When your inner critic makes all the sense…
…how do you keep going?
This past month, I’ve been working on my next tarot challenge—Speak Your Truth. As I was pondering the questions, the need to shake things up a bit during this challenge came over me. Great, right? I love it when inspiration suddenly strikes.
Unfortunately, those are also the moments that—for me at least—that nasty little voice inside my head pipes up and desperately tries to waylay whatever new idea is now buzzing in my brain.
As soon as my curiosity went ‘Yes, gut, let’s shake things up indeed!’, the following thoughts tried to take hostage of my mind, in this order:
1 Wouldn’t it be stupid to change a formula that has already proven successful?
(Oh, my inner critic just loves trying to keep me small and inside my comfort zone by calling me ‘stupid’.)
2 If you do this challenge differently, you basically admit that all the other ones you did sucked, right?
(My inner critic and my imposter syndrome have each other’s backs entirely, as you can see.)
3 Why do you always keep pushing yourself to reinvent the wheel? Enough is enough!
(With me ignoring the first two thoughts, my inner critic went all in and tried to trick me into believing she had my best interests at heart by hitting me where I’m most vulnerable: my continuous struggle to overcome workaholism and my fear around not being enough.)
Our inner critics make sense, and that’s the tricky part
Dealing with our inner critic would be so much easier if it made absolutely no sense. But that’s just the thing: that nasty little voice tends to sound so rational. How are we to know when it’s our intuition or gut telling us something and when it’s our inner critic?
It takes a little self-knowledge and reflection time.
Play vs. playing it safe
1 Wouldn’t it be stupid to change a formula that has already proven successful?
My inner critic has a solid point here, and I know it’s OK to stick with a formula that works. But, growth is a big theme in my life. I believe in doing work that provides me with opportunities to try something new. I’ve always loved learning and further developing the skills I already have.
Even though tweaking the challenge might turn out to be a mistake (and thank you for warning me, inner critic), being the person I am, I’d rather take my chances and see what happens if I follow my curiosity. Opening myself up to what I might learn this time around is worth more to me than playing it safe.
Growth ≠ previous work sucks
2 If you do this challenge differently, you basically admit that all the other ones you did sucked, right?
Here, too, my inner critic might have a point. Perhaps me feeling the need to shake things up now does mean I didn’t give it my all when I came up with those previous challenges. But what if I gave it everything I had at the time?
I believe that constant and consistent growth is a wonderful thing but I don’t believe it should be used to deem our previous endeavours worthless or less meaningful. If that was the case, wouldn’t every author unpublish their earlier books as soon as their last one came out?
What is more, the way I did it back then, which was inspired by what came to me in that moment, is probably the exact way it needed to be done right then. I believe the same for my upcoming challenge.
The voice of fear vs. the voice of love
3 Why do you always keep pushing yourself to reinvent the wheel? Enough is enough!
As someone with workaholic tendencies, this one was the trickiest to unravel. I love what I do, so I hardly feel like I’m working. Which is great, but the downside is that I don’t always know when to stop to fill my cup. That my inner critic used my wish for a better balance in my life against me was a clever move on her part.
How was I able to tell my inner critic from my intuition in this instance? When it comes to me needing to cut myself some slack, they say pretty much the same thing.
Except that they don’t. Intuition-based thoughts always come from a place of love. Inner critic-based thoughts come from a place of fear, which is why it uses much stronger language to keep us from doing something (think of the words ‘stupid’ and ‘sucked’ in the two other thoughts that bubbled up after inspiration struck).
If it had been my intuition, it probably would have sounded more like: ‘Are you sure this is what you should be doing right now? You know you don’t have to push yourself any harder than you already are, right? It’s OK to take a step back and enjoy the fruits of your labour. You’re already doing so much.’
It took me years of meditating and inner growth work to be able to recognise that tone and what it stands for. And I still don’t always get it right away. Look at thoughts 1 and 2. I reflected my way out of those, while I could have known instantly that those were based in fear too: my intuition would never say things like ‘stupid’ or ‘sucked’.
I’m just glad it takes me less and less time to tell the difference, even though I have some way to go still.
Distinguish your gut, then follow it
My advice?
Whenever you’re hit by inspiration and negative thoughts are starting to flood your mind, take some time to tune in with yourself. Try to figure out what that voice is really saying and where it might be coming from.
Is it aligned with what you know to be true about yourself and your process? Does it sound loving? Does it sound mean and ready to bully you into submission?
Depending on the situation and how used you are to doing this, this exercise might take some time. But, sitting with these questions will help you filter what is fear. And, once you know which thoughts are coming directly from your inner critic, you will be able to tell it to fuck off so you can follow your curious, loving gut instead.
The Speak Your Truth tarot challenge starts 1 March 2020 on Instagram. If you don’t already, you can follow me here.