Thoughts on the inner critic

Recently I facilitated a group on “befriending the inner critic” and I was struck when someone asked me for an example of my own negative self-talk as we navigated reframing examples from the participants. Self-disclosure can be frowned upon in my field but I’m a firm believer in that showing up authentically is important and that with healthy boundaries we have the ability to share with discretion, to give the unneeded but often sought after permission of our clients to be messy, in-progress humans.

So, after a beat I offered the simple but honest critical thought that “I’m too awkward.” What unfolded over the next few minutes was an affirmation that my small offering of humanness, an admittance that I too feel out of place at times, was a powerful conduit for exploration and conversation much bigger than myself. We practiced welcoming and accepting the inner-critic, and listening to the message for what it may hold underneath, and coming up with a kinder interpretation of that same message, just as we had done with prior examples.

Inner Critic Sculpture, in air dry clay. 2025.

What I hadn’t shared was that I still get nervous every time I speak to a group of people, which I do for a living, and how I used to have violent panic attacks in college before presentations and exams. My inner critic has been loud for a long time and impacted my general functioning to varying degrees across my lifespan.

The inner-critic can be understood, through the lens of IFS, as a manager: a part of ourselves aiming to protect us but is often harmful in its own regard. IFS parts work is fresh on my mind lately, as I recently took a class on integrating visual journalizing and IFS together for working with complex trauma. It was a long day after which I shared that “my body is tired but my heart is full” due to eye-opening but heavy content, including the experiential component in which I met with my own manager and exile through collage in Soul Pages.

The first time I practiced “meeting” the inner-critic as a part was in my expressive arts therapy training program, and I realized the power in giving shape, name, and color to what had always felt an overpowering voice of authority in my head. I also dialogued with it, utilizing a writing practice with my dominant and non-dominant hand, and realized that much of the criticism it gave me was an effort to protect me from criticism and thus harm in the form of embarrassment and shame. That recognition, of seeing the negative self-talk for the self-preservation effort that it is, allows me to have more compassion for that part.

It can still be loud of course (it’s been incredibly persistent as I’ve been writing this today) but something about imagining a little green goblin with an orange hat telling me that no one wants to read my writing, that no one cares about my musings, is easier to shrug off. I picture myself patting his head, nodding my own in acknowledgment of his fear and anger. He gets quieter, more than he ever does when I try to argue or persuade, and my word count climbs higher. He goes silent, and I hit “publish.”