June 14, 2023 • 21 mins
The voice in the back of our heads, which troubles 70% of individuals, is mental chatter. And it results from having low self-esteem.
They developed a negative acceptance of themselves as well as a lack of a positive inner voice. This 70% number is significantly lower since I believe that more individuals battle with that mental chatter.
In this episode, we'll discuss the distinction between your inner critic and your inner voice, also known as your inner direction. Some individuals refer to this inner voice as their gut feeling or intuition, while others call it their inner critic.
We'll also look into several scenarios in which you might notice the differences and discuss the method for doing so. I will also share tips that work well for me.
What we discuss:
IG: @kristie_overstreet
FB: @DrKristieOvers
They developed a negative acceptance of themselves as well as a lack of a positive inner voice. This 70% number is significantly lower since I believe that more individuals battle with that mental chatter.
In this episode, we'll discuss the distinction between your inner critic and your inner voice, also known as your inner direction. Some individuals refer to this inner voice as their gut feeling or intuition, while others call it their inner critic.
We'll also look into several scenarios in which you might notice the differences and discuss the method for doing so. I will also share tips that work well for me.
What we discuss:
- Mental chatter and the inner critic.
- Separating the inner critic and inner voice.
- Loud inner critic vs. compassionate inner guidance.
- How to deal with the inner critic?
- Comparing yourself to others, social media and personalization.
- Should statements and labeling.
- Nurturing your inner guidance and inner critic.
- Journaling
- How to turn down your inner critic.
IG: @kristie_overstreet
FB: @DrKristieOvers
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Of just seventy percent of people strugglewith mental chatter, that voice in the
back of their head, and itcomes from low self esteem. Out of
that place of an inner critic,they got this negative acceptance of self and
a lack of a positive inner voice. Now I see seventy percent from a
(00:21):
study that I saw, but Ithink that's much lower. I think more
people than not struggle with that mentalchatter. So there's a couple of things
that we're gonna learn today in thisepisode. We're going to talk about the
difference of your inner critic versus yourinner voice, or that inner guidance that
separating that negative intercruting to that reallygood guidance we have inside. Some people
(00:42):
refer to it as intuition or gutfrom that inner voice inside. Russ's gonna
talk about some examples of how youcan see that difference then how to overcome
it with the strategy that I knowis really helpful for myself. Y'all,
and welcome to Fix Yourself First withDoctor Christie podcast. This is a show
(01:03):
for people who are tired of waitingon others to change and ready to focus
on themselves in order to improve theirrelationships I've learned from my personal and professional
life as a psychotherapist and relationship expertthat the only way to have a healthy
relationship was when I realized that Ihave to fix myself first versus waiting on
others to change. Thank you forlistening to my show, and go ahead
(01:25):
hit subscribe so you don't miss anyfuture ones. Now let's get started.
(01:45):
Welcome to today's show, Fix YourselfFirst with Doctor Christie. I'm so happy
to be here. It has beena minute, right, it's been a
while since you've got a new episode, and I'm grateful you're here. I'm
glad you stuck around. I havebeen dealing with my own attle of really
horrible inner critic and try to separatethat from my voice and listening to what
(02:05):
needs to be best for me asan individual personally as well as professionally.
And for the past couple of months, frombout the past four months to be
exact, I have been going througha lot and I'm sharing this with you
because I don't want you to feellike you're the only one, that you're
the only one that's having to dealwith things and is it possible to make
it through it? Because I ama testament that you can There's a lot
of different things that's happened in life. Multiple issues have come up, some
(02:28):
good, some bad. Just letyou know a little bit more background.
Back in February this year, Roband I made a huge decision to as
they blow our life up, butyou might see it as changing life possible
for the better. We made thisdecision that we wanted to start a family,
and you know me, I amin my mid forties, forty five
(02:49):
to be exact, not the primeage of being able to have a child.
So we decided to go to IVFroute, which is a whole thing,
and going that route making decision ledus to say why don't we get
married? And we've been together fifteenyears now, so the decision to even
get married was a huge room forus on top of starting a family this
late in life. I'll cover thisin more details on another episode about how
(03:13):
come to that decision, making myown journey of soul searching in how that
affected our relationship and this huge fightwith an inner critic and the inner of
voice we made. Also the decisionto sell our home that we built two
years ago to move into and relocateto another area in Northeast Florida. And
we also found out that my motherin law has pancreatic cancer a few weeks
(03:34):
ago. As of all this,Rob's got some medical things that come up.
So I share this not that youcan say, oh, poor doctor,
crisis with what she's going through.It's more of a look. Every
single one of us that are humanwe deal with a lot. And when
we're busy making these plans in life, and I am a planner, sometimes
things just blow up and then wehave to deal without the best that we
can. We don't get to choosethe challenges or the opportunities. They just
(03:58):
happened to us. We've got tobe able to separate that inner critic from
that voice and helping us sift ofthe polo crap that we deal with on
a daily basis being human. You'veprobably heard the saying I'm my own worst
critic, So I sound familiar,Well, it definitely is. For me.
I beat myself up more than anybodyelse could. No one is as
hard on me as I can beon myself, and that means I have
(04:23):
a really loud inner critic, andwhen that inner critic gets turned up,
my inner guidance and voice goes down. And that's the beautiful thing about life
is if those who the good andthe bad. So we've got to start
differentiating the two of these. Andwe're going to keep in mind that my
inner self, taught, might looksdifferent than yours, looks different than the
(04:44):
person next to you. And we'renot here to judge how somebody's inner voice
is. It's more of just recognizingour own. We're all have had different
experience as we were raising, differentsituations, have different filming systems, had
really bad experience, that's some goodexperience. We've received messages about ourselves,
about our bodies, about our relationships, about who we choose to love,
(05:05):
who we choose to like, andthe decisions career and personal we make in
our life. We get these messagesand then they affect how we talk to
ourselves, and every interaction we gothrough can affect how we see. Therefore,
how we talk to ourselves. Weall have these two voices, that
critical inner critic and then that compassionateinner voice or inner guidance. In what
(05:31):
proportion we decide to listen to themdetermines how we feel and how we think
about ourselves. You can imagine thesevoices. It's like two people or two
personas in our heads, and they'reconstantly commenting on the experience as we go
through. Both are inner critic andour inner voice or inner guidance. They
have important roles and they have verydramatic effects on us. You can think
(05:58):
of your inner critic as part ofyour personality. It's really harsh and judgmental.
It demeans you, your work,what you do, how you do,
how you see yourself, and howyou are in relationships and friendships.
Is this voice that makes you sometimesfeel small, not good enough, and
pretty worthless. And often that innercritic is this big, large, blooming,
(06:20):
loud voice that feels like it's turnedup to a tent. But here's
the thing with our inner critic thata lot of times we don't realize our
inner critic has a purpose. Ittries to keep us safe and it points
out what could be improved in thefuture. Sounds good, right, but
it can be very detrimental. Soit's trying to do good, but it
(06:42):
ends up being really negative for us. For an example, we're a large
group of people and let's just saywe value their opinions. It's people around
you and you really care what theythink, or you care what they think
about what you're saying. You're gonnawatch out to maybe feel like, hey,
I'm gonna be quiet, I'm notgonna say anything. I don't want
to come off silly or stupid ordoesn't like I'm talking about or it believes
(07:04):
maybe you already did that, youalready said something that's kind of dumb or
something that didn't really fit the conversations, especially if you've got some social anxiety.
So it's ready to beat you upand make you feel a little bit
more awkward in future situations. Whetherit was that group or even another group
has got nothing to do with thegroup you were just in. When we
(07:24):
look at this, we have tolook at again these different purposes. Our
inner voice. There's that inner guidethat's really different than our inner critic,
our inner voice, which we wantto champion, we want to dialog,
we want to listen to. Itsgoal is to encourage us. Its goals
to nurture us and help us believein ourselves. That sounds good, right
(07:46):
like we want to feel that.It helps us feel proud, even the
small accomplishments we feel really good about. So with that being said, this
nurture keeps us from feeling stuck.It help to feel that we are good
enough. And even when that lowself esteem comes up, we have a
little inner voice to the inner guidanceand says, hey, you're going to
(08:07):
be our right. So we knowthat the inner critic sometimes goes completely overboard
and spirals and anxiety, and weknow our inner voice or inner guidance,
we're going to turn that one upa little bit. I want to think
about one of the ways for youto deal with your own inner voice is
to take that inner critic and tryingto make it disappear like we can't get
(08:31):
rid of either of them. We'realways gonna have to the inner critic,
and we're always going to have thatinner voice or guidance. It's going to
be impossible because they are these driversand purpose behind them. But it doesn't
mean that you can't do anything aboutit. And one of the things that
we want to recognize is our thwhole pattern, because remember what we think
about a situation about ourselves, aboutthings that we do, that becomes a
(08:54):
lot of time our inner critic,that nego self taught and that mental trapter
So the four thought patterns are goingto cover is personal in comparison, and
this is a big one, andthis is when we compare ourselves to others
that makes us feel inferior or makesus feel really crappy. It makes the
accomplishments of all those around us seemreally being and huge, while making our
(09:18):
own seem really small and unimportant.A great example of this is social media.
Scrolling through your feed wherever, whateverplatform, your own, it's easy
to convince ourselves and everyone else isbetter, they have it better, they
have more exciting and successful lives thanus. It's social media has that dope,
mean, that quick fix to wantyou to take a look at it,
(09:39):
scroll through its, stay on it, and this negative self taught that
you have about yourself gets louder andlouder because of comparison and that feed,
you're inner crypt The second one ispersonalization, and this personalization is when you
believe that everything is about you,something you did, and that it's your
(10:01):
fault when something doesn't go according toyour plan or let's just say, your
friends unhappy with you. You havea tendency to automatically assume that you're the
problem, that you did something Isee this all the time with my couples
in relationship dynamics. I have onepartner who will say, well, I
didn't say anything because they seemed upsetwith me. And I'll ask, well,
(10:22):
what do they say, Well,they didn't. They didn't say anything.
That's a problem. Therefore they mustbe upset. And I'll ask them,
have you asked them if they're upset? No? No, no,
because I know they are because thisperson's tendency is to personalize and make them
all about themselves and as if everything'sthey are fault. Now that dynamic an
example. I mean, I havenothing to do with that person, but
(10:43):
that personalization, it's so being andhuge and all encompassing that now without issue
in the relationship and possible conflict becausethis one partner is making assumptions and personalizing
all the stuff. So you canimagine what it does for their inner critic.
It's dialed up to a in thethird type of thought that we have
are those should statements. I knowI'll talk about these often, but the
(11:05):
inner critic tries to make you achievethe impossibles. So it's saying, if
you don't reach way up here,way way, way way, then you're
failing. If you fail, itbeats you up. As a way to
make yourself feel better, let's justsay at the end of a day you
didn't accomplish everything you wanted to do. Your inner critic is going to make
(11:26):
you feel bad by saying, see, you're screwed up again. You shouldn't
have spent so much time on socialmedia, or you should spend so much
time doing this or doing that,or you should have done this or should
have done that. Now, inreality, did you spend too much time
on social media and didn't get thatgoal done? Yeah? Probably, So
However, we're gonna talk about howto give ourself grace and take action to
(11:46):
do things differently. But spiraling inthe shoulds will leave your inner critic wide
open and yelling at you, whichwill make you feel worse. There for
the next day, you're going tofeel that's motivated to get the next thing
done. The fourth thought pattern wewant to watch out four that feeds that
inner critic is labeling, or welike to say generalizing. So when you're
(12:07):
critical about yourself, you're pronged togeneralize your faults. So for for an
example, let's say you arrive lateto a meeting, and that inner critic
voice goes, why must you alwaysbe late? But in that moment,
you do not remember that maybe eightyto ninety percent of the time you're punctual,
but then there's sometimes when you're late. The self criticism makes you extend
(12:28):
the present situation you're in into ageneral statement. For an example, I
never I never have healthy friendships.Well, it's highly like you have one
healthy friendship or have at some pointin your life. But making these big,
general, sweeping statements leaves you feelingoverwhelmed and gives a beautiful opportunity for
(12:50):
that inner critic to get very loud. So those fourth thought patterns when to
run over and get run over them, run through a one more time comparison,
personalization, those should statements, andthat labeling or over generalizing. It's
going to often feel like you're ina battle. You got the inner critic
turning itself up and your inner voiceis finding back. But I want you
(13:11):
to allow both of them to exist. You want to keep one turned up
and one turned down. So let'slook at a couple of examples of how
you can work on responding from aplace of curiosity to nurture your inner guidance
or inner voice and be less harshand less judgmental of your inner critic.
So, for example, a judgmentstatement that your inner critic tells you is
(13:37):
you shouldn't feel this way. Theway you can reframe it out of a
place of being curious and growing tosay, huh, I'm feeling this way.
What is this about? Do yousee how you have this space to
what we're doing. Think about itversus beating yourself down. Let's try another
them. Oh, if this isthe big one, I'm sure no one
listening to this has ever been toldthis or said this to themselves. You're
(14:00):
so dramatic, you're so sensitive,you get so emotional. That's a judgment
harshness of inner critic. Now keepin mind our inner critic stuff can come
from our experiences and messages we weretold, which we then adopted to ourselves.
The way we want to reframe thisand come from a place of curiosity
to nurture our inner voice and innerguise is to say, this feeling is
(14:22):
really big and can feel very overwhelming, but I'm okay. Another example,
you have so much good in yourlife, you don't get to feel this
way. This is often what Iknow that comes up from my inner critic
is like, you got it sogood, you have so much privilege,
why are you doing this? Sowhat I have to tell myself out a
place of curiosity, I'm upset andit's okay. That doesn't make me ungrateful.
(14:46):
This gives me space and allows meto give myself grace that whatever I'm
feeling is completely okay and that Idon't have to judge it because I'm human.
So another way of looking at yourinner critic and voice as it say,
how do I dive into this?How do I look at this and
change this? And the ultimate goalis for us to explore, be curious
(15:09):
and trying to figure out what isthis inner critic that screaming real all out
wasn't trying to tell us about ourselves. So the first thing you can do
is to pick something that you're frequentlycriticize yourself about. Maybe it's your way,
Maybe it's how you see yourself whenyou're naked. Maybe it's how you're
showing yourself showing up in your relationship. Maybe it's procristinate, or you're late
(15:31):
a lot of times, or doyou have issues with anger, whatever it
is that's you're critical of yourself.Pick that out. Then I want you
to write down what you actually sayto yourself. So step to write down
those exact words that you're telling yourselfin that inner critic. For example,
you might be saying something like,what's wrong with me? Why am I
so lazy? I'm such a failurewho never accomplishes anything. Now, again,
(15:54):
it's important to write these out.Don't just do this in your head.
Write these messages out. The nextstep three we're gonna do. Ask
yourself, how do you feel whenyou say those things to yourself? For
an example, maybe feel sad,angry, scared, anxious. The point
here is so note the negative selftaught is harmful. When I say why
(16:15):
am I so lazy? Or I'ma failure? I don't accomplish anything,
it makes me feel crappy, right, So identifying the feeling that's coming from
that is crucial. Step four iswhat is that negative inner critic trying to
alert you to or help you with? Again, that inner critic, even
though it's really nasty, it servesa purpose. It's trying to alert us
to something, so keep on trackto achieving your goals. It's trying to
(16:38):
keep you connected. It's trying tosay, well, I'm I'm being harsh
with myself so that I stay accountable. Now, even though it might be
a little scuted, I want youto write that down here. If I'm
not harsh with myself, then I'mgoing to not accomplish the goal. I'm
not going to stay healthy. IfI don't talk negative myself, I'm not
going to be active. So youwant to figure out what is it trying
to alert you to or help youwith. Step number five, Give gratitude
(17:03):
to the inter critic for alerting youto this. I know it sins while,
but what if we said, thankyou, inter critic for helping me
stay connected the people who matter tome and my life. Thank you,
inter critic for letting me feel sadand giving me a space to have whatever
feelings coming up for me. Thankyou inter critic for trying to help me
not feel lazy by alerting me thatI need to make sure I'm still consistent
(17:26):
with being active or meeting my goal. That step number six communicate to yourself
with compassionate grace. Now, thisis where we are reframing this negative inter
critic. We're acknowledging it. We'rethinking it for showing up. Even though
it's a little nasty, we're stillglad they're here coming In a way,
you can do this to say Ilove you and I don't want you to
(17:47):
suffer. I'm afraid if you keephaving, for an example, angry outburst,
you're going to push away the peopleyou love. If you keep acting
the way you're acting, your partner'snot going to stick around. So you're
saying yourself with compassion, like hey, I want to make a change.
Hey, I'm grateful this, I'mbeing compassionate. Hey, it's okay for
me to feel how I'm feeling.I am a person who takes action.
(18:08):
So those six steps are crucial becauseit allows us to acknowledging inner critic,
find out what it's alerting us to, looking at what feelings behind it so
that we can connect with it more, given gratitude to it, and then
communicating with grace and compassion. Forme, going through these six steps and
doing these exercise has really helped meturn down my inner critic, and especially
(18:32):
these last several months, it's beenchaos and questioning for me, and my
inner critic has been so loud fromthe comparison to what it could have shut
up to, like, is thisreally what I want to do? And
this was never planned? What's wrongwith me? Where I missed this?
Like they were so much going onwithin myself and my inner critic. It
was raging for me. Writing thingsout and journaling has really helped me to
(18:56):
separate my inner voice and guidance ofexploring from that harsh inner critic comparison.
It's give me the best chance tolisten to me and give weight to what
serves me versus getting tied up inwhat ROB may think, my family may
think, my friends that let acare about me, or even the public
might think about me. It letsme separate saying like this is about me
(19:18):
and what I decision I make anddecide to move forward with. And what's
so important with this is journaling.Lets me put it down on paper.
I do this early in the morning. I'm early bird when I go to
bed early, so putting this outkeeps me from getting trapped in this anxiety
spiral in my mind that often popsup. Now that you have a better
understanding your inner critic versus your protectiveinner voice and how to separate on I
(19:41):
gotta remind you, please be gentlewith yourself. You're not going to do
this perfect every time. No onedoes, especially me, and I do
this all day. So let's stopgiving all the time and energy to our
inner critic. Let's acknowledge it,and let's challenge ourselves to turn up that
inner voice and guidance, one thatloves us, the one that wants us
to find the answers, the onethat wants to nurture us. That's the
(20:04):
one we've got to give more energytoo. If you enjoy this episode today
on Inner Critic Versus Inner Voice,send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook,
or shoot an email, or goahead on Apple's iTunes leave me a
review about the show. I appreciateyou being here and for your patients.
With this hiatus, I've taken everylast couple of months to kind of figure
(20:25):
myself out so that I can showup as authentically and real as possible for
you. I look forward to talkto you next time, and remember,
give yourself grace and energy to yourinner voice and your inner guides. Hey,
y'all, and welcome to the FixYourself First with Doctor Christy podcast.
(20:47):
This is a show for people whoare tired of waiting on others to change
and ready to focus on themselves inorder to improve their relationships. I've learned
from my personal and professional life asa psychotherapist or relationship that the only way
to have a healthy relationship was whenI realized that I have to fix myself
first, versus waiting on others tochange. Thank you for listening to my
show, and go ahead and hitsubscribe so you don't miss any future ones.
(21:11):
Now let's get started.
Of just seventy percent of people strugglewith mental chatter, that voice in the
back of their head, and itcomes from low self esteem. Out of
that place of an inner critic,they got this negative acceptance of self and
a lack of a positive inner voice. Now I see seventy percent from a
(00:21):
study that I saw, but Ithink that's much lower. I think more
people than not struggle with that mentalchatter. So there's a couple of things
that we're gonna learn today in thisepisode. We're going to talk about the
difference of your inner critic versus yourinner voice, or that inner guidance that
separating that negative intercruting to that reallygood guidance we have inside. Some people
(00:42):
refer to it as intuition or gutfrom that inner voice inside. Russ's gonna
talk about some examples of how youcan see that difference then how to overcome
it with the strategy that I knowis really helpful for myself. Y'all,
and welcome to Fix Yourself First withDoctor Christie podcast. This is a show
(01:03):
for people who are tired of waitingon others to change and ready to focus
on themselves in order to improve theirrelationships I've learned from my personal and professional
life as a psychotherapist and relationship expertthat the only way to have a healthy
relationship was when I realized that Ihave to fix myself first versus waiting on
others to change. Thank you forlistening to my show, and go ahead
(01:25):
hit subscribe so you don't miss anyfuture ones. Now let's get started.
(01:45):
Welcome to today's show, Fix YourselfFirst with Doctor Christie. I'm so happy
to be here. It has beena minute, right, it's been a
while since you've got a new episode, and I'm grateful you're here. I'm
glad you stuck around. I havebeen dealing with my own attle of really
horrible inner critic and try to separatethat from my voice and listening to what
(02:05):
needs to be best for me asan individual personally as well as professionally.
And for the past couple of months, frombout the past four months to be
exact, I have been going througha lot and I'm sharing this with you
because I don't want you to feellike you're the only one, that you're
the only one that's having to dealwith things and is it possible to make
it through it? Because I ama testament that you can There's a lot
of different things that's happened in life. Multiple issues have come up, some
(02:28):
good, some bad. Just letyou know a little bit more background.
Back in February this year, Roband I made a huge decision to as
they blow our life up, butyou might see it as changing life possible
for the better. We made thisdecision that we wanted to start a family,
and you know me, I amin my mid forties, forty five
(02:49):
to be exact, not the primeage of being able to have a child.
So we decided to go to IVFroute, which is a whole thing,
and going that route making decision ledus to say why don't we get
married? And we've been together fifteenyears now, so the decision to even
get married was a huge room forus on top of starting a family this
late in life. I'll cover thisin more details on another episode about how
(03:13):
come to that decision, making myown journey of soul searching in how that
affected our relationship and this huge fightwith an inner critic and the inner of
voice we made. Also the decisionto sell our home that we built two
years ago to move into and relocateto another area in Northeast Florida. And
we also found out that my motherin law has pancreatic cancer a few weeks
(03:34):
ago. As of all this,Rob's got some medical things that come up.
So I share this not that youcan say, oh, poor doctor,
crisis with what she's going through.It's more of a look. Every
single one of us that are humanwe deal with a lot. And when
we're busy making these plans in life, and I am a planner, sometimes
things just blow up and then wehave to deal without the best that we
can. We don't get to choosethe challenges or the opportunities. They just
(03:58):
happened to us. We've got tobe able to separate that inner critic from
that voice and helping us sift ofthe polo crap that we deal with on
a daily basis being human. You'veprobably heard the saying I'm my own worst
critic, So I sound familiar,Well, it definitely is. For me.
I beat myself up more than anybodyelse could. No one is as
hard on me as I can beon myself, and that means I have
(04:23):
a really loud inner critic, andwhen that inner critic gets turned up,
my inner guidance and voice goes down. And that's the beautiful thing about life
is if those who the good andthe bad. So we've got to start
differentiating the two of these. Andwe're going to keep in mind that my
inner self, taught, might looksdifferent than yours, looks different than the
(04:44):
person next to you. And we'renot here to judge how somebody's inner voice
is. It's more of just recognizingour own. We're all have had different
experience as we were raising, differentsituations, have different filming systems, had
really bad experience, that's some goodexperience. We've received messages about ourselves,
about our bodies, about our relationships, about who we choose to love,
(05:05):
who we choose to like, andthe decisions career and personal we make in
our life. We get these messagesand then they affect how we talk to
ourselves, and every interaction we gothrough can affect how we see. Therefore,
how we talk to ourselves. Weall have these two voices, that
critical inner critic and then that compassionateinner voice or inner guidance. In what
(05:31):
proportion we decide to listen to themdetermines how we feel and how we think
about ourselves. You can imagine thesevoices. It's like two people or two
personas in our heads, and they'reconstantly commenting on the experience as we go
through. Both are inner critic andour inner voice or inner guidance. They
have important roles and they have verydramatic effects on us. You can think
(05:58):
of your inner critic as part ofyour personality. It's really harsh and judgmental.
It demeans you, your work,what you do, how you do,
how you see yourself, and howyou are in relationships and friendships.
Is this voice that makes you sometimesfeel small, not good enough, and
pretty worthless. And often that innercritic is this big, large, blooming,
(06:20):
loud voice that feels like it's turnedup to a tent. But here's
the thing with our inner critic thata lot of times we don't realize our
inner critic has a purpose. Ittries to keep us safe and it points
out what could be improved in thefuture. Sounds good, right, but
it can be very detrimental. Soit's trying to do good, but it
(06:42):
ends up being really negative for us. For an example, we're a large
group of people and let's just saywe value their opinions. It's people around
you and you really care what theythink, or you care what they think
about what you're saying. You're gonnawatch out to maybe feel like, hey,
I'm gonna be quiet, I'm notgonna say anything. I don't want
to come off silly or stupid ordoesn't like I'm talking about or it believes
(07:04):
maybe you already did that, youalready said something that's kind of dumb or
something that didn't really fit the conversations, especially if you've got some social anxiety.
So it's ready to beat you upand make you feel a little bit
more awkward in future situations. Whetherit was that group or even another group
has got nothing to do with thegroup you were just in. When we
(07:24):
look at this, we have tolook at again these different purposes. Our
inner voice. There's that inner guidethat's really different than our inner critic,
our inner voice, which we wantto champion, we want to dialog,
we want to listen to. Itsgoal is to encourage us. Its goals
to nurture us and help us believein ourselves. That sounds good, right
(07:46):
like we want to feel that.It helps us feel proud, even the
small accomplishments we feel really good about. So with that being said, this
nurture keeps us from feeling stuck.It help to feel that we are good
enough. And even when that lowself esteem comes up, we have a
little inner voice to the inner guidanceand says, hey, you're going to
(08:07):
be our right. So we knowthat the inner critic sometimes goes completely overboard
and spirals and anxiety, and weknow our inner voice or inner guidance,
we're going to turn that one upa little bit. I want to think
about one of the ways for youto deal with your own inner voice is
to take that inner critic and tryingto make it disappear like we can't get
(08:31):
rid of either of them. We'realways gonna have to the inner critic,
and we're always going to have thatinner voice or guidance. It's going to
be impossible because they are these driversand purpose behind them. But it doesn't
mean that you can't do anything aboutit. And one of the things that
we want to recognize is our thwhole pattern, because remember what we think
about a situation about ourselves, aboutthings that we do, that becomes a
(08:54):
lot of time our inner critic,that nego self taught and that mental trapter
So the four thought patterns are goingto cover is personal in comparison, and
this is a big one, andthis is when we compare ourselves to others
that makes us feel inferior or makesus feel really crappy. It makes the
accomplishments of all those around us seemreally being and huge, while making our
(09:18):
own seem really small and unimportant.A great example of this is social media.
Scrolling through your feed wherever, whateverplatform, your own, it's easy
to convince ourselves and everyone else isbetter, they have it better, they
have more exciting and successful lives thanus. It's social media has that dope,
mean, that quick fix to wantyou to take a look at it,
(09:39):
scroll through its, stay on it, and this negative self taught that
you have about yourself gets louder andlouder because of comparison and that feed,
you're inner crypt The second one ispersonalization, and this personalization is when you
believe that everything is about you,something you did, and that it's your
(10:01):
fault when something doesn't go according toyour plan or let's just say, your
friends unhappy with you. You havea tendency to automatically assume that you're the
problem, that you did something Isee this all the time with my couples
in relationship dynamics. I have onepartner who will say, well, I
didn't say anything because they seemed upsetwith me. And I'll ask, well,
(10:22):
what do they say, Well,they didn't. They didn't say anything.
That's a problem. Therefore they mustbe upset. And I'll ask them,
have you asked them if they're upset? No? No, no,
because I know they are because thisperson's tendency is to personalize and make them
all about themselves and as if everything'sthey are fault. Now that dynamic an
example. I mean, I havenothing to do with that person, but
(10:43):
that personalization, it's so being andhuge and all encompassing that now without issue
in the relationship and possible conflict becausethis one partner is making assumptions and personalizing
all the stuff. So you canimagine what it does for their inner critic.
It's dialed up to a in thethird type of thought that we have
are those should statements. I knowI'll talk about these often, but the
(11:05):
inner critic tries to make you achievethe impossibles. So it's saying, if
you don't reach way up here,way way, way way, then you're
failing. If you fail, itbeats you up. As a way to
make yourself feel better, let's justsay at the end of a day you
didn't accomplish everything you wanted to do. Your inner critic is going to make
(11:26):
you feel bad by saying, see, you're screwed up again. You shouldn't
have spent so much time on socialmedia, or you should spend so much
time doing this or doing that,or you should have done this or should
have done that. Now, inreality, did you spend too much time
on social media and didn't get thatgoal done? Yeah? Probably, So
However, we're gonna talk about howto give ourself grace and take action to
(11:46):
do things differently. But spiraling inthe shoulds will leave your inner critic wide
open and yelling at you, whichwill make you feel worse. There for
the next day, you're going tofeel that's motivated to get the next thing
done. The fourth thought pattern wewant to watch out four that feeds that
inner critic is labeling, or welike to say generalizing. So when you're
(12:07):
critical about yourself, you're pronged togeneralize your faults. So for for an
example, let's say you arrive lateto a meeting, and that inner critic
voice goes, why must you alwaysbe late? But in that moment,
you do not remember that maybe eightyto ninety percent of the time you're punctual,
but then there's sometimes when you're late. The self criticism makes you extend
(12:28):
the present situation you're in into ageneral statement. For an example, I
never I never have healthy friendships.Well, it's highly like you have one
healthy friendship or have at some pointin your life. But making these big,
general, sweeping statements leaves you feelingoverwhelmed and gives a beautiful opportunity for
(12:50):
that inner critic to get very loud. So those fourth thought patterns when to
run over and get run over them, run through a one more time comparison,
personalization, those should statements, andthat labeling or over generalizing. It's
going to often feel like you're ina battle. You got the inner critic
turning itself up and your inner voiceis finding back. But I want you
(13:11):
to allow both of them to exist. You want to keep one turned up
and one turned down. So let'slook at a couple of examples of how
you can work on responding from aplace of curiosity to nurture your inner guidance
or inner voice and be less harshand less judgmental of your inner critic.
So, for example, a judgmentstatement that your inner critic tells you is
(13:37):
you shouldn't feel this way. Theway you can reframe it out of a
place of being curious and growing tosay, huh, I'm feeling this way.
What is this about? Do yousee how you have this space to
what we're doing. Think about itversus beating yourself down. Let's try another
them. Oh, if this isthe big one, I'm sure no one
listening to this has ever been toldthis or said this to themselves. You're
(14:00):
so dramatic, you're so sensitive,you get so emotional. That's a judgment
harshness of inner critic. Now keepin mind our inner critic stuff can come
from our experiences and messages we weretold, which we then adopted to ourselves.
The way we want to reframe thisand come from a place of curiosity
to nurture our inner voice and innerguise is to say, this feeling is
(14:22):
really big and can feel very overwhelming, but I'm okay. Another example,
you have so much good in yourlife, you don't get to feel this
way. This is often what Iknow that comes up from my inner critic
is like, you got it sogood, you have so much privilege,
why are you doing this? Sowhat I have to tell myself out a
place of curiosity, I'm upset andit's okay. That doesn't make me ungrateful.
(14:46):
This gives me space and allows meto give myself grace that whatever I'm
feeling is completely okay and that Idon't have to judge it because I'm human.
So another way of looking at yourinner critic and voice as it say,
how do I dive into this?How do I look at this and
change this? And the ultimate goalis for us to explore, be curious
(15:09):
and trying to figure out what isthis inner critic that screaming real all out
wasn't trying to tell us about ourselves. So the first thing you can do
is to pick something that you're frequentlycriticize yourself about. Maybe it's your way,
Maybe it's how you see yourself whenyou're naked. Maybe it's how you're
showing yourself showing up in your relationship. Maybe it's procristinate, or you're late
(15:31):
a lot of times, or doyou have issues with anger, whatever it
is that's you're critical of yourself.Pick that out. Then I want you
to write down what you actually sayto yourself. So step to write down
those exact words that you're telling yourselfin that inner critic. For example,
you might be saying something like,what's wrong with me? Why am I
so lazy? I'm such a failurewho never accomplishes anything. Now, again,
(15:54):
it's important to write these out.Don't just do this in your head.
Write these messages out. The nextstep three we're gonna do. Ask
yourself, how do you feel whenyou say those things to yourself? For
an example, maybe feel sad,angry, scared, anxious. The point
here is so note the negative selftaught is harmful. When I say why
(16:15):
am I so lazy? Or I'ma failure? I don't accomplish anything,
it makes me feel crappy, right, So identifying the feeling that's coming from
that is crucial. Step four iswhat is that negative inner critic trying to
alert you to or help you with? Again, that inner critic, even
though it's really nasty, it servesa purpose. It's trying to alert us
to something, so keep on trackto achieving your goals. It's trying to
(16:38):
keep you connected. It's trying tosay, well, I'm I'm being harsh
with myself so that I stay accountable. Now, even though it might be
a little scuted, I want youto write that down here. If I'm
not harsh with myself, then I'mgoing to not accomplish the goal. I'm
not going to stay healthy. IfI don't talk negative myself, I'm not
going to be active. So youwant to figure out what is it trying
to alert you to or help youwith. Step number five, Give gratitude
(17:03):
to the inter critic for alerting youto this. I know it sins while,
but what if we said, thankyou, inter critic for helping me
stay connected the people who matter tome and my life. Thank you,
inter critic for letting me feel sadand giving me a space to have whatever
feelings coming up for me. Thankyou inter critic for trying to help me
not feel lazy by alerting me thatI need to make sure I'm still consistent
(17:26):
with being active or meeting my goal. That step number six communicate to yourself
with compassionate grace. Now, thisis where we are reframing this negative inter
critic. We're acknowledging it. We'rethinking it for showing up. Even though
it's a little nasty, we're stillglad they're here coming In a way,
you can do this to say Ilove you and I don't want you to
(17:47):
suffer. I'm afraid if you keephaving, for an example, angry outburst,
you're going to push away the peopleyou love. If you keep acting
the way you're acting, your partner'snot going to stick around. So you're
saying yourself with compassion, like hey, I want to make a change.
Hey, I'm grateful this, I'mbeing compassionate. Hey, it's okay for
me to feel how I'm feeling.I am a person who takes action.
(18:08):
So those six steps are crucial becauseit allows us to acknowledging inner critic,
find out what it's alerting us to, looking at what feelings behind it so
that we can connect with it more, given gratitude to it, and then
communicating with grace and compassion. Forme, going through these six steps and
doing these exercise has really helped meturn down my inner critic, and especially
(18:32):
these last several months, it's beenchaos and questioning for me, and my
inner critic has been so loud fromthe comparison to what it could have shut
up to, like, is thisreally what I want to do? And
this was never planned? What's wrongwith me? Where I missed this?
Like they were so much going onwithin myself and my inner critic. It
was raging for me. Writing thingsout and journaling has really helped me to
(18:56):
separate my inner voice and guidance ofexploring from that harsh inner critic comparison.
It's give me the best chance tolisten to me and give weight to what
serves me versus getting tied up inwhat ROB may think, my family may
think, my friends that let acare about me, or even the public
might think about me. It letsme separate saying like this is about me
(19:18):
and what I decision I make anddecide to move forward with. And what's
so important with this is journaling.Lets me put it down on paper.
I do this early in the morning. I'm early bird when I go to
bed early, so putting this outkeeps me from getting trapped in this anxiety
spiral in my mind that often popsup. Now that you have a better
understanding your inner critic versus your protectiveinner voice and how to separate on I
(19:41):
gotta remind you, please be gentlewith yourself. You're not going to do
this perfect every time. No onedoes, especially me, and I do
this all day. So let's stopgiving all the time and energy to our
inner critic. Let's acknowledge it,and let's challenge ourselves to turn up that
inner voice and guidance, one thatloves us, the one that wants us
to find the answers, the onethat wants to nurture us. That's the
(20:04):
one we've got to give more energytoo. If you enjoy this episode today
on Inner Critic Versus Inner Voice,send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook,
or shoot an email, or goahead on Apple's iTunes leave me a
review about the show. I appreciateyou being here and for your patients.
With this hiatus, I've taken everylast couple of months to kind of figure
(20:25):
myself out so that I can showup as authentically and real as possible for
you. I look forward to talkto you next time, and remember,
give yourself grace and energy to yourinner voice and your inner guides. Hey,
y'all, and welcome to the FixYourself First with Doctor Christy podcast.
(20:47):
This is a show for people whoare tired of waiting on others to change
and ready to focus on themselves inorder to improve their relationships. I've learned
from my personal and professional life asa psychotherapist or relationship that the only way
to have a healthy relationship was whenI realized that I have to fix myself
first, versus waiting on others tochange. Thank you for listening to my
show, and go ahead and hitsubscribe so you don't miss any future ones.
(21:11):
Now let's get started.
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