How to Make Peace with Your Inner Critic Part 1 – Evolving Through Understanding
- Brainz Magazine
- Sep 30
- 7 min read
Katie Dixon is a psychotherapist and the owner of Healing in Action Counseling Services LLC. Her areas of specialty include grief, complex relational trauma, self-image, and fear-based thought patterns. Katie's mission is to support clients in identifying and exploring the possibilities that lead to lasting change and a more fulfilling life.
We all have to contend with an inner voice. This is a universal experience. All too often, this voice develops a harsh, critical tone and seems compelled to comment negatively on every aspect of our lives. Over time, we begin to accept its messages as truth. To accept these criticisms as truth is to align with a distorted view of ourselves and the world around us.
We must actively challenge this to avoid getting caught in the snares of self-sabotage. At moments, this inner voice may seem cautionary and protective. It may begin by conveying the message that it is not worth it for us to put ourselves out there and risk failure or humiliation. On the other end of the spectrum is a relentless bully who berates us, shames us, and mocks us at every turn. By the time we experience this version of the harsh inner critic, it has been enabled for too long. We endure this cruelty due to the belief that this inner critic sees the parts of us that we desperately want to remain hidden.
The inner critic reminds us of all the reasons we feel unworthy, unlovable, and not good enough for anyone or anything. Our greatest fear is that if we do not listen to this harsh inner critic, we might make a decision that risks these shame-ridden parts being revealed. No wonder we feel beholden to the voice that holds our most troubling fears! How do we break free from this toxic relationship with ourselves? We must understand the reasons why this voice even exists in order to stop internalizing its distorted messages. Only then will we be able to live with a greater sense of clarity and trust in ourselves. Let’s begin by getting familiar with the inner critic’s counterpart, our conscience.
Distinguishing between conscience and critic
In order to make the distinction between a healthy conscience and the harsh inner critic, it would serve us to examine the role of our values. This complex system is informed first by the intrinsic knowledge that our very existence is a miracle, that we are loved beyond all measure, that we are called to love, to do good, and to cause no harm to ourselves or others. Our social conditioning may distance us from this awareness, but it is an imprint that we all inherit.
Additionally, our value system is influenced by cultural, societal, and religious contexts, as well as the particular values of our immediate community, family, and, finally, the personal tenets that we develop over time.
Essentially, our conscience develops through the integration of these factors and serves as a compass that directs our sense of right and wrong. Our conscience is highly adaptive and calls us to assess our actions. It then helps us to decide if we should continue our actions, adjust them in some way, or do away with them altogether. The voice of our conscience can make us uncomfortable when we recognize that our actions do not align with our values. Some people even describe it as a “nagging” voice because it will not rest until we heed its message. When we get off course, our conscience provides the roadmap and guiding light that leads us back to ourselves, to our inner knowing. We are presented with an opportunity to reflect and change our behavior in order to realign with our values. When our conscience speaks, it offers us a second chance and an opportunity to make amends.
Distinctly, the harsh inner critic is a remnant of past fears and judgments that develops as a result of the same influences as the conscience. While the conscience is centered on what it knows, the inner critic misinterprets and misrepresents what it has learned. The inner critic is inflexible and has already condemned us for every mistake we have made. To make matters worse, the inner critic also anticipates all of the possibilities for making future mistakes and condemns us in advance. The sole mission of the inner critic is to distract us from the present and keep us in a state of regret about the past and fear of the future. It renders us powerless by disconnecting us from all of the potential of the present moment. With the inner critic, there is no path forward, no redemptive action, and no corrective effort that will appease it. As already mentioned, we are prone to accept these gross misinterpretations as truth. Some mental health professionals might view the inner critic as a voice that was once trying to protect us and went haywire. A strong argument can be made for that. Perhaps learning more about the inner critic’s younger self will elicit the compassion needed to make peace with it today. In any case, when the system is malfunctioning, we need to address the problem and minimize the harm. The call to action is to reject the inner critic’s message when it tries to convince us that we are in any way irredeemable. When the harsh inner critic drowns out the voice of our conscience, we must strive to connect with our values rather than giving way to distortions that stir up our worst fears. We can often achieve this by imagining how we would respond to someone we care about being treated unfairly. The hard work is then offering that same care to ourselves.
The inner critic’s younger years
To further complicate our relationship with our inner critic, we are often receptive to its perspective because it mirrors past experiences from critical stages of our development. This facet of the harsh inner critic is shaped by the way our caregivers, mentors, teachers, and coaches spoke to us in earlier and more vulnerable stages of our lives. It is also influenced by the way we hear our families speak about others and about themselves. Societal and cultural norms further contribute to the way our inner voice emerges and whether it leans toward compassion or judgment. More often than not, there is a moment or series of moments of internalization and misinterpretation in early childhood that are reinforced over time. To give an example, many of us can relate to the experience of having a parent (caregiver) respond to a request we made with impatience and frustration. As adults, we can look back and recognize that our parents were overwhelmed in that moment by any number of things, and that their reaction did not have anything to do with us personally. As children, we do not have the ability to see our parents through the lens of lived adult experiences. So what happens? In that moment, the seeds of misinterpretation and distorted belief are planted. In moments like these, we may have attributed our parents’ impatience to our own unworthiness. We began to view ourselves as we believed we were viewed by others. We may have determined that we were seen as a burden or a nuisance, and we misinterpreted that when we need something, we are better off figuring it out for ourselves.
These kinds of misperceptions are inextricable from our innocence, and we are often not able to examine them again fully until adulthood. Children are self-referential and are learning about themselves by what others reflect to them. They also rely on emotional experiences more than cognitive reasoning, as is developmentally appropriate. Once the seed of misinterpretation is planted, it continues to be cultivated by subsequent experiences that allow it to take root and grow. Ongoing exposure to comparisons, criticisms, and negativity seems to validate the fear that one is unworthy, unlovable, undeserving, or any painful variation of not being valued or good enough. As the harsh inner critic matures in our minds, it begins to feel like it is our own voice rather than a blend of others’ voices from the past. When we take the time to examine its messages more carefully, we may find a plagiarized, unoriginal adaptation of the adult voices we were surrounded by, of other insecure children who may have bullied us, or of what we consumed through various media. Once we have this realization, the invitation has been extended to drop down into ourselves and reconnect with our inner knowing. Now we have the advantage of adult lived experience to understand these moments with more clarity, and the inner critic has permission to loosen its grip.
Turning your inner experience outward
When you experience a negative thought toward yourself, imagine someone you care about deeply standing in front of you. Imagine saying this thought to them, directing it at them, and saying it out loud, so your own ears can hear the sharp sting of these words you are speaking. Remind yourself that no one deserves to be spoken to and treated in such a way, not even you. Your worst flaw and the worst thing you have ever done do not define who you are as a person. They reflect back to you where you are being invited to grow. Meet those experiences with the courage to be compassionate and see how your life begins to shift into something more beautiful. We cannot control the thoughts that come, but we can control how we respond to them. One single thought has the power to lead us down a spiral of negativity, if we allow it. Your harsh inner critic will make every attempt to ensure this outcome. Consider reminding yourself that this is an old pattern, and you are embracing self-acceptance through greater understanding. You may have to revisit this process each time a painful thought resurfaces.
How might it feel to simply acknowledge your inner critic and meet it with the tenderness you would show to a child whose feelings were hurt? You would likely listen with compassion and without getting too wrapped up in the story. Your inner critic is telling a child’s story, but that story no longer matches your awareness or adult lived experience. See how your inner critic responds when you stop engaging with it the ways you once did.
If you are struggling with negative or intrusive thoughts beyond what feels manageable, please seek the help of a licensed mental health professional. There are many therapeutic interventions that effectively address these thought patterns.
Read more from Katie Dixon
Katie Dixon, Licensed Professional Counselor, Business Owner
Katie Dixon is a Licensed Professional Counselor and the owner of Healing in Action Counseling Services LLC. Through a number of personal and professional experiences, Katie realized that life's most difficult moments can lead to feelings of isolation when connection is often what is most needed. Her mission is to use the power of connection to help her clients heal from painful experiences while navigating their relationships with themselves and others from a place of greater compassion and understanding.
