Most people relate to the inner critic the way a rally crowd relates to a politician they adore — agreeing with every line. The critic says “you made a mistake,” “you should be skinnier,” “you could have said it better,” and they reply “yep, true, true, true.” Joe points out how absurd this is given that the speaker is a childhood program addressing a four-year-old version of you.
“The critical voice in the head said something and they’re like, ‘Yep, that’s true.’ … which is ridiculous when you think about that.”
The key move is that you don’t fix the voice by fighting it. Resistance only makes it grow. Instead you change how you relate to it — and you stay flexible, experimenting with many different responses so it never gets to be your master. One day you tell it to go to hell; the next, when it tells you to be skinnier, you meet it with “oh, I see how scared you are, I’m right here with you”; the next, you simply don’t care what it says.
“Trying to resist the negative self-talk actually typically only makes it grow. It is to change the way you relate to it.”
The point of varying your reactions is realizing the voice “isn’t your master. It isn’t something that gets to control what you are and what you do.”
Related Concepts
- Saying “ouch” out loud reveals how abusive your self-talk really is
- Welcoming the inner critic dissolves its power
- You don’t need the inner critic to be productive — it drains you
- Respond differently to the inner critic as a practice
- The inner critic is not your voice — it’s inherited
- Resisting the inner critic only strengthens it
- Play with the inner critic rather than fighting it