Beginning to learn and understand that my "inner critic"

Not "easy" or "pleasant," because the inner critic still shows up only when it wants to yell that we need to stop doing something immediately b/c of how we have previously been hurt. As a protector it still attempts to mostly communicate with goads of fear and shaming.

But understanding the roots of that fear and shaming, that self-policing behavior, has allowed me to respond to it with compassion, and that has been transformative. Being able to hear and endure the shaming as what it is - a protective reflex born from a child's fear & pain;

has enabled me to view it in that proper context, the same way I would view a child screaming in fear, and receive it gently and warmly, thank it for trying to protect me, and attempt to de-escalate the fearful predictions of catastrophe.

Not having to receive these still-aversive messages from a place of anger and hurt - from a place of "why is this voice saying such terrible things, I am so angry at this piece of myself that wants to protect me," has reduced the stress of inner critic interruptions considerably.

Now I know that those rigid, harsh critical interjections come from a child's conception of safety and danger, from a child's world view of a hostile existence full of unpredictable and dangerous adults who had to be placated or avoided, b/c they could never be fought.

Now I know that I should no more be yelling at the inner critic in my head than I should yell at a child in real life, for being hurt and afraid of receiving future hurt. Not only is it a harmful response, but an ineffective one. You cannot terrorize a child into fearlessness.

Now, I do want to say - that doesn't make it "okay" that the inner critic communicates to me in the way that it does. It is a thing I am still attempting to gently, patiently reshape. Learning how to not hate and fear it has been an important part of that work.

Because, ultimately, in the end - even though that voice is not "me" per se, in the sense of personality and identity, it is still a voice that exists inside my brain, my head. There is no way for me to be mad at "it" without directing that anger at myself. And I don't need that.

Beginning to learn and understand that my "inner critic" - the voice that harshly criticizes and shames me - is only and has always only been attempting to protect me, to act to curtail or stop behavior that in the past has gotten us harmed - has made dealing w/it much easier.

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