Self-talk is one of the things that we all do. We talk to ourselves more often than we talk to anyone else in our lives. Sometimes we talk to ourselves in our heads and sometimes we talk to ourselves out loud. Sometimes we aren’t even aware we are speaking to ourselves. Our inner voices have many different qualities, but often they can be categorised into two distinct parts: inner critic and compassionate friend.
I have found more often than not that most people’s inner critic is quite strong. The inner critic’s voice usually resembles someone important in your life, someone you looked up to such as a parent, teacher, significant other, friend, etc. The inner critic’s litany tends to be a variation of “you’re not good enough”, “you’re helpless”, “you’re unlovable” in its harshest form. Other ways the inner critic’s voice is heard is “do better”, “try harder”, “be stronger”, etc. What I have learnt from my studies of Focusing therapy and through my own therapeutic experience is that the inner critic is not a ‘bad’ part of us. In fact, the inner critic acts as our protector. This voice was developed early in life to protect us from experiencing tough emotions such as sadness, grief, disappointment, and ultimately rejection. Our inner critic grew to protect us from feeling hurt and the hurt of rejection is one of the strongest types of hurt that we can experience. So, the voice encourages us to work harder and be better and continues to push us so that we don’t incite in others what they need to reject us and thus we won’t feel the hurt of rejection.
This may have worked for a period of time when we were younger and in certain situations, but like most patterns of behaving and interacting that we developed when young, it is misplaced in our present day lives. The same strategies that we employed to ward off rejection don’t necessarily work today. Over time, the inner critic has gotten more and more used to pushing us that its purpose in protecting us from hurt and rejection from others turns on us. Instead, the inner critic becomes our own source of hurt and rejection because through it’s over use and harshness we end up rejecting and hurting ourselves. This does nothing to help our relationship with self and in fact damages it.
I would like you to pause here for a moment and reflect on how your inner critic shows up in everyday life. How does it impact your relationship with yourself?
In contrast to the inner critic, we also have the voice of a compassionate friend within us. This is the voice that we tend to use for our loved ones when they are in distress and in need of empathy, understanding and comfort. The compassionate friend can also be another voice that we use to speak to ourselves. Compassion literally means ‘to suffer with’. Feeling compassion for someone, including ourselves, does not take away from the pain and hurt but rather it helps us and others to sit with it and let it flow, move, and transform. Being compassionate means to provide a safe environment that allows one to process their feelings and uncover what one needs to move forward. We often find it easier to provide others with this compassionate safe space but find it difficult to create it for and within ourselves. If we can create this space for others, we can create it for ourselves.
I’d like to invite you now to take a moment to further develop your compassionate friend. This is a tool that is used in Compassion-Focused Therapy. If you feel comfortable, close your eyes (or lower your gaze) and turn your attention inwards. Take a moment to call to mind someone whom you admire and whom you find to be compassionate. This could be a parent, family member, friend, teacher, significant other, or even a character in a book, movie, tv show. It could be a combination of people or someone completely imaginary. Call to mind this person and flesh them out. What do they look like? What are they wearing? What is their tone of voice like? How do they smell? What feelings do they invoke in you when you’re near them? What qualities do they have?
Once you have a concrete enough idea of your compassionate friend, I’d like you to press two random fingers on one hand together whilst holding this image in your mind. Hold your fingers together for a couple of seconds and then release. The pressing of two fingers together can act as a subtle reminder of your compassionate friend. When you find that your inner critic is too loud, too harsh, and unhelpful, or you’re in a situation where you need your compassionate friend, press your two-finger combination together and it will act as a physical reminder of your compassionate friend, bringing them closer to mind for you.
Our relationship with ourselves is just as important as our relationships with others. One way we can test the quality of our relationship with self is by observing how we speak to ourselves. Being mindful of our self-talk is important because it not only teaches others how to treat us, it teaches others how to treat themselves, especially our children. Just like my favourite Michael Jackson song states, you need to start with the (wo)man in the mirror first for change to occur.