CHAPTER 23 DETHRONING OUR INNER CRITIC

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YOUNG CHILDREN, so very vulnerable and impressionable, are sponges

for the input of their environment, healthy and unhealthy alike; it all gets
absorbed and stored in various ways and places. Our inner child can�t help
but reflect this. The heartlessly shaming aspects of such input soon get
channeled into our inner critic, which basically bullies the child in us,
however quietly, including into our adulthood.

Our inner critic�s messages might be out in the open, but its roots are
often largely in our shadow. If we�re fused with our inner child, we�ll take
what our inner critic is saying as unquestioned truth, not even recognizing at such
times that we have an inner critic. Waking up to this�and to the origins and
anatomy of our inner critic�is essential for effective shadow work.

The Truth about Our Inner Critic

Our inner critic is heartless self-shaming and self-bullying in action.

Regardless of how �adult� or rational its criticisms may seem to be�
especially to the child in us�they�re not in our best interests.

We may conceive of our inner critic as a thing or an indwelling entity, but

it�s actually an activity, a process, ready to flare up when we�re in a
vulnerable position, nailing or bombarding us with should after should,
spewing forth negative self-appraisal, cutting us down to size.

Shame is the emotion at the core of the inner critic. Healthy shame
triggers and is triggered by our conscience, but unhealthy shame, toxic
shame, triggers and is triggered by our inner critic. For all too many of us,
our inner critic masquerades as our conscience.

Our inner critic, however soft-spoken, is aggressive. As described in the

anger chapter, anger turns to aggression when we stop having compassion
toward the subject of our anger and shift to simply being on the attack�just
as does our inner critic.

The Relationship Between the Inner Critic and Inner Child

We tend to regress into a childlike state before our inner critic when we don�t see
the critic for what it is. And we all have that child in us, no matter what our
age, no matter how adult we may seem. When we fuse or identify with the child
within, our inner critic holds the power, talking to us as though we�re but a child
(or an incompetent somebody). But our inner critic doesn�t hold the power in any
innate sense. We are giving it the power, the authority, to shame us, to degrade us
for not making the grade.

We often look at the child in us through the eyes of our inner critic. So if
the child in us is shy, awkward, hurting, or dysfunctional, we might look
upon that little one with a sense of embarrassment or even revulsion, perhaps
thinking, �I shouldn�t be like that. I�m an adult. I�ve worked on myself. How can I
regress like that?� But this kind of thinking just provides fuel for our inner
critic, so that it can righteously proclaim things such as �Look at you! You�re
failing. You�re weak. Here you go again. You�re pathetic.� And on it goes�the
familiar litany of put-downs, making the case for us not being enough.

The impression we may get when our inner critic is speaking with such
certainty and authority is that it must be a valuable voice, a wise, parental
one, perhaps even one that has our best interests at heart. But one of its
defining characteristics is that it has no heart. As we work to cease
identifying with our inner critic and being a child before it, we learn
something valuable: if we hear an internal voice that lacks compassion, lacks
heart, we need not take its contents seriously.

As we acknowledge and observe our inner critic and move away from it,
we need at the same time to move toward the child in us. Doing so brings out in us
a sense of increased protectiveness of the child within, so that we�re both loving
that little one and keeping him or her safe. Once we sense the dynamic between our
inner critic and our inner child, seeing that it�s usually nothing but a shame-
centered dramatization of the bully and the bullied, healing can begin. At such
times, our inner critic retreats to the back bleachers of our psyche, perhaps so
far away that we can no longer hear it. It no longer has our ear. We�re taking the
much-needed step of getting in between our inner critic and inner child, keeping
the boundary between them intact.

Working with Your Inner Critic

We may think how great it would be to get rid of our inner critic, but we can
no more completely eliminate it than we can completely eliminate our
judging mind. What we can do is start changing how we relate to our inner
critic. Once we change that relationship, bringing our inner critic�s origins
out of our shadow, and we cease responding to it as if we�re a helpless child, the
critic loses its power over us, eventually manifesting as no more than occasional
background noise.

When your inner critic shows up, it�s immediately helpful to name it by
saying something such as �Inner critic� or �My inner critic is here.� Keep it
simple. It may be even more helpful if you already have a name for your
inner critic�a name that really fits for you (such as �the judge� or �the
inquisitor�). Then you can say this name, out loud if possible, as if
identifying an intruder or trespasser.

PRACTICE

Here is a sequential practice to use when you find yourself holed up in your
�headquarters,� with your inner critic whispering or shouting in your ear, and you
know that you need to shift without delay to a more life-giving stance.

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1. Name your inner critic: �Here�s__________.� Repeat this phrase,
a touch louder.

2. Immediately shift your awareness from what your inner critic is

saying to whatever sensations you�re feeling in your body. In
doing this, you�re shifting the focus of your attention from
cognition to sensation, giving you some needed distance from
your inner critic�s pronouncements. It also gives you more space
to observe the actual energy and feeling of your inner critic as
opposed to its contents and messages.

3. Direct your full attention to your chest, breathing deeply into it,
and also soften your belly. Count at least ten breaths, counting at
the end of each exhale; if you forget where you are, start at one
again. If you remain agitated, count to ten again.

4. Now direct your awareness to the child in you, feeling into and
feeling for that one, perhaps also visualizing her or him so as to
make the connection more palpable.
5. Breathe your inner child into your heart, and also breathe more
presence into the space you�re making for that one. Do not let
your thoughts convince you to do otherwise�as in �This is silly. I
shouldn�t be doing this.� Just simply be with this step. This causes
a softening and opening�your heart, shoulders, face, and whole
body softening, easing, settling.

6. Have a sense of standing between your inner critic and inner child,
with your back to the critic, so that the child isn�t subjected or
answerable to your inner critic. Then imagine picking up that little
one, holding him or her close with one hand. Turn to face the
critic, holding out your other hand, palm facing outward as if to
forcefully say, �Stop!� You�re generating both a field of caring
and a field of protection, safety, guardianship for your inner child.

This practice creates a feeling of reclaiming and taking good care of

something that we might think we should have outgrown but that�s actually
with us right through our entire lives�our innocence, our vulnerability, our
prerational self.

Deepening Our Self-Acceptance Disempowers Our Inner Critic

There are painful, dark, embarrassing things in each of us�qualities we can

easily disown, reject, or deny. But when we move toward these things,
approaching them with both care and curiosity, there�s a sense of them
leaving our shadow, each shifting from being a disowned or rejected it to a
reclaimed me. Through such radical self-acceptance, we become more whole.
We can even open our heart to our own closed-heartedness by acknowledging to
ourselves (and maybe to others close to us) that we�re currently closedhearted,
admitting this without self-shaming and without giving our inner critic a green
light.

Instead of perpetuating our self-shaming�and reinforcing our inner critic

�by rejecting and pulling away from the parts of us that are seemingly
messed up, we can turn our undivided attention toward them. When we do
so, our heart begins going out to and including these parts, because we can
sense our inner child in them somewhere behind the scenes, wounded and
unable to deal with the wound.

Real self-acceptance isn�t about tolerating or overlooking our bad

behavior but rather bringing into our heart the part of us that�s behind such
behavior. The process here is akin to going to a frightened child and being a
compassionate space for them, holding them close�not telling them that
everything�s going to be okay or that there�s nothing wrong but just being
with them, presence to presence, saying only what�s necessary.

It�s perhaps most difficult to step back from our inner critic�s content
when we know we�ve done some bad things�really hurt others, been selfish, cheated,
lied, broken the law, and so on�and hence feel deserving of being shamed, even
toxically shamed. So we bare ourselves for our inner critic�s beating. But such
self-battering does us no good and, in fact, prevents our healing.

To reduce our inner critic to its proper size we need to have a clear sense
of its origins, our history with it. Does it sound like one parent or the other, or
a composite of both? Or an older sibling who was harsh or cruel? A teacher?
Schoolmates who bullied us or put us down?

If, for example, we were overwhelmed by an angry parent who slamshamed

us, part of our work is to get in touch with the anger we had to
repress in order to survive that parent�s rages. If we have our anger on tap, we
can say an effective no to our inner critic (which is also a no-longer-buried no to
what our angry, shaming parent did to us). But if we don�t have our anger on tap,
our no will be either non-existent or tentative.

We often conceive of our emotions as indwelling masses�things within that

we can just simply get out of our system, things to merely vent or discharge.
Not true! Emotion isn�t a thing but a process. And emotion isn�t just feeling;
it�s feeling, cognition, social factors, and conditioning all in dynamic
interplay. Our inner critic is a kind of fluid conglomerate too. There�s feeling
in it and thinking too, plus a load of conditioning.

We can�t empty ourselves of our inner critic, because it�s not a something
that can be discharged or evacuated from us. But we can break our
identification with it. We can cease placing our inner child in the sights of our
inner critic, and instead of letting our inner critic examine and cross-examine us,
we examine it. Then we can live without our inner critic having any control over
us.