Deal with your inner critic

You want to buy an apartment, and an inner voice tells you: “You won’t succeed, no one in our family bought an apartment. You have already tried and nothing happened, where are you with your salary. Don’t even try, it’s a waste of time and effort.”

This voice belongs to your inner critic. To decide on some action, you need to agree with him – to make sure that he takes your side and turns from an obstacle into an assistant and ally.

First, let’s look at how the figure of a critic is formed.

1. Under the influence of negative experience

For example, you have a toothache, and it needs urgent treatment. But your only experience of visiting the dentist was very bad, so now you can’t decide to go to the doctor.

Such a critic is the easiest to deal with: you can tell him that one failure does not mean that the next trips to a specialist will be bad. And also that you will ensure your safety by choosing the best clinic and reading reviews about the doctor.

2. Under the influence of the parent figure

In this case, the critic broadcasts the ideas of your dad, mom or grandfather, which they laid in you at an unconscious age. At that time they were very authoritative figures, and you took everything they said without judgment.

For example, dad said to his daughter: “The husband should be older than you and earn more than you.” The girl has grown up and is in love with a man who is younger and earns less. He proposes to her, but she cannot decide to marry him, because her father’s prohibition is laid in the unconscious.

You can negotiate with such a critic in one way – by proving that you are the same adult as he is, that is, you have the right to your own opinion and can prove your case. From the position of the child to agree with the critic will not work.

3. Influenced by the distant past

You want to try yourself in public speaking, but you can’t decide – as soon as you go to the podium and open your mouth, you catch your breath and lose your voice. Why is that?

The reason may be that your distant ancestor once spoke publicly, and his careless word caused a small-town war in which many of your family died. And the memory of the family keeps this sad fact.

4.Influenced by the environment

These critics are especially strong, since a person is afraid of condemning not just one person, for example, a parent, but the whole environment. He is afraid of being rejected by the environment and being left alone.

For example, some national communities shame and even expel girls who lost their innocence before marriage. Even if a girl from this community lives in the capital, where there are completely different orders and nothing threatens her, in her unconscious she still has a ban on premarital sex. Therefore, she may avoid relationships for fear of breaking an inner taboo.

How do you deal with your inner critic?

Place figures of yourself and your critic on the table, or draw them on a piece of paper. Conduct a dialogue by touching the figure or image of the person who is currently speaking with your finger.

Rules for dialogue with a critic:

• Talk to him like an adult with an adult – on an equal footing.
• Show respect and hear it.
• Understand what his message is, what is the reason for the ban. The quality that the critic says you lack to make it happen is the very resource you need to integrate in order to allow yourself to do something.

You must agree that you take responsibility for the fulfillment of your intention. And also draw up a plan of action and decide in what form the critic will help you. The original function of the critic is protection, and it is very important for him to remain useful.

If I want to take screenwriting courses, then I have to explain to my inner critic that this is not an extra expense, but a profitable investment: “I promise to earn money for courses using the skills that I will receive on them. I will be taught how to write scripts, and I, for example, will turn my stories into a series script and sell it. Or I’ll write scripts for short films and sell them.”

The critic, of course, will say that I could work and earn as usual without spending my money, time and energy on courses. But I also have an answer ready for this: “I will acquire knowledge there that will help me earn more in the future. In addition, I will receive ideas for articles, psychological work and creativity. This will help me earn in other areas as well.”

When the critic understands that I take responsibility for my decision and guarantee that after the courses my financial situation will increase, the last step remains to be taken – to ask him for help. “You will be vigilant and will warn me of possible violations of my legal and financial rights. To avoid unforeseen losses.

Keep in mind that the inner critic can not always be heard, because it manifests itself not only through thoughts. Quite often, it blocks your impulses through bodily manifestations – stupor, trembling, weakness, pain. And then it will be possible to expand the critic’s message only with a psychotherapist who knows how to work with bodily symptoms and psychosomatics.