Finding it challenging to make peace with your Inner Critic? This could be the reason why
In her best-selling book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, author and nurse Bronnie Ware reported that one of the most common regrets people have at the end of their lives, is that they wish that they had allowed themselves be happier.
This response indicates that people felt that while attaining their happiness was in their control, they somehow didn’t allow themselves to do the things that would make them happy.
We all have moments when we listen to our “inner critic” that encourages us, not to pursue the things we would like to strive for, not to set goals or expect too much from ourselves. Sometimes this “critical inner voice” reminds us to remain where we are, and not venture outside of our comfort zone. By default, we gravitate towards vicious and negative thought patterns.
Reasons for retaining these self-sabotaging thoughts are complex, but fundamentally they lie at the root of our maladaptive behaviours. By understanding why we listen to our inner critic, we can gain a stronger awareness in overcoming obstacles and gain more control in managing the source of our happiness and success.
Here are the four most common reasons why we find it challenging to overcome self-disruptive thoughts, and gravitate towards our inner critic.
1.Challenges our defences
Our defences are like an armour we built to protect ourselves. We learn to build these defences, to adapt to undesirable elements of our early environment. It may become easy to sabotage ourselves because we try to avoid uncomfortable feelings or situations.
For example, we may recreate dynamics from our childhood that, although may have been unpleasant, we are familiar with. Recreating those negative situations provides us with some predictability, and with that predictability comes a sense of safety and security. As a result, we learn to self-sabotaging in countless ways by failing to challenge our defences, despite this being detrimental to our sense of well-being.
2.Disruption in our familiarity
Our critical inner voice is built on old attitudes we were exposed to, usually very early in our lives. The negative ways we were viewed during our upbringing/family systems stems into our consciousness. As adults, we maintain these old attitudes and beliefs and sometimes, fail to differentiate from destructive early influences.
Therefore, it is natural for our brain to be wired to cling to the familiar, to overestimate risk, and to avoid trying new approaches. This tendency, known as the familiarity heuristic, leads us to overvalue the things we know and undervalue things that are unfamiliar.
This is partly the reason that when we are exposed to stress, we tend to rely on the familiarity heuristic even more. When we feel overwhelmed, our brain resorts to old habits and ways of doing things, despite the fact that this may not be working well for us. We are drawn towards familiarity, even when a different option offers a clear advantage and is beneficial for us in the long term. Psychotherapy presents an opportunity to explore this further and find healthier coping strategies and apply new cognitive methods.
3.Sense of guilt attached
Through my therapeutic work, I am often asked the question, “is feeling guilty, healthy or unhealthy?” The interpretation I provide, is that, it can be either. For example, healthy feelings of guilt motivates us to live according to our authentic values, which in turn, can improve our relationships with others, as we are more likely to treat others with respect and participate in our fair share. However, unnecessary or excessive feelings of guilt can also be a psychological burden that interferes with our emotions and quality of life.
Excessive or inappropriate guilt can signify a sense of unworthiness, perhaps rooted in relationships where we may have been criticised, neglected or where our emotional needs were not met. When we fall into the latter, it becomes difficult to reach a state of equilibrium.
4. Avoidance and fear
Our current lifestyle, may expose us to experiences, which we may have suppressed. Recurrence may force us to face our fears of the old reasons for which we created our defences, and it may be the case that this is something which we do not want to pursue or explore. For some, it can be rather alien to discover that they are allowed to have their own personal needs met.
It can be very foreign to surpass people or places from our past which hinder our progress. It’s very common to carry a sense of guilt, breaking from all we have ever known. Yet choosing to take that initial step, and focusing on the the present can be ground-breaking, particularly when we are challenging defences and choosing to live a more fulfilling and purpose driven life.
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Author:
Bal Kamal
MNCS (Accred) MBACP BSc (Hons)