Get Real With The English Sisters - Mind Health Anxiety
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Get Real With The English Sisters - Mind Health Anxiety
How to Starve Your Inner Critic and Thrive
Mental health and anxiety therapists, The English Sisters, provide effective strategies for silencing the negative inner voice that tells us we're not good enough or capable enough to achieve our goals. We share practical techniques to transform your relationship with your inner critic and regain control over your thoughts and emotions.
• Give your inner critic a silly name different from your own to create healthy disassociation
• Change your critic's voice to a cartoon character like Donald Duck to make it less threatening
• Write down critical thoughts and transform them into positive affirmations
• Remember there is no failure, only feedback – every mistake provides valuable learning
• Befriend your inner critic over time rather than fighting it
• You're better off alone than in bad company when relationships no longer serve you
• Find yourself before worrying about finding someone else
Come watch us on YouTube where we have the full video podcast of this episode, and come say hi on Instagram. Love and smiles from the English Sisters.
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Starving your inner critic? Yikes, making sure that you're not feeding it. That's what we're going to be talking about today In this week's episode of Get Real With the English Sisters Mind, health and anxiety. We are therapists and we are here to help you. So we do hope that you find this a helpful podcast. Exactly, the starving, I mean. Do you feed your inner critic? So we do hope that you find this a helpful podcast. Exactly, they're starving, I mean. Do you feed your inner critic? So many people do? They're feeding it all day long, three meals a day, or even more. It's like constantly being fed Three meals a day, plus snacks, making sure it stays. It thrives. It's the opposite of what we actually want to do opposite. Yes, it really is.
Speaker 1:It took us a while to learn about this inner critic. No, we didn't have a clue, did we? No, I mean, there wasn't so much information back then. But once we learned about it, you, it's something that we all have. It's this inner voice that tells us things and says things to us. But you know, wouldn't it be amazing if that inner voice was our best friend? Yes, stick around, because we're going to give you some strategies. Strategies, so strategies that you will find helpful in silencing and starving your little inner critic, or big inner critic, whichever it is exactly. Yes, what do you suggest I suggest? All right, yes, we're diving straight into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I would suggest, first of all, to give this inner critic a name, absolutely, and I think it's important for it to have a different name to you. So if your name is Jessica, you want to give the inner critic another name, don't you? Yeah Well, yes, you can call her whatever you want. Well, yes, you can call her whatever you want. Yes, it's because in this way, you're being able to create some kind of a disassociation between the two of you, and not not in an unhealthy way, no, in a. It's just like a fun way of saying okay, you know, if, if I'm called jessica, my inner critic can be called like sally or rabbit, oh, no, stop being silly rabbit, because that will make you laugh. Okay, okay, I thought of another female name, but okay, so if I'm called jessica, my inner critic will be called rabbit and you can say okay, rabbit, you know, go, you know, I'm not going to feed you today, even though rabbit may be saying things to me that are gonna think well, you're not good enough to do that. You're not strong enough. Somebody else took advantage of you. You're gonna, you're gonna, fail at this.
Speaker 1:You know all the nasty things, but when you think it's called rabbit, can you see how that makes you laugh immediately? Yes, it puts you in a good mood. It changes your, your frame of of mind, this state of mind. Yes, it does actually. Yeah, it does remind me of a therapy session we had with a client once, exactly, but we did, we did tell her, indeed, to think of her in a critic, as a cartoon character, exactly that she'd. Often. She said she really enjoyed it when she was little. Yeah, and that really did help her. Yeah, well, it does help, because it puts you it already is really good immediately changes the whole frame of things, doesn't it? Yeah, and it's gonna make you laugh. It will make and it'll make you think.
Speaker 1:Well, my inner critic isn't someone that I should take seriously because they don't count. Well, they don't count. Yeah, they're like, uh, they're not someone I should be respecting and holding in high standards. No, it's not somebody that I should prioritise. Their advice, yes, what kind of advice are you going to be giving me? You're going to be telling me don't do it, you're not good enough, especially if they're you know they're not. It's not positive criticism. Very often no, well, of course, not positive criticism.
Speaker 1:Very often, this, you know, critic comes out. It's stopping you from doing what you need to do or want to do, stopping you from going where you want to go, by telling you that you cannot do it or you're not good enough for whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, that's a really good thing. You shouldn't go to this because you're like ugly or you're. I know, yeah, you're not pretty enough to wear that outfit, whoever you are. Yeah, yeah, you're not that kind of person that wears things like that. You don't wear jewelry. You don't do this. You're not that person exactly. You know, get stuff to rub it. Yeah, yeah, rub it.
Speaker 1:You know it's time to to hit the road. Hit the road, jack, hit the road. Rabbit off. You go and, uh, you know, go and take a walk somewhere. And and you're not going to get your carrot for today. You know, I think so. Don't stock up on hay and carrots. You know, next time you're at the supermarket, say, hey, I'm not buying those. No, no, feeding you, I'm not feeding you today, and that that's a really good point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you imagine how much freedom that gives you? Immediately I mean, yeah, what if you had an inner critic? What would you call it mine? So you're cool, I haven't really, um, I mean anything that would just pop up to mind. So many years now that I've been doing it, I haven't really got anything I could think of. On the moment.
Speaker 1:I don't really have an inner critic that criticizes me that much. I mean, I love myself. Yes, yes, my inner critic, no, because I was trying to think now, my, my inner critic loves me. Yes, you do. I've befriended. No, yes, you've befriended your inner critic. I've befriended my inner critic. That's where I wanted to get. That's the second you were trying to get to that, yeah, yeah, sneaky. No, I was thinking, because if I was thinking, do I have an inner critic? Do you know? In Peter Pan's story, yeah, twinkle, whatever. I could imagine that Tinkerbell, yeah, but she would be like helping, helps you. Yeah, she helps me. She like thinks come on, you know, this friended her. Yes, yeah, so I befriended her. So my original inner critic critic has now been replaced by I remember, I remember when we were first writing books, I remember I had an inner critic that said you're not good enough to write a book.
Speaker 1:You, you're not an author, you can't write a book. What do you think you are writing a book? This is ridiculous. You know, the person would say the, the inner critic would say all these things to us. But of course we were already on this self-help yeah, self-awareness path where we already become aware of the inner critic. So we could say hey, just going. We used to say go and have a cup of tea in a critic, you know, go and have a little rest. But I guess that was kind of like befriending it, because it wasn't saying get lost, offering it food, tea and cakes, but in a different room. You know, we're not, we're not starving you, we want. We. We're going to befriend you here, but at the same time we're not going to be listening to what you're saying to us right now, because now we need to be creative and we need to be in the flow.
Speaker 1:I remember how many times would I say to myself oh gosh, what am I doing? I'm writing a story about a tree. You know this, this sounds like a, a kid's story. But then I would say get, stop it. I know I'm being influenced by my inner critic now. So you would like cross-examine your inner critic. Yeah, yeah, I would like cross it. What are you doing? I would say what are you doing? You know? No, no, let me be in this wonderful flow now, and the flow was stronger than what the inner critic would say in the end and I could manage to write.
Speaker 1:But yes, it is interesting. It's interesting what we say to ourselves and it's interesting to know that, if you do have an inner critic that's always bothering you. Interesting to know that, if you do have an inner critic that's always bothering you, that you can give it, you know, some kind of a funny name, a cartoon character. You can think of it as something that can be not taken seriously, because that's what it's meant to be. Yeah, you can also change its voice.
Speaker 1:So most people haven't it, like a lot of them, our clients that we've seen have maybe have one of their parents talking to them in a really like you're not good enough, you're not this. Yes, yes, like in a certain way, in a certain voice, and so what you can do is you can think you can just change it and, like put a cartoon character's voice onto it. Yes, so imagine it. You're not good enough, you're rubbish, you're ridiculous. Yeah, something like that. With really high tones you can change the pitch so that it's not threatening. So if normally it would be a threatening voice that you hear in your head, you change it to a really high voice. Maybe put some party music along with it, like a happy birthday song or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's difficult to be, you know, really annoyed if your inner critic sounds like Donald Duck. Yeah, you know, he's got that funny voice, it's going to. So whatever they're saying to you, they're going to say in that funny voice I don't know how to do that, neither do I, and I do not pretend to know how to do it, but you, you know it's like whack, whack. I don't know, um, but you know, when you said the rabbit, I kind of imagined like you know this rabbit, so I, you can imagine it, you know, and, and it can be really helpful, that's really powerful.
Speaker 1:If you change your inner critic's voice, you're immediately you'll probably start laughing. You won't take your inner critic seriously, you know you'll. You'll end up becoming friends with it. You'll find that your inner critic doesn't appear as often. No, it doesn't come knocking on your door as often because it's got nothing to because you're not listening to it, so it's not getting fed. It's not getting fed. You're not prioritizing what it's saying to you. You're, you're putting it away, you're sending it off, you're laughing. You're laughing when it appears as you're putting you in a good mood, when it can hear. You can hear that voice and in the end, your inner critic transforms and it actually becomes your best friend.
Speaker 1:That's why, when I asked for your letter, what's your inner critic's name? She couldn't actually come up with a name. And I can't really come up with a name either. No, because I haven't really got one, not now, not now because of the journey we've come on, and the journey comes through awareness. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:Once you're aware of the fact that there is even you know this thing called inner critic, you can understand what's going on in your mind and you become, you can become the master of your mind, which is really, really, really important and essential for a healthy life. Yeah, and you can also, if you, if you, if your inner critic has been very um, demanding and wants lots of food, you can write down on a piece of paper. You can write things down like what's it saying to you I'm not good enough, so you change it around. I am good enough, thank you very much. You can't do this. I can do this, thank you very much, and so, so, so, so on and so forth. All right, oh, you mean, just transform what you're hearing around, write it down. You write it down on a piece of paper, on your, on your tablet or phone or whatever, and you just turn it around and you do the opposite. There is a power in looking at the written word and and then you can look at it neutrally as well and think, well, yeah, that's not really true. Have I got evidence? Have I do I really know that this is true? No, it's not true Exactly, you may have never tried something before.
Speaker 1:How do you know you know? How do you know that you can't do that? It's like in our case when we were writing books. How do we know that we, because of what? How does anyone ever know, before starting something, that you can't do it or that you're not going to do it right? You don't know, you may have had failures, but you can try again. Yeah, going to do it right. You don't know. No, you may have had failures, but you can try again. Yeah. And who has the power to tell you what you can and cannot do you do. You're the only one that has the real power. So don't listen to your inner critic if it's telling you can't do something because you you work.
Speaker 1:Like what yuka says you won't be able to know if you can do it until you've actually done it and failed. If you're failing, if you could do it and succeed. And then afterwards you have to think there is no failure, there is only feedback from the mistakes you may have made. That's feedback for you for your long life ahead. That's feedback for you Every single time you fail at something or you perceive it to be a failure. There's feedback to be learned. That's amazing. That was an amazing phrase. There was no failure, only feedback. Yeah, that's a neuro-linguistic programming phrase and it can change your life because you can go and do things and know that if you fail, it's okay to fail and as long as you're not harming anyone or doing anything. You know that's not good, but you can try things out. You can definitely try things out. You know it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1:You can be in a relationship with a long time and then maybe with somebody, for example, and think, okay, now it's time for you want to go on, but you could have your inner voice saying, no, if you leave this person, you won't find anyone else. Oh, yes, you know that's a time when you can think, okay, inner critic, push them aside and and think there is no failure, only feedback. So I don't. It's not because I've decided to finish the relationship with this person, whatever it is work, romance, whatever it is. It doesn't mean that I failed at that. No, it means I've the time has come for a change in my life.
Speaker 1:Exactly that's what it really does mean. Yeah, and I always think of what mum used to say yeah, I think about that a lot as well. You're better off on your own than in bad company. Yes, so if something isn't really working for you and you've done everything to make it work, there's no point. Just can you just think. Just you know carrying on because you think that you're not good enough or you're not. You won't find anyone else, because it's absolutely not true and it's.
Speaker 1:You may have some, you may have a time alone, and that will be time for you to grow even more and to mature and no matter what age you are, because you can always mature and just to think about it and think okay, there is feedback. In every relationship there's always been good times. There's always something that you share with each other. That's something that you can treasure, but at the same time, it doesn't mean. You know. There's so many times.
Speaker 1:It's also a time to not to find anyone else, but to find yourself Exactly. You can find yourself and know who you really are. And you know, silence your inner critic and allow yourself to thrive and to flourish and grow in every way. Absolutely so. Let us know what you think. Do you have an inner critic? Most of us do, even if we befriended them. Yes, but we remember a time when perhaps you know, their voice was louder in our minds, exactly yes, and do try these tips for silencing your inner critic and let us know if they work for you. And do come and watch us on YouTube, where we have the full video podcast of this episode, and come say hi. Come say hi On Instagram, wherever you find us. Love and smiles from the English Sisters. Bye, bye, bye. We're therapists and we're here to help you. See you soon.
