Inner Critic Attacks
Perfectionism is a trauma response that can arise as an attempt to gain approval from critical or neglectful parents. In fact, you do not have to be perfect to be safe or loved. You have a right to make mistakes, and mistakes do not make you a mistake. Instead of berating yourself, use your mistakes as an opportunity to practice loving yourself.
When I was in my early twenties, my son and I were at a beach. We had an inflatable beach ball that we were playing with in the water until a gust of wind moved it beyond reach. A couple in a canoe began to row toward it and I yelled out “that’s mine”. The woman looked at me strangely and said, “We know, we were just going to bring it in to you.” Embarrassed, I thanked her and went back to playing, but it stuck with me. I assumed they were going to take it. It was a reasonable assumption based on my previous experience as a teen filtered through the negativity bias of the primitive brain. Like much of our thinking, it was also incorrect.
There are two approaches to working with an inner critic, and we could use both at different times. Both require the clarity that comes from mindfulness so that we recognize when we’re under attack. When inner critic attacks have been a common and persistent experience, especially in childhood, it can feel like the water we swim in. We might not recognize the suffering they are causing, or we feel helpless to change it.
One starting place is to look for the underlying motive and reason. There is often a rationale relating to safety. If our inner critic can make us stay home and play small, we are not in danger of social exclusion or awkwardness. This is part of why many people with abuse and neglect in childhood are isolated socially as adults. We didn’t develop neural networks for safety and connection. We learned how to protect ourselves by going it alone. It feels safer, yet it is ultimately unsatisfying.
“Safety is the absence of threat AND the presence of connection.” Dr Stephen Porges, Polyvagal Institute
If the inner critic is trying to protect us, we might offer compassion and use tools to increase our felt sense of safety. Through understanding and emotionally regulating with the scared younger self who is generating the attack, we can reassure them and lower the volume.
A second approach is to be firm with damaging attacks. We might say “Stop! I can’t hear you when you are using that tone of contempt. If you want to warn me about something, I will listen only if you stop shaming me. I will not listen when you are attacking me.”
Pete Walker has decades of experience as a therapist. He offers a list of 14 common inner critic attacks and divides them into two sections.
Get Pete Walker’s 14 Common Inner Critic Attacks here
The first 9 are perfectionist attacks and the remainder are endangerment attacks. We are going to look into these in our Sunday community class this week. Details here.
As you reflect on how these apply to you, keep in mind that sometimes these are very intense. At a lesser intensity, they are common. Persistency, frequency and intensity are important because they affect how much we believe them.
Other perfectionistic attacks include: black-and-white thinking; self-hate, self-disgust, and toxic shame; micromanaging, worrying, catastrophic thinking about the future; making devaluing comparisons to others, or feeling like we have to be happy all of the time; guilt; shoulding; over-productivity and being too busy; and harsh judgments and name calling.
Endangerment attacks include: drastisizing and catastrophizing, a negative focus; time urgency; disabling performance anxiety; and expecting an attack from others. My assumption about the beach balloon falls into this category.
Know that you are not broken and that you can change this pattern through a combination of clear seeing, acceptance, firm commitment to yourself, and compassion.
You are welcome to join us for our Sunday community class at 10am Eastern, and Insight Timer live guided inquiry at 1PM Sunday. Details here.