Self–Compassion and the Inner Critic

I hesitated publishing this post. I’ve been very candid in other posts here but for some reason, this one felt too personal—it made me feel quite vulnerable. But according to Brenè Brown (shame/courage/vulnerability guru): “Vulnerability is a risk, but it’s the only path to deeper connections and meaningful experiences.” So I decided to take the risk because maybe something here will strike a chord with you …

For a couple weeks now I’ve had, sitting on my dining room table, a book about Self-Compassion and a book about IFS (internal family systems—a psychotherapy approach that examines our parts or “selves” and how they interact with each other).¹ But I haven’t been able to bring myself to read these books that could maybe help me. And, you guessed it, I’m beating myself up for procrastinating.

In the meantime, I decided to do my usual tech writer thing: gathering more information than I need so I can identify salient points to include in what I’m writing.

But then I had the thought: Is Self-Compassion really that complicated? Isn’t it “just” being as kind to myself as I try to be to other people? Is Self-Compassion just a matter of Self-Kindness? Do I really even need to read those books?

But I did my tech writer thing anyway and began with online comparisons of terms that appear to be very similar:

• pity—a feeling of sadness or sympathy for someone else’s unhappiness or difficult situation
• sympathy—a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful
• compassion—a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful, and an urgent desire to alleviate the person’s distress

So what sets Compassion apart is the “urgent desire to alleviate the person’s distress.” And I realized why I wasn’t digging into those books: I didn’t feel that urgent desire to alleviate my own distress from beating myself up about my procrastination or about not learning how to do Self-Compassion in general.

And that’s when the IFS model came in for me: I observed that I have an Inner Critic Self who was declaring—with no arguments from any other Selves—that I “should” suffer. That in some weird way, I deserved it because I have a long history of being “bad”/wrong/saying or doing “stupid” things/etc.—and because of that history I’m not good enough, not worthy of having my distress alleviated. I think it’s that Inner Critic Self that has me beating myself up so much about so many things.

I’ve read that we all have an inner critic. Not surprising given familial, cultural, and religious norms that demand we conform to them or risk varying degrees of censure—criticism that can lead to an inner negative narrative. So having an inner critic isn’t unusual, but for some people, that voice can be louder, more frequent, and more pervasive. For whatever reason, my Inner Critic Self is an Olympic champion. For decades I’ve had inner conversations like this:

Me: “I have A LOT of accomplishments like winning the top regional and international awards in my field of tech writing for a system manager’s guide that I designed and wrote.”
My Inner Critic: “Yeah well you had a team of an artist, editor, and production specialist that helped. It wasn’t just you.”

Me: “I’ve done my Aries Ram thing and rammed—persevered—my way through a lot of really difficult situations like putting myself through college in my late 20s while going through a painful divorce.”
My Inner Critic: “Well you needed a career and money to support yourself. So you just did what you had to do, what had to be done. No big deal.”

Me: “I’m really creative and, in addition to doing beautiful paper crafting now, as a kid I taught myself how to knit and crochet.”
My Inner Critic: “Yeah but you hold the crochet hook and knitting needles incorrectly, and your paper crafting doesn’t hold a candle to the amazing projects you’ve seen online done by crafters who think outside the box. Unlike you.”

Me: “I supported and helped Steve through those last difficult months and home Hospice with great care and patience.”
My Inner Critic: “You just did what any spouse would do.”

Except now, writing this, I just discovered that I have an Objective Self who can counteract my Inner Critic Self:

• For my tech writing awards, I identified the need for the guide, wrote and submitted a proposal to management that was accepted and funded, and I managed the team—pulling it all together to implement my vision for the book.
• With my Aries tendency to start projects enthusiastically but then get bored and not finish them, completing my Bachelors degree was the first major thing I completed in my life. It was indeed a big deal.
• In my crafting I have a keen eye for design balance, and the patience to do very detailed work. And not everybody can “feel” colors the way I do which enables me to put together aesthetically interesting color combinations.
• And no, some spouses don’t even stick around when their partner becomes seriously ill, let alone see it through to the end with extraordinary patience. 

And now I realize that my Inner Critic Self probably came into being when I was a child and adolescent as a protection mechanism: internalizing all the critical voices around me, and then preempting them all—criticizing myself first so what those external critics said wouldn’t hurt so much. I’d already be hurting from my own self criticism. And in the process, I also set an impossible-to-meet bar: perfection. “If I’m perfect then nobody (not even me) can find fault and criticize me.”

So my Inner Critic Self is simply doing what it believes to be its job: protecting me. But now my Objective Self can factually counteract what it says. And my Compassionate Self can gently respond to my Inner Critic Self, for example: “Thank you. You’ve done a great job but I don’t need your protection now. I can handle criticism because I view every mistake, every shortcoming as an opportunity to learn and grow. In fact, I want to do that.”

I initially scoffed at how IFS involves personifying our various selves, and having them interact such that they “talk” to each other. But holy mackerel. It works! And I now have a way of dealing with my Inner Critic—and doing it with Kindness and Compassion.

So full circle: I do believe Self-Compassion is a matter of Self-Kindness. But it may also involve dealing with any barriers to Self-Kindness—like accepting the existence of an inner critic, acknowledging its contribution as a self-protection mechanism, and having compassion for why it developed BUT not letting it be in the driver’s seat. And maybe also rejecting the precept that being kind to yourself, taking care of yourself is selfish and self-centered. It is not. I can be kind to myself AND kind to other people. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Well isn’t that interesting. In a few paragraphs I’ve begun to turn around a lifetime of beating myself up. I’ll probably still do it reflexively but now I have a way to deal with it.

OK. So now maybe I can read those books and find out if there needs to be a “Self-Compassion Part 2” post. Or not. We shall see.

But I guess it’s not surprising that my Inner Critic Self is ever awake and yakking. After I finished writing this post I ended up having another conversation but this time with a different ending:

Me: “As I said above, ‘I’ll probably still [beat myself up] reflexively but now I have a way to deal with it.’”
Inner Critic Self: “Yeah well you’ll probably forget to use it.”
Objective Self: “Maybe I will forget sometimes. But I will remember sometimes too—and probably more often than not as time goes on.
Compassionate Self: And that’s OK because like everything else, this is a process—a learning process that we all [all my Selves] contribute to. Given my lifelong insistence on learning and growing, this is an awesome endeavor—and I have a stellar team to take it on.

And actually, given the direction this conversation, I did remember. So it works!

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Footnote:

¹ The specific books I selected (and may or may not read!):

• Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff
• Self-Therapy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Wholeness Using IFS, A Cutting-Edge Psychotherapy by Jay Earley (and companion workbook)