The Essence of Your Inner Critic

The inner critic is a universal self, everybody has one. The difference at the personality level is whether you over-identify with it. Your inner critic can come in the form of a whisper, a whine or what feels like a punch in the gut. It often monitors your thoughts, controls your behaviors, and inhibits your actions. When your critic is in the driver seat of your inner car, you may feel diminished in particular areas of your life. 

The Critic evaluates your inner and outer landscapes. It propels you to take action with respect to your body and overall health, money, career, or relationships. Your Critic is very vocal in enforcing the rules of your early institutions, including family, church, and school. It is committed to your success by ensuring that you fit in. 

It is important to distinguish the inner critic from the inner judge. The critic criticizes internally focusing on the self. The judge judges externally, projecting outward on other people, places or things. If you have a strong critic, you have an equally strong judge. If you have a strong judge, you have an equally strong critic. 

Its personality motivation is to critique you so that you can self-correct. Its essence motivation is to help you evolve.

If your Critic is primary, you may:

• think you’re not good enough in certain areas of your life.
• hear an inner voice commenting on your perceived inadequacies. 
• judge others as inappropriate, conceited, or unconscious.

If your Critic is disowned, you may:

• lose your motivation to adapt, adjust, or conform. 
• fail to censor your words or actions.
• judge others as perfectionistic, too apologetic, or too self-conscious.

When you develop a relationship with your inner critic it can become your ally and lend its constructive criticism to the betterment of your life. 

Living with our own critical voices can be exhausting and paralyzing. In the course The Inner Critic Voice Dialogue therapist Tamar Stone invites us to converse with the inner critic and learn about its deeper intentions. The inner critic wants us to evolve, self-correct and belong to our group. Tamar’s warm guidance shows us how to update our inner critic and perhaps even turn it into an ally. Learn More Here.