Taming Your Inner Critic– 5 ways to manage anxiety.

The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself. 

-Augustine of Hippo

Big sigh…. you try really hard to stay positive and keep those rosy-colored glasses on. But sometimes, it seems like no matter how rosy your glasses are, you’re always on edge. Stressed, anxious, afraid. Negative or critical thoughts start taking over, and then you work yourself up into panicking mode. You’re not alone, if I don’t watch it, I’m deep down in the negative rabbit hole. You may start feeling you have no control and cannot just relax. Don’t feel bad; it’s totally normal to think this way but let’s face it, you’re still not sleeping at night, and you are already starting your day off in a bad mood (if your weekend was anything like my weekend).

Inner critic and unwanted behaviors

You have all these different parts of your personality that help you survive and thrive. The Inner critic is a system of thoughts/voices that we hear and tell ourselves when we feel anxious and unsure if we have the skills to deal with a new life situation. 

Well, the inner critic is not very nice, and the last thing is a ‘supportive’. The Inner critic sounds something like this, “ you are not doing it right; they are not going to like how you presented this project; you’re such a dumbass; how could you be so stupid? My kids hate me, I feel like shit, I’m just not good enough, I’m not worthy, and my favorite: who the hell do you think you are“.

Get to know your negative side.

You’re really good at sweeping the negative under the metaphorical rug. You’re so good that you don’t even see the rug anymore. The weird thing is that the more you’re able to get to know the ‘negative’ side, the more you’re able to let it be and move on with your life. It sounds ridiculous, I get it. As a recovering people-pleaser, I would’ve scoffed at getting to know my negative side and come up with some spiritual-by-passing answer. Let’s get real and reframe this idea of ‘the negative side’. I believe that all of our parts (the ones we like and don’t like) have a purpose and somehow help us survive something hard in our lives.

Our culture tends to put concepts, ideas, and societal norms in polarizing boxes, such as positive and negative. We try to acclimate to our environment and function, so sometimes we push down the parts that others don’t see as desirable and therefore become bad in our mind. It’s sometimes hard to sit with our negative side. And it’s equally true that you can sit with the uncomfortable parts, bring them into your awareness, and they become softer and not so loud. Therefore, you can focus on the things you want in your life.

Work with some cognitive restructuring techniques.

Restructuring the way we think is possible and does help us work differently with our anxiety and negative voices. One cognitive restructuring technique is to reality-check the negative thoughts. Say example, you want to try something new, like taking a pottery class, and your negative thoughts are ramping up, and you’re ready to hide your head in the sand. First, take a deep breath and ask yourself, “when did I try something new? How did it go? How did I make it work then, and what’s different now”? If you’re anything like my clients or me, you can come up with countless amazing feats of bravery, courage, and tenacity. You were able to do it and make it happen. Sometimes our anxiety feeling fuels our thoughts of not having the necessary skills to complete the task at hand. It’s powerful to stop that track and say, “Wait a minute, I’ve done other hard things before; what’s different this time”?

Find a way to manage anxiety.

Practicing cognitive restructuring techniques is all great, but what if anxiety hits me? Great question! We can have all the techniques down, but if we’re struggling with anxiety feeling, it’s hard to stop the heart from racing, mile-a-minute thoughts, and fear in the movement. There are many great ways to manage anxiety. To get the best benefit, it’s important to practice these skills daily. The more your nervous system can register that it’s calm, the more your brain will calm down and ease up on the anxiety thoughts. You’ve probably heard them all, journaling, mindfulness, stretching, progressive muscle relaxation, hot baths, fidget toys, doodling, etc. These are great tools, but the best tool is the one you really love to do! I’d recommend finding 2-3 techniques you genuinely like to do and start doing this weekly and then daily for yourself. I find a combination of trampolining, doing art, yoga, and meditation is my sweet spot.

Practice self-compassion.

If you want to see the needle move in your relationship with your anxiety and negative thoughts, self-compassion is a powerful practice. I’d recommend you check out Dr. Kristen Neff’s work on self-compassion. She has a great self-compassionate questionnaire to help you determine how you talk to yourself. Filling out the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) information is a great place to start. Let’s break down what practicing self-compassion means. It means giving yourself the same amount of grace, love, and tenderness you would to others you deeply care about to yourself. Practicing statements such as, “I’m good enough as I am, and I tried my best, I did good today, and I can try tomorrow again, even though I did not get everything done I wanted, I know in my heart that I’m good enough”. Practicing being kind and nice to yourself helps calm down the negative thoughts and the inner critic that wants to tell you to take a hike.

Don’t try to stuff the negativity down or push it away.

The biggest technique I can offer you, which has tremendously helped my clients, is to learn how to sit, acknowledge, and feel the negative feeling or let the thought pass you by. It sounds silly, I get it, and what happens if you have a deep sliver in your hand? The kind that hurts and burns. You see the area is infected, red, and burning, but you don’t see the head of the piece of wood or glass. You can either ignore it, which will result in more pain and swelling. Or you can go dig for the little sliver that is just beneath the surface.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to throw some lavender essential oil on and hope it will come on its own. Ouch, in reality, the silver gets worse. The best choice is not to push it down but to dig in and get it out. There’s such a relief to getting a sliver out. It’s the same with our negative thinking and negative side. Our negative side is like a sliver stuck in our skin. We’re aware of it, but jeez, it’s annoying. You try to go on with life till you knock that sliver on a surface, and you want to climb through the roof. By you acknowledging the negativity, it loses power, and you’re in the driver’s seat.

5 techniques to help you shift out of your negative thinking.

1. Make a list of all your negative thoughts. On the left-hand side of a page, write down your negative thoughts about yourself, and on the right side, changes the statement to a “you” instead of “I”.

2. When have I succeeded? What did I do? What’s different now?

3. Reality check, what is comfortable about my anxiety and feeling stuck?

4. Get support and ask a trusted friend to listen and hear you.

5. Ask yourself, “what skills do I need to complete this task?”

Click here to download your FREE self-compassion tracking worksheet.

Takeaway: You can work with your critical mind and even learn to use it to your advantage.

While it may be unrealistic to expect that you can consciously control your thoughts all of the time, regular practice can help you to manage them better and recognize patterns in your thinking. Make time to meditate; take deep, calming breaths when you feel anxious. You might even want to keep a notebook with you so that you can write down recurring thoughts and worries as they pop up; doing so can help you to process them more effectively.