, give the letter writing a go.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
Oh. I love that, and I really love that as
an activity. I get my clients to do that too,
And it is so profound because I feel like so
much gets stuck inside of us, and I feel like
even when I did workshops of teenage girls. They would
be writing till the cows come home, like they're writing pages,
because there's so much that comes out when we're just
in a space of just stillness. So if we follow
(37:06):
all of these techniques that you've given us, what happened,
It's like, what are the actual benefits from it?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
The benefit is that overall we build that muscle of
self compassion. And what we know is that having a
strong capacity for self compassion means that we're more resilience
against potentially developing depression. We have greater sense of self worth,
we have quite a stable sense of identity. We can
(37:35):
be more appreciative and kind to ourselves in relation to
body image like we were talking about before, more sort
of accepting and satisfied with our bodies. We also develop
higher levels of emotional intelligence, so that capacity for me
to be able to know what my emotions are telling me,
but also work with other people's emotional states as well.
(37:57):
Building self compassion helps us be more resilient when we're
faced with life's hardships and challenges, and it helps us
build that sort of grit and resilience and determination for
us to be able to get through tough times in life.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
After the shotbreak, You're going to meet Sam and he's
very loud in a critic.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Stay with us, Berberb Bibby.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I'm having a serious Christian Berb having a crisis.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
We had so many people share their inner critic dilemmas
with us. It's such a common experience, Anastasia.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
This is Sam.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
I feel like I'm constantly walking on eggshells with how
I communicate with friends. I try and be lighthearted and funny,
but sometimes my jokes miss the mark, or worse, they
offend someone and I'm left wondering if I accidentally hurt
their feelings. At work, it's a different kind of pressure.
I'm naturally casual and conversational, but I worry that I
come across as too informal or unprofessional, especially in meetings
(39:02):
or over email. The hardest part is laying awake at
night replaying everything I said, cringing at things I thought
sounded stupid in a appropriate and spiraling into overthinking what
should I do to stop this?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Oh, Sam, this sounds like hard work for you, buddy.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I'm siren staying up at night thinking about it. Oh
so relatable.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
So one thing Sam might want to do, and anyone
who can relate to Sam's experience is go back to
episode one and listen to us talking about getting into
worry spirals, because it feels like there's some elements of
worry coming into this experience, laying awake at night overthinking things.
The other thing I'd say is that it sounds like
(39:47):
you're in a critic definitely is coming to the forefront
and making you question yourself a lot. Now, if someone
walked into the therapy room and they said to me,
I think I say some weird things at work, or
I make some jokes and they don't quite land, or
maybe I made a joke and someone didn't quite like it,
(40:07):
or I said something weird, I would say, in the
nicest way possible, with all the love I have, so what,
And that's not meant to be judgment. I'm not like
so what? Right, it's like so what? So what feels
so bad about that? The thing is, most of the
time we think about ourselves more than anyone else thinks
(40:30):
about us. Right, So I would be quite skeptical as
to whether your work colleagues or your friends are going
home and thinking about you as much as you're thinking
about you in those moments.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
We all say things that we think they're funny and
then turns out they're not sometimes, right, Shani and I'll
probably do that at points in this podcast, where we
make jokes that no one else thinks is funny, It'll happen.
That's part of being human. I accept that I'll make
jokes that are not funny. We make mistakes, we say
things we don't always mean right. So that's why I
bring this question of what's so bad about that? Maybe
(41:06):
it feels really bad when we give ourselves a hard
time about it, But in the grand scheme of life,
that one joke that didn't land is one speck in time,
and in two days, two weeks, two months, two years.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Okay, I think a lot of us will be writing
self compassion letters tonight. Ata Stagiak, we covered a lot
of ground today. Can you give us a recut?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Absolutely? First up, we all have an inner critic. It's
normal and it's natural for it to exist. Second, some
people have an inner critic that is louder and meaner
than other people's. Third, we can tame our inner critic
through self compassion. Fourth, self compassion requires us to acknowledge
(42:01):
that our mistakes and disappointments are all part of the
human experience. No one else is perfect and neither are we.
And lastly, self compassion can be harnessed by treating ourselves
with the same kindness and understanding that we would approach
a friend with. Now next week, we are diving into
(42:25):
a topic that is very close to my heart, the
biggest misconceptions and mistakes people make with therapy.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
I cannot wait.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
If you have a burning question, there are a few
ways to get in touch with us, blinks her in
the show notes.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
And remember, while I am a psychologist, this podcast isn't
a diagnostic tool, and the advice and ideas we present
here should always take into account your personal history. The
executive producer of But Are You Happy? Is Niama Brown.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
Tarlie Blackman is our senior producer.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Sound design and editing by Jacob Brown.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
I'm a Shani Dante and.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I'm doctor Anastasia Heronus. The names and stories of clients
discussed have been changed for the purpose of maintaining anonymity.
If this converse brought up any difficult feelings for you,
we have links for more resources in the show notes
around the topics we discussed today. You can also reach
out to organizations like Beyond Blue or Lifeline if you're
(43:22):
wanting more immediate support.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Thanks for listening.
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