Train that inner critic to give you compliments

F

reud said it long before Richard Schwartz ( founder of the IFS type of therapy) did: The personality is made up of “parts.” Whether we call them superego-ego-id or parent-adult-child or core self-exiles-managers, one thing is for sure: There’s no such thing as “me.”

This is a good thing. Having different parts helps us function. For instance, one part may want to stay in bed all day, but another part yanks us up and out. One part may be busy getting on with life while another part hides out behind the scenes, protecting us from overwhelming grief, terror, or trauma.

Most of us are quite familiar with a part affectionately (or not) called “the inner critic.” This part reprimands us for being inadequate ( “You made a fool of yourself,” “You look terrible”) in an attempt to help us do better. The result is usually a lowered mood and feelings of helpless despair — but, hey, it means well.

But like all functions of the brain, personality parts are “neuroplastic.” They’re open to reorganization and change. If we don’t like what a part is doing, we can alter the way it works. If, for instance, a part is scaring us all day long (“Something bad will happen,” “This will probably be a disaster”), we can teach it to be more encouraging, supportive, and helpful.

There are many professional therapeutic techniques to accomplish this.

You Can Do It, Too

Here’s some good news: You can also reorganize your inner world. You can be happier, healthier, calmer, and more productive by teaching your inner “helpers” to do their job differently. Here’s one way to go about this:

The inner critic usually shows up in the first person (“I’m such a bad mother”). The running commentary in a person’s head sounds as if “I’m” judging “myself” negatively. It’s barely audible but ever present, creating a steady drip of stress chemistry and usually failing in its mission to help us.

So here’s the first thing you can do: change the way you talk to yourself.

You may already have tried to train yourself to be more encouraging in first person. This strategy is known as positive affirmations and sounds like this: “I can do it!” “I’m smart,” “I’m loveable.” Although many people have had success with this, others find that this creates a stronger critical voice, so that “I can do this!” leads to “Who am I kidding?” and so on.

Training your self-talk in second person has been found to elicit far less objection from other parts of the personality. Imagine that you’re being spoken to by someone else: “You’ve overcome other difficulties; you’ll overcome this one, too.”  Research shows that hearing someone — including ourselves — use “you” in an encouraging statement affects our inner world in a deeply positive way. This is because our original childhood programming is set up to receive “you” statements from parents. This process remains intact even through adulthood.

When we intentionally talk to ourselves using the pronoun “you,” rewiring of our self-talk network happens rapidly. After only a few days of practice, the process takes over by itself.

Finally, we can also add third-person self-talk to our repertoire. Imagine a small team of people talking to each other about you. Let’s say your name is Tamar. Imagine this team in the room near you with clipboards in hand, talking about you, saying things like, “Tamar has been making progress,” “ I see Tamar’s been more careful about eating healthy food. She’s doing a great job at self-care.” This supervision of your life feels caring, supportive, and kind. (Just be careful to train this team to look for the good while gently noting room for improvement.)

So go ahead and start generating some second-person and/or third-person self-talk. Note how you feel and function after a few days. If you like the results, maintain this new habit forever.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 946)