Do you frequently give yourself a hard time, thinking you’ve got things wrong and feeling full of self-blame? Do you talk to yourself far more harshly than you would to anyone else? Perhaps you’ve decided you’re not going to beat yourself up any more – but discovered that it’s hard work to ignore or reason with your inner critic. Are you fed up fighting it?
It can seem like your inner critic can always find something else to complain about. To paraphrase several of the people I’ve worked with: “I’ve realised I have a very harsh inner critic, and it really makes my life difficult. I am so angry with myself for that.”
While it’s good to challenge our negative self-talk when it crops up, if we want those critical inner voices to stop making things so difficult, we need a different approach.