How to Put Your Love and Compassion Superpower Tools to Use

Especially when you’re giving yourself a hard time

Hi, there. For those who have not read part 1 of this 3 part series, here is a summary:

• All of us have superpower tools of love and compassion.
• We tend to leave them on the shelf when we need them the most.
• One of those times we need them the most is when we feel criticized by others. Unfortunately, many of us tend to personalize the criticism, concluding we must have done something wrong, even if we have no clue what it may have been.
• We personalize the criticism because we were programmed to do so. The programming often began when we were little kids, at an age when we blindly accepted critical words as absolute truths because they came from grownups, typically our parents.

I’m here to tell you there is hope. We don’t need to remain victims of our inner critical voice. We can learn to speak far kinder to ourselves. We deserve that.

How to Free Yourself From Your Inner Critic

These are the steps I follow. They’re all based upon being willing to explore my inner critic with a sense of curiosity, rather than pushing it away.

Throughout the below steps, I refer to the term “core Self” multiple times. By that, I mean:

the essence of who we all are — wise, deep, strong and loving. It is who we truly are when we aren’t being hijacked by the painful voice of our inner critic.

I sure like the sound of that. So worth doing whatever it takes to get there, don't you agree?

On to the steps:

Step 1: Recognize your inner critic is not you.

Thank god for that. I’d shoot myself if it were.

Putting all sarcasm aside, no doubt there are many people who chose to end their lives because they bought into that false belief and couldn’t shake it. Or they got caught up in one addiction or another — anything to escape the pain of that ruminating self-critical voice.

My inner critic always seems to come up with a way to harshly judge my feelings and behaviors. It has quite an active imagination.

As opposed to my core Self, which knows nothing about self-criticism — it only knows about unconditional love for myself.

My core Self never criticizes me for errors. It helps me learn from them so I can become a better person. It lovingly accepts my imperfections.

The problem occurs when I get caught up in believing my inner critic is the expert on me— when I accept its creative fiction as absolute truth. It blows my mind how easily I fall prey to this. Do you relate?

Step 2: Don’t push away your inner critic.

Many times, I’ve attempted to shove it out of the way by saying to it something like: I’m up to your game. You have no effing idea what you’re talking about. You’re not me. Now get out of here. Vamoose!

Not one time has that approach worked. At best, my inner critic might retreat for a few minutes or hours. It always comes back, and with a vengeance. It is nothing if not persistent.

That being said, it’s preferable to call my inner critic on the carpet rather than to accept its words as gospel truth. However, the key to maximizing my progress is to, rather than push it away — seek to understand it.

Even better …

Step 3: Befriend your inner critic.

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, my inner critic is trying to help me, albeit in a very misguided way. For example, if my inner critic is telling me I’m not as good a writer as I think I am, its motivation is to spare me from feeling rejected and shamed by submitting my piece, only to have it rejected by pubs.

My inner critic figures that rejecting myself won’t feel nearly as bad as being rejected by others. Which kind of makes sense, as self-rejection is familiar territory and thus doesn’t sting as much. Yet self-rejection isn’t the way to go, as it gets in the way of living my life up to the full potential of my core Self. Plus, it feels crappy.

So rather than trying to push away my inner critic, it’s far more helpful to say to it words akin to: Hey, there. I know you’re just trying to help me. So feel free to hang out. Just don’t expect me to listen to you. Thanks for reminding me that I continue to have some work to do on myself.

Step 4: Step outside of your inner critic, into the mindset of your core Self.

That is the work I just referred to in Step 3.

There are many ways to step outside of your inner critic into your self-loving voice.

For example, you can visualize the image of your inner critic, or you can draw a picture of it. In either way, the inner critic is being externalized, allowing it to be viewed by your core Self with compassion and curiosity.

What works best for me is to write out a dialog between my core Self and my inner critic.

I write out the dialog in a Google Docs file on my laptop.

To represent my core Self, I key in LP: (that stands for loving parent). I think of my core self as the voice of the loving parent I never had to compassionately listen to me when I was struggling with my self-esteem as a kid.

To represent my inner critic, I key in WC: (that stands for wounded child). My wounded child is a part of me I continue to carry within that has yet to fully heal, and readily buys into the harsh words of my inner critic.

Inner child dialogues are my best medicine. I find that the moment I key in “LP”, I’ve stepped out of the voice of my internal critic into the voice of my loving, core Self.

Here is a brief excerpt from a recent one.

LP: You seem very upset. Tell me what’s up.

WC: A friend of mine just slammed me, talked behind my back and said some really mean things about me to a mutual friend of ours. I’m so upset. I have no idea what it was that I said or did to piss him off, but it must have been one thing or another or why else would he be so angry at me.

LP: Here’s the story. I know it will be hard to take it all in, because of your history with giving yourself a hard time. But will you try your best?

WC: Sure.

LP: People are very complex, far more complex than you can imagine. Your friend may typically be a real good guy, yet you may have said or done something that triggered him. And that brought out the worst in him.

That has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t mean you said or did anything wrong. You don’t deserve to beat yourself up. It pains me when you do that. I’d give you a hug if I could.

WC: Thanks. That helps me feel better. Everything you said makes sense. I love you.

LP: I love you, too.

In Closing

If my approach towards working with my inner critic resonates with you, I highly recommend you purchase the book Freedom From Your Internal Critic: A Self-Therapy Approach. It’s based upon the concept of Internal Family Systems.

If you have the time, I’d love for you to comment on this article. Sharing your thoughts will not only be a gift to me, but no doubt to other readers.

It would be a terrific way for all of us to support each other in working with our inner critics.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read.

I wish you well,

Art

If you found Part 2 of this three-part series beneficial, stay tuned for Part 3, where I will discuss how to apply our superpower tools of love and compassion to our interactions with others, without the voice of our inner critic getting in the way.

A shoutout to a writer I’ve recently become acquainted with, Walter Pop Matthews IV. Walter writes straight from his heart. His words drip with self-reflective honesty. As I was reading his article, I felt like I was sitting across the table from him. I love that style of writing. Here is an example.