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Ditch Your Inner Critic: A Compassionate Way to Build Self-Esteem
Are you dogged by the inner critic?
Do you recognise the problem of an inner critic and self-hating voices talking to you a lot of the time? Maybe this inner critic undermines us, mocking us or worse.
Many people say to me that they believe this inner critic helps them to achieve, stops them from being lazy or keeps them in line, making them be a better person.
It’s true the inner critic can do all of those things, but at a high cost. And the inner critic is not the only way to achieve these benefits.
We can also develop a kinder voice when we talk to ourselves and have a healthier relationship with ourselves. Research shows that not only do we have better mental health when we develop self-compassion, but we also form better relationships with others and make healthier life choices.
So it turns out, we don’t need an inner critic to be a good person.
Does boosting self-esteem work?
Many people try to silence their inner critic by boosting their self-esteem—striving to feel special or stand out.
Now of course, it’s an impossibility that everyone can be above average, and in any area of life, there will always be someone who is cleverer, more successful, etc than us.
So finding self-worth this way is fragile and subject to crumbling when failure hits. Also, keeping up self-esteem can potentially lead to putting others down, which isn’t a good way to treat others.
Self-compassion is allows us to ditch our inner critic
Self-compassion is more effective as a counter to the inner critic and self-hatred, because it’s about relating to ourselves kindly, whatever is happening – good times and bad, peaceful times and stressful ones, success and failure.
Another way of putting it is being a good friend to yourself. You may know how to do this for your friends and loved ones already—it’s just a question of turning it inwards.
Self compassion includes recognising your own good qualities, core values, gratitude for what’s good in your life and good things you’ve done and are doing.
Self-esteem: What if I don’t feel inadequate anymore?
My personal story was that I first came to mindful self-compassion after many years of mindfulness practice. Mindfulness worked wonders for me in many ways, but I still had a sludgy residue sense of inadequacy.
When I spoke to the teacher beforehand, I said that I parked my sense of inadequacy with my guitar playing because I didn’t need to be any good at that. The teacher said to me that with mindful self-compassion, I would learn not to feel inadequate at all about anything – and she was absolutely right!
I’m not saying it happened instantly, but now, while I may doubt myself sometimes, I am not bothered by critical voices or a sense that I’m inadequate or deficient in some way, as I used to believe.
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Self-compassion: A kinder inner voice
A key practice for me has been finding my compassionate voice and then speaking to myself from that place. Over time, it has replaced the inner critic and now I only have kind and supportive voices in my head.
I offer myself some praise in both difficult situations and when things are going well. I also notice that I do this for others. If they’re self-critical, I’ll find something kind to say to them.
For example, if at a gym class someone says they’re not feeling it today, I’ll always respond with something like ”but at least you’re here, you could have stayed at home instead.” I say the same thing to myself.
Self-compassion: What do you live for?
Identifying core values, essentially “what do you live for?,” is also important. It’s easy to feel distracted and rudderless at times, so busy that we feel like we’re just fire-fighting all the time.
When we take a step back and remember that we are informed by values, that helps us to feel a sense of purpose. It’s hard to live in line with our values all the time, but knowing that they’re there is helpful.
Perhaps there’s even some scope for living more in line with your values, or finding a new way to bring them into the world?
Self-compassion: Gratitude
Gratitude for your life is a great mood booster! Due to the inbuilt negativity bias, we tend to focus on and obsess over what’s difficult in our lives and simply not notice the good.
As the great one-liner from Rick Hanson goes, ”our minds are like Velcro for the difficult, and like Teflon for the good.”
Recognise that? Try a gratitude meditation at least once a day and also try to recognise what’s good when it happens. Try sharing what’s good with others as well to increase the effect—like pointing out something beautiful, or saying you appreciate what someone did.
We often forget to appreciate our own good qualities! That hardly ever comes up on people’s gratitude lists! Things like ”I’m a good cook” or ”I’m a good friend” or ”I’m a fast learner” can make it on your gratitude list. Why not?
It’s possible we don’t but these qualities on our gratitude list because it can feel like we’re being arrogant, think we’re better than others, or even that we have to be like that all the time. No one has good qualities all the time…but we do at least have them some of the time. Reflecting on and appreciating the qualities and talents we do have actually helps them to grow, rather than making us complacent or arrogant.
We can also reflect on others who helped us develop these qualities, and practice gratitude for them as well.
Tracks for self-compassion, quieting the inner critic and lasting change
Here are some practices to move towards practicing more self-compassion:
Asking yourself 'What do I need to hear?' and then whispering that to yourself, over and over. It's like having someone say to you just what you need to hear, just when you need to hear it.
There are two important things in this practice - identifying what we need, and saying that to ourselves, just like a good friend would to us. It helps us learn to be a better friend to ourselves.
We often focus on the challenges and difficulties in life and forget and overlook what's good and positive in our lives. This practice helps you to remember what's good in your life.
Looking Back and Appreciating Good Things
It's so easy to remember the difficult things that happen at the end of the day, but that gives a distorted view and makes us feel negative. It's really helpful to remember the good things that happened too, and appreciate and cultivate gratitude in your life.
Try practicing any of these exercises that appeal to you each day and even look up my longer ones on Aura if you’ve got the time. You could also join my self-compassion courses as well on Aura.
Good luck with it – self-compassion can be transformational!
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