It’s a generalisation to be sure, but roughly speaking you can divide people into two categories – those whose inner critic is frantically busy, leaving them demotivated, insecure and perpetually dissatisfied, and those who don’t appear to have an inner critic – or if they do, have one who is unobservant and perpetually on holiday, leaving them blissfully unaware of their many flaws or of things they could do far better.
It has become popular to be negative about our inner critic, and indeed, if you have a voice in your head that consistently tells you that you are not good enough, or unlikely to succeed, or are not very nice – well that’s a heavy load to carry and it doesn’t set you up for your best work or performance. However that’s an inner critic in overdrive – over reaching its mandate so that it becomes a destructive force. It doesn’t need to be like that. In this post I thought I would explore how we can get our inner critic to work for us.
Why do we need our own inner critic?
Well first, only we know all the things we are up to. While we might be insightful in the feedback we give to others, it is invariably based on a small snapshot of their full reality. We don’t know what goes on in the mind and motivations of others. We only see little fragments of their reality. With our own self we are different. We know where our mind wanders in idle moment, and we know our uncensored thoughts and inner motivations. We are therefore in a good position to self evaluate – to ask if we are supporting our development towards the kind of person we hope to be. And I intentionally use words like “development towards” and “kind of person” for this is not a journey with a fixed arrival point. In a sense every step is an arrival – a journey of becoming that is never static. Without feedback based on wide knowledge of all we are and do, we won’t learn from experience or challenge ourselves to step up into better versions of ourself.
Of course there are ways that we can do this that are both constructive and destructive.
If your inner critic demands an impossible perfection, or has a perpetually condemnatory stance, or is totally unrealistic, or humourless, reach for the mute button! If by contrast your inner critic is curious, asks probing questions and helps you to observe things about yourself in a non-defensive but open way, keep them talking. There is much growth from those conversations.
If you are unsure of the difference, a destructive inner critic will leave you feeling demotivated and worthless – buying the lie that you are useless, hopeless and will never improve. You come away thinking, “that’s the way it is, so that’s the way it is. I’m hopeless and that is not going to change.” A life serving inner critic leaves you with constructive options, and invites you to ask what you can do better next time, and allows you to answer that question realistically and in a way that leaves you hopeful and motivated.
Some people find it helpful to intentionally supplement their inner critic with an inner “second voice” – a more compassionate voice. It’s not one that contradicts the inner critic but rather one that invites a constructive reframing. “Sure, that wasn’t my finest moment, but I know that I have the capacity to learn, grow and bounce back, so it is ok. One step at a time. I think I will become a better person because of this.”
Where is God is the inner critic discussion?
Ps 139:23-24 is an open hearted invitation from the Psalmist asking God to search and evaluate his heart. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
I wonder if the Psalmist’s (probably David) request couldn’t be part of an important spiritual discipline with three key phases:
Phase 1: I invite my inner critic to review my day (week/ month/ session). I mentally scan all that has taken place, taking care to notice what has happened, to ask some curious questions about what took place (Why did that happen? What was going on?) before I evaluate what happened and then frame some tentative advice on how to act in future.
Phase 2: Aware of my own evaluation in phase 1, I now consciously step back from it, and pray Ps 139:23-24. “Search me, O God…” I deliberately focus on God’s perspective. This is a profoundly spiritual exercise, a little subjective to be sure, but shaped by the conviction that the Spirit has been called to be alongside us, to guide us and to convict us of need and sin. It is also shaped by our knowledge of the teaching of scripture and the key biblical principles on which we are instructed to build our lives. As God searches, I listen, confident that the God who speaks to me loves me beyond measure, and has adopted me into the family of God. I am a child of God!
Phase 3: I reflect on both the continuity and discontinuity of the two evaluations. In my own experience I have often found that what looms large in my own evaluation barely rates a mention in God’s examination. I tend to be concerned about how I have come across and what others thought and if I was “successful” (whatever that means). God asks me more penetrating questions about my motivation, my struggle to trust, and my desire to be at the centre of the agenda. I might be annoyed with myself because my timing of a joke in a talk was poor, and no one laughed, but I can’t recall a time when God agreed that that was the thing I should angst about… Do the exercise well and you find yourself in an exploration of two very different agendas. My agenda is usually about how I can do things better, God’s is about how I can be better deep inside myself. It is less about doing and more about being. Not that it never involves a challenge about doing for as James 2:17 and 26 note, “faith without works is dead”.
It was Socrates who said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” So welcome your appropriately behaved inner critic, and also have the courage to repeat the Psalmist’s request, “Search me O God…” Those two examinations could transform you.
Nice chatting…
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