Let's talk about our inner critics for a bit,
And often our inner critics have their roots in negative experiences with caregivers and childhood,
Particularly if you grew up in an environment where you were criticized or rejected by your caregivers and therefore missed out on being consistently treated with warmth and compassion.
Pioneering IFS therapist Jay Early and Bonnie Weiss have researched the phenomena of the inner critic,
And they've come up with seven types of these extreme parts,
And that's what I'm going to talk about a bit today,
And as I go through these parts,
Just notice in your own system to see if some of these critics may be present,
A lot of them may be present,
Some more than others,
And if you can,
Just try to be curious,
And I know it can be hard sometimes,
And just be curious to those parts that may come up in reaction to these critics,
But if we can be curious and see that they're doing the best that they can,
Often carrying burdens and doing jobs that they don't want to do,
They were never intended to do,
And we can just gain more understanding and can extend more self and self-energy to our systems.
The first one's the perfectionist,
And this is one of the most common types of inner critics,
And its positive intent is usually something around trying to get you to do things perfectly,
To protect you from the judgment of others.
The perfectionists are often procrastinators that often struggle with completing things,
Always believing that constant tinkering will protect you from negative feedback.
The inner controller,
This critic is usually one that tries to control addictive impulses,
Such as eating,
Drinking,
Drugs,
Sexual activity,
And is often polarized with a firefighter or a more reactive part who it fears will take you over and cause chaos at any moment.
Number three is the taskmaster.
The taskmaster,
This critic pushes you to work hard to become successful in society.
Taskmasters are often polarized with the procrastinator.
At its core,
It holds extreme fears that you may be pretty lazy,
And that you'll be judged as a failure if it does not push you to keep going.
It has to work really hard.
Number four of these seven critics,
The underminer.
The underminer will often try and undermine your efforts and drain your self-esteem so that you won't take any risks.
This part may make brutal attacks on you with a positive intent of keeping you small and keeping you in a place where you're not vulnerable,
You don't take chances,
Because when you take chances,
You may experience negative feedback or failure.
And this underminer really wants to help you avoid the potential pain of this failure.
Number five,
The destroyer.
This may be one of the most destructive critics,
As it makes continued pervasive attacks on your self-worth,
Showering you with shame and making you feel inherently flawed.
Sometimes it's helpful to notice when you're compulsively apologizing,
Because it's quite likely that the destroyer is active during these times.
And at their extreme,
The destroyer parts hold beliefs around being safer,
Or at their most extreme,
More preferably,
To even not to exist.
Inner critic number six,
The guilt tripper.
This critic can take various forms.
On the one hand,
It may hold you accountable for hurting others by making sure that the behavior or action that you may have done that may have been received negatively or hurt others,
The guilt tripper really wants to protect you from not repeating these words of this action again.
It may hold fears about you being outcast,
As it holds you to standards of behavior set by your family,
Community,
Or cultural group.
And then finally,
Number seven,
The conformist.
This critic can work closely with the guilt tripper.
The conformist wants you to be part of a group and seeks to get you to be liked,
Admired,
As a way to protect against abandonment.
This critic will often be polarized with parts that rebel or seek to act outside of group norms,
Fearing that you'll be rejected or abandoned.
This may be particularly true in families where being your true self has been discouraged or even actively punished.
And so be open to these parts,
See what gifts they may bring,
What they may want to teach.
And as you go through these descriptions of these types of inner critics,
You may like to check in and notice what's happening inside as you hear these different critics.
You may notice parts of you right now that are judging or criticizing the inner critics.
And a common phenomena is working with critics and IFS that these critics will often get a lot of hate from other parts of the internal system.
Or these parts have their own critic parts that criticize them.
Sometimes it may be helpful to think of a line of people,
Each yelling at the one in front of them.
It may seem overly complex,
And it is because everyone's nervous systems are complex.
But usually all we need to do is work with the critic and or the one that it criticizes or that criticizes it to start to create space for the internal relationship to be different.
So I hope this was helpful for you.
And yeah,
I look forward to engaging more as we move forward.
Feel free to reach out if you have questions or comments,
But take good care of yourself.
And thanks for your time and joining me here for these insights today.
