“Why did I do that?”

“I always screw everything up.”

“I’m so stupid.”

“I’ll never be good enough.”

“I’m a terrible person.”

“What is wrong with me?”

Sheesh. Just writing these out and reading them back gives me a knot in the pit of my stomach. It’s heavy stuff. Thoughts like these can be so emotionally charged and laden with pain. For some of us, negative self-talk becomes the norm, omnipresent to us as the air we breathe, constantly occupying a space in the background of awareness. 

So many of us deal with self-deprecating, intrusive thoughts like these. For some folks, the inner critic is loud and pervasive. For others, it is a mere annoyance, a pest, like a stubborn mosquito that just won’t leave you alone. Each of us has our own unique version–different scripts with different voice actors. (Tangentially, what if your inner critic had the voice of Morgan Freeman? Or David Attenborough? That would be something.)

For me, this topic hits close to home. I’ve walked through much of life with a pervasive and ruthless inner critic. Even now, as I write this blog post, my inner critic is quite rudely interrupting the stream of consciousness to interject snide remarks and mean little jabs about my writing. In the past, I didn’t regard self-critical thoughts as the expression of some personified inner critic. It was so pervasive and normal for me to think unkind thoughts about myself that my self-critical tendencies were as invisible to me as water is to the fish. I wasn’t able to identify self-deprecating thoughts for what they were. Instead, I took them for granted and believed them as true.

My hope in writing about the inner critic isn’t to make any authoritative claims about what it is or where it comes from. That’s a complex issue to explore that would require more than the space of this blog post. Instead, I’ll share some thoughts about how I deal with self-critical tendencies in my own life and how I approach this issue with clients. 

The Problem with Working on Being Less Self-Critical

When we recognize how self-critical we can be and how much distress stems from this simple relationship within ourselves, it is tempting to frame it as an issue we need to work on. Something my therapist pointed out to me years ago was how I often said things like, “I need to do this,” or “I should have done that,” always seeking to identify some brokenness within myself that needed to be fixed. I remember how, when it dawned on me that I was overly self-critical, one of my first thoughts was: “Jeez, why am I so self-critical? What is wrong with me? I need to cut it out with these negative thoughts.” So I did the dance of toxic positivity for a while. Needless to say, but saying it anyway, it didn’t work. 

This is why, when I work with clients who are highly self-critical, I find it unhelpful to frame this tendency as a problem that needs to be solved. This doesn’t mean we ignore it. It’s a very real thing that causes a great deal of distress. Often, it’s deeply intertwined with some of the core issues that bring us to therapy. The inner critic is shaped by messages we received growing up in our families. It’s shaped by culture and society, from the many sources that tell us we are not enough. It is intensified and can become particularly harsh when we have experienced relational trauma. 

However, trying to fight the inner critic head-on is like trying to still rough waters with a flat iron–you only disturb them all the more. Eventually, we might think, “I’m being too hard on myself for being too hard on myself,” and, “I’m being overly critical of my inner critic.” That’s a trip! It’s comical, but those thoughts can also be revelatory of what I think is a big truth: our negative self-talk is not something we can make go away by forcing ourselves to think more positively or by treating it as a project we have to work on, at least as long as we approach that project as fixing a problem within ourselves.

Questions to Help You Relate to Your Inner Critic Differently 

If this is the case, what can we do? If we recognize this as a source of distress, it’s natural that we want to change it. Here are some questions we might ask ourselves as a way of changing how we relate to our inner critic.

Where do these thoughts come from? 

Is it really me, or are these thoughts the voice of external forces (e.g., family, consumerism, advertising, internalized racism, and many others!) that have led me to doubt myself and feel like I am not enough? Perhaps this tendency to be overly self-critical is a reflection of what I heard as a child. Perhaps my parents, despite being well-meaning people, taught me that love was conditional and had to be earned, and that’s why I struggle to embrace my perceived shortcomings. 

What is the inner critic trying to tell me? 

What if these thoughts, although rough around the edges, are misguided attempts of something within myself that is asking for attention and care? What if I were to rephrase what the inner critic is saying in the language of tenderness? Perhaps the inner critic is not the enemy, not some problem to be solved, but rather a hurt and confused part of self that needs to be acknowledged and loved.

What might it look like to befriend the inner critic?

Where does the negative self-talk go when I ignore it or push it away? How does it affect me when I push it away? What could happen if I related to the inner critic differently, perhaps approaching it instead in the spirit of gentleness and care?

Healing & Integrating Our Wounded Parts

These questions aren’t meant to be all-encompassing. My hope is that they might serve as starting points for engaging with new ways of thinking about the wounded parts of ourselves. Because self-critical thinking and negative self-talk can cause so much distress, it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing them as the enemy. Sometimes my inner critic sounds like the most hateful and vicious entity imaginable, and it’s hard not to think of it as the villain. But what if we consider the idea that maybe the inner critic is really just a deeply wounded part of ourselves? What if approaching it as a problem or as the enemy is only compounding our feelings of not-enoughness and disintegration? Perhaps then our approach would not start from a place of fixing (i.e., critical) but rather a place of compassion.

This is not easy work. Healing the wounded parts of ourselves and developing a greater degree of integration in ourselves requires consistent effort, intention, and care. Therapy with the right person can act as a transformative experience in this regard. Healing is relational. Often, someone else making us feel like we are enough is the catalyst for growth of our own self-worth. This is a big part of my work with clients, and if you feel like any of this resonates with you, I’d be honored to walk alongside you on your journey.

Jesse Romo is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in working with trauma, attachment, relationships, and addiction. His experience includes extensive work with children, adolescents, and families. Jesse is a multiracial person of color who values therapeutic work around identity and the relation between self and society, recognizing the influence of sociocultural forces in our lives and centering these considerations in therapy. He is passionate about rethinking the meaning and practice of mental healthcare, depathologizing, and destigmatizing psychological distress, and helping people to actualize meaningful change and deep healing in their lives. Outside of therapy, he enjoys chess, cooking, motorcycling, making music, and playing Soulslike video games.

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