Understanding Your Inner Critic

If you have ADHD and/or you are a lawyer, you probably have a very capable inner critic. This voice might bombard you with reasons to not start something, or reasons why a project won’t work. It may even be so convincing you’ve stopped noticing it’s presence. Many of us develop this voice early on, as we internalize messages from parents and other adults around us. And if this voice starts quiet, law school often amplifies it as we learn to analyze fact patterns and issue spot for every potential negative outcome. Through self-compassion, you can gain a new understanding of this critic and shift your relationship to it. 

How do you react to your inner critic? Do you try to convince it with logic? Do you try to ignore it, or force it away? Self-compassion involves treating yourself with kindness instead of judgment and criticism. Even when we grasp this, though, we often fail to extend that kindness to our inner critic, and start to see the critic itself as being worthy of criticism. But the inner critic is part of us, so it needs compassion too. 

To practice compassion, try asking yourself if you can empathize with your inner critic. What motivates it? Maybe it’s trying to protect you from an outcome you want to avoid, or it’s feeling pressure to “be” a certain way in the world, or it’s frustrated with some unfairness. 

Next, try speaking to your critic as you would an upset child. You may have literally developed that part of yourself when you were young. Even if you didn’t, most critics get louder in times of intense emotion, when you’re less likely to be able to rely on the logical parts of your brain. To speak to the critic this way, try validating but also staying assertive. For example “I understand why you’re angry. It was really hard in the past when this didn’t go our way. But now things are different and we’ve got this” or “I get it, this is scary. Of course we don’t want to do badly on this project. But we still need to get started. I’ll be here if it doesn’t go well.”  

After validating your inner critic, try asking it to step aside for just a bit. You can reassure it that it will still have an opportunity to share its opinions later. E.g. “Now that I’ve heard how you’re feeling, can you step aside for 20 minutes while I work on this? You can come back and give me your feedback before I turn it in.” If it doesn’t want to step aside, that’s ok. It’s been protecting you for a long time, so it may take practice before it trusts that it’s ok to take a break. 

If the critic is willing to step aside, see what else is there. Is there another voice that was smaller but wants something different from the critic? How does it feel to access that part of yourself? What feels different when the critic steps down? And then after the time you agree on, you can invite it back. Does anything feel different when the critic returns?

This shift in relating to your inner critic takes practice, but can also feel more profound than simply trying to argue with it. Don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work right away or only works sometimes -- that’s part of the process. 

If you’re interested in coaching to change your self-talk, click here to schedule a free consultation or learn more. 

Sara Jeruss