Taming The Inner Critic & Cultivating Self-Compassion

Is your inner critic holding you back from building fulfilling relationships? Discover how the 3 Principles can help you quiet the negative self-talk and foster self-compassion, empowering you to nurture stronger, more positive connections with others.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the CalmCast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Clare Downam,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying and I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The CalmCast is a series of short explorations,

Gently guiding you back to your natural state,

Which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music,

With an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today,

Taming the inner critic and cultivating self-compassion,

But of course in the arena of relationships,

What I'm already noticing as I explore relationships is that where I recently explored productivity,

The same kind of things are coming out for people.

And I just think that's really interesting,

Isn't it?

That,

You know,

The inner critic shows up when we're thinking about productivity and considering whether or not we're being productive enough.

And also that need for self-compassion is there when we're considering whether,

Again,

Whether we're being enough.

And isn't that the thing really?

Is that all the time we're considering whether we're being enough,

Enough in our productivity levels,

Enough in our relationships,

Just,

You know,

Whether we're being enough.

Now for me,

How these,

You know,

How the inner critic in particular shows up in my relationships is that I create criticism where there is none.

So something will happen.

Invariably,

One of the things will be Bruce will,

You know,

He's my main relationship,

The person I'm with most of the time.

And he will ask me a question that I will interpret means he thinks I'm stupid.

He's just asking a question.

And that voice will come in,

The inner critic.

Well,

For me,

It's often the voice of perfectionism.

So it comes out in this kind of,

Yeah,

Look,

Very quickly.

Like,

I don't feel I'm particularly doing this as such,

But it just rears its ugly head.

And it kind of says very quickly,

You know,

Well,

The only reason he's asking that question is because he thinks you don't know that or you're not with it enough or you're not up to date with something.

But I don't know,

Just a lot of nonsense,

A lot of nonsense.

And I will then react to that.

Because in my head,

I know that he's thinking something badly of me.

And isn't that interesting?

Because in actual fact,

It's not that at all.

It's me thinking badly of me and me putting it onto Bruce and Bruce isn't thinking.

And he will say to me,

I wasn't thinking that at all.

And then I don't believe him.

Oh,

My goodness.

And this is the place where I need to be totally and utterly looking towards self-compassion.

Because I was brought up in a critical environment.

A very,

Very critical environment.

And I don't think that's unlike many other women my age,

You know,

In my early 50s,

Being raised in the 70s and 80s.

That was the style of parenting.

I often call it treat and main keep and cane parenting.

Because that's it,

Isn't it?

You know,

There was a parenting style at that time which involved telling children that they weren't quite good enough.

Almost,

I think,

With the sense that if we tell them enough,

They're not good enough.

Or if our parents back then,

I hope I didn't parent too much like that.

I'd have to ask my kids.

That if we were criticized enough,

That we would,

You know,

It'd toughen us up and make us want to do better.

And,

Yeah,

So treat and main keep and cane parenting.

And so,

Of course,

You know,

I have to be so compassionate towards myself because I am psychologically innocent in that regard.

In that the voice in my head tends towards criticism.

It tends towards criticism of me.

It tends towards criticism of other people.

It tends towards thinking that other people are criticizing me even if they don't open their mouths to say an actual criticism.

But it just hovers around in my head,

Like not in my head.

But it's that type of thinking I tend towards just because I do.

Now,

Just because I do is a great sentence,

Isn't it?

Like I love listening at the moment a lot to Amy Johnson.

And she often says,

That's just what a mind does.

Just what it does.

My mind just has this tendency towards criticism.

Maybe lots of other people's minds do.

You'll have to let me know that.

But that's it,

Isn't it?

It's just what a mind does.

A mind criticizes.

A mind tends not to be so compassionate,

Particularly to ourselves,

But also perhaps to other people too.

And really,

If we're thinking,

If we're considering,

You know,

How that impacts on our relationships,

I don't think it can not impact on our relationships.

It's just such a huge part of how we see other people,

How we see ourselves.

And how we see ourselves is,

Like I've said,

Reflected in what we think other people see in us.

So it's absolutely key to our relationship dynamics,

How we interact with other people,

What we think other people are thinking about us,

All of that.

If we have a critical voice inside our head that is chunnering away all day every day,

Or not all day every day,

But frequently,

We will tend to think other people think that way too.

And it will rear its ugly head.

And I think the other place it comes out is that if we are,

If we have been raised in a critical environment,

Then we have a tendency towards being critical of others as well.

And I know,

I know that's one of my tendencies,

To be critical of poor Bruce,

Bless him,

He gets the brunt of it.

He's the one,

He's the one who gets the brunt of my,

You know,

My tendency towards criticism.

So when we think about this from a three principles perspective,

We do talk about psychology,

But let's look at what's beneath that,

Or what's more than that,

Or what's the essence of who we are,

As opposed to the thinking,

Which is not really who we are.

So we,

If we,

If we're thinking,

If we're looking towards our innate wellbeing,

That isn't our psychology,

That's the awareness of our psychology.

And underneath all that noise in your head,

There is a quiet space,

A space where there is no criticism,

A space where you can see yourself exactly as you actually are.

Now,

Who of us sees that on a regular basis?

I don't think many people,

But what if we just looked with curiosity in that direction?

And the great thing to know is that we are being encouraged by our psychological immune system to do that all the time,

Because there is nothing more that is the mission of the human psychological immune system than taking us back to car.

It's trying to do that all the time,

And it's doing that by warning you through your emotions,

By warning you what crazy train of thought you're going on.

What is that inner critical voice I call my niggly nelly?

What is she on about?

You know,

Why?

Not why,

You know,

Just what,

What is going on there?

You know there's something going on because you feel terrible.

And it's back to getting off that train of thought,

Isn't it?

The train of thought that you're on is creating suffering.

If you are in one of those critical trains of thoughts,

Trains of thought,

Trains of thoughts.

But that's not who you really are.

You're the awareness of the emotion coming up.

And so when I see it,

And I don't see it all the time,

Not by a long chalk.

When I see it,

There's a rising up of an uncomfortable feeling,

Feeling frustration,

Feeling of anger,

Perhaps a feeling of,

You know,

Here I go again kind of thing.

And that feeling is pure gold.

I don't care how icky the feeling is.

No,

I don't like them either.

But they are pure gold.

They're the information we need to navigate through life.

Without that information,

We're literally going around with no sense of the usefulness of our thinking.

No sense at all.

So when,

You know,

For me,

Observing,

And sometimes I do just observe,

That voice that comes in and says,

This is what Bruce is thinking about you,

And he's criticising you,

And that's why he's saying that,

And blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Sometimes I see it.

When I see it,

I know,

I know to stop.

To stop it.

There is a fab video with Bob Newhart,

Which I really recommend.

If you just search stop it,

Bob Newhart,

It's brilliant.

I've actually put it in my group on Insight Timer.

Please do go watch it.

It's very funny.

Very old,

Very funny.

But it really is just,

It's about realising that we're going on a suffering train of thought,

And stopping it.

Not because I say stop it,

But because it will make sense to stop it when you know that's where the suffering is coming from.

And then that space of self-compassion comes more readily.

Sometimes you'll see it,

And sometimes you don't.

And when you don't,

When you think the inner critic's right,

When you go on its crazy train of thought,

But you realise,

And even just realising is brilliant.

Wow,

You probably wouldn't have realised before.

You probably just carried on through life,

Not realising that you've been on a crazy train of thought.

But wow,

Even if you realise afterwards,

That's so powerful.

But when you realise afterwards,

The other layer you don't need is the guilt,

The feeling bad about yourself,

The saying,

I shouldn't have gone there.

I should have known my inner critic was doing its thing,

And stopped it,

And got off the train.

I didn't get off the train,

And now I feel terrible about myself,

And I feel really guilty,

But does that help?

I had something happen yesterday morning,

And it was just along these lines,

Where I snapped at Bruce about something ridiculous,

And as soon as I next,

I had to then go do something,

I was doing a live on Insight Time,

I had to go and do that.

And then when I came back to him,

I just said,

Oh,

I'm really sorry.

And he'd forgotten actually.

He said,

What are you sorry about?

I said,

Well,

I'm sorry I'm snapping at you about what happened earlier.

In the past,

I used to be so caught up in my own beating myself up and feeling bad about myself and going,

Oh,

God,

Why didn't I,

Shouldn't have done that,

You know,

I should know better,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

That I forgot to say sorry.

I didn't do it because I was too busy thinking about myself and beating myself up.

And again,

Our system is letting us know,

Dodgy train of thought,

Dodgy emotion.

It's that simple.

So there is no inner critic to tame really.

But there's a direction to look in,

An awareness to raise.

And that's all we have to do.

There's nothing else to do.

And in that space,

Once we're more aware,

Our relationships just come from there and they're so much better,

So much lighter,

So much easier.

Once we are aware and we've got ourselves and we understand ourselves better,

Everything out there,

Including all our relationships,

Falls into place so much better.

So I hope you have a wonderful day with all the people who you love and spend time with and all your relationships and keep looking in this direction.

That's all I can say.

There's lots for you to explore around my content on Insight Time.

Of course,

There's lives and other free sessions.

So please enjoy that exploration and maybe we'll bump into each other on one of those.

So take care,

Everyone.

Thank you so much.

Lots of love.

Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now,

But bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.

This has been The Calm Cast with Clare Downam,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.

Reviews

Same way that I was parented. My parents took it to some extremes. Thank you for this calm cast