E. 14 -What Your Inner Critic Sounds Like and How to Get it to Shut Up - Based on the work from Playing Big by Tara Mohr

Hello So Deep Peeps!  

Welcome to That’s So Deep.  This is the podcast where we try to root out loneliness one conversation at a time. Today we are talking about What Your Inner Critic Sounds Like and How to Get it to Shut Up (Based on the work from Playing Big by Tara Mohr).

Some deep things we cover:

1. Inner Critics are like buttholes.  We’ve all got one!
2. Inner Critics are the Risk Aversion Department of your brain.
3. Inner Critics are more concerned with safety than truth: They’ll tell you anything to keep you safe from emotional risk.
4. What does the Inner Critic sound like?
   • Harsh, rude and mean.
   • Binary: Black and white thinking. No gray area.
   • Sexist 
   • Body Critical
   • A Broken Record
   • An Outer Critic that you have internalized: a parent, a sibling, a coach etc.
5. If your inner critic is getting hysterical, it may mean that you’re on the edge of a breakthrough.  Keep going!

Take-aways:

Now that we know what the Inner Critic sounds like, what are some ways we can get it to quiet down?  Here are some tips from Tara Mohr’s book Playing Big: 

1. Name and describe your critic:  Take a minute to breathe and journal.  Give your critic a name and identify their personality traits.  What are their features?  What kind of car do they drive?  What does their voice sound like?  How do they take their coffee in the morning?
2. Take the “I” out of the inner critic and talk about them in the 3rd person:  Instead of saying “I’m freaking out!” try “my inner critic is freaking out right now!”  The inner critic is “a” voice but it is not “the” voice.  
3. Ways to Minimize the Inner Critic’s voice:
   • Physically walk out of the room when your critic starts talking.
   • Locate the voice in your body and imagine it receding into space.
   • Pantomime putting all the criticisms in a box and moving it out of the room.
   • Imagine a volume dial in your mind and see yourself turn the volume down.

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Yours in Becoming, 

Phyllis & Julie

Resources and articles we referenced in the episode:

1. Playing Big, Tara Mohr's Women's Self-Development Book
2. Shadow Work: Benefits, How To, Practices, & Dangers 
3. The Goop Podcast - How to Defeat Your Inner Critic
4. The Science of Happiness: Episode 2: Quieting Your Inner Critic