Two science-backed methods for quieting your inner-critic
“Commit to loving yourself completely. It’s the most radical thing you will do in your lifetime.”
— ANDREA GIBSON
If you’re anything like me, loving yourself completely is NOT something that comes easily.
There’s even a good chance that there are some things (or a LOT of things) that you don’t like about yourself. Maybe you don’t like the shape of your body, or some aspect of your personality, or some decision you made in the past.
This kind of dissatisfaction with oneself is called the “inner-critic." That quiet but persistent voice in your head that always points out what’s wrong with you and your life:
I eat too much…
I don’t look good in these clothes…
I need to work out more…
I shouldn’t even try, I’m just going to fail anyway…
I can’t believe I said that. I’m such an idiot…
This inner-critic is vicious. There is no facet of your life too obscure for it to criticize. We constantly compare ourselves to others, and strive for perfection. We set our standards for ourselves too high.
When we don't live up to what we think we should be like, we feel that we are not good enough, that we are damaged goods.
The good news is, there’s a way out of that negative mindset. That you can actually learn to love yourself just the way you are, “imperfections” and all.
This is not a quick fix, however. This is a process, one that takes time. Don’t expect to wake up tomorrow morning with half-naked cherubs floating in through your windows singing songs, and rainbows and sparkles flowing out from your eyes. But, if you follow the instructions in this post, it will put you on the right track to creating a life with more self-love and less self-judgement.
So where do we begin? With mindfulness of course!
One of the goals of mindfulness is to make the mind a friendlier place. This is summed up nicely in an ancient samurai poem, “I make my mind my friend.” It’s almost revolutionary, and yet at the same time also so obviously helpful. What if the voice inside your head was supportive, friendly, and caring? And yet, when we stop to look at our thoughts, we realize how overly critical and judgmental we can be at times. Over a lifetime of living in this society, our minds have become habituated to criticism and self-judgement.
There is a good way to see for yourself the harm in this mode of living and thinking. Try asking yourself this question:
“What if my friends talked to me the way I talk to myself?”
I'll show you what I mean with an example of my own. When I was in college, I used to play in the intramural soccer league. If I had a bad game, there would almost always be a very quiet voice in my head saying something like this: “You really stunk out there today. You screwed up and let the whole team down. I bet everyone on the team is wishing you would quit already. You’re probably going to fail again the next time. Don’t come back or you’ll just embarrass yourself again.”
You might be tempted think that’s an extreme or exaggerated example, but when you stop and see the way you talk to yourself, you realize that we are actually that hard on ourselves all the time. Now just think about that for second. What if you had a friend that talked to you that way? Would they be your friend for very long? No way José.
If you want to fundamentally change the nature of your mind, you first have to see clearly what is going on in there, and then you have to take the appropriate action to change your behavior. Here are two science-backed methods for learning how to silence your inner critic and cultivate self-love instead.
Step 1. Notice when you are feeling a negative emotion and label it.
This might be the hardest step. Actually noticing when the inner critic is present. The reason it’s so hard is because we rarely stop to look at our thoughts. Normally, we are our thoughts. We simply experience our thoughts as our reality.
We are so used to believing in our thoughts, that we don’t know how to stop and question whether they are are giving us an accurate representation of reality.
In practicing mindfulness, we are tasked with taking a step back, and looking at our thoughts as objectively as we can. Just observing your thoughts with mindful awareness will do a great deal to ease your suffering and weaken your inner critic. After all, when you are aware of the inner critic, you see that it is just a thought, and you are no longer lost in the experience of being criticized.
But don’t take my word for it! Try this out. The next time you are feeling a strong negative emotion (like self-doubt, fear, anxiety, or sadness), try being aware of it by naming it. For example, if you realize that you are feeling anxious, just say quietly in your mind “Anxious… anxious” and then take a moment to notice what anxiety feels like in your body.
A recent study using fMRI scans showed that labelling an emotion activates the prefrontal cortex, and diminishes the response in areas such as the amygdala, which are responsible for your fight or flight response (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17576282). In other words, when you label an emotion, you can diminish your emotional reactivity to it, giving you more space to remain calm and process the emotion.
Step 2. Ask yourself if you would talk to your best friend that way.
Recent advances in neuroscience have shown us that the brain is constantly changing in response to how it gets used. This is called neuroplasticity. In essence, neuroplasticity tells us that the more we use certain neural pathways in our mind, the stronger and more hardwired those pathways become. For example, if you commonly think angry thoughts, the neural connections associated with anger get stronger in your mind. These findings are the basis of the popular quote, "Neurons that fire together, wire together." This is much like training muscles in the gym. The more often you work out a muscle, the stronger it becomes. The same is true of our thought patterns.
Fortunately, we can use this quirk of human neurobiology to our advantage. The more often you think positive, self-affirming thoughts, the stronger those thought patterns become. Over time, your mind will begin to incline towards positivity. All you have to do is get the ball rolling by seeding your mind with positive thoughts and interrupting negative thoughts when they come.
I use this method all the time, and trust me, it works! Here's how you can do it too. Whenever you notice that the inner critic is being particularly outspoken on some topic in you life, take a look at what he’s saying, and then ask yourself, “Would I talk to a good friend this way?” If the answer is no, then stop treating yourself like that! Again, the goal here is to make your mind your friend. You can also ask yourself, “Is this what I want to cultivate in my mind right now?”
The next step is to ask yourself, “What would I say to a good friend if they were in my shoes?” This helps cultivate the good stuff. Begin talking to yourself as you would to your best friend, and over time that self-directed friendliness will become the default mode in your mind.