Is Your inner Critic Your friend or Your enemy?

Have you ever noticed the voice in your head telling you that you should have been at your fitness class today? Or you shouldn’t have said what you did at the dinner table last night? What might others be thinking of you?

This inner voice in your head scolds and reprimands daily. Telling you what you should do and not do. It criticizes you for your appearance, for not calling your parents often enough, for your work perfomance, for how much you are drinking and for your choice of friends.

The moment you find inner peace a new situation arises and new criticisms appear.

Hearing this critical voice you eventually feel tired, unsettled, shamed, not good enough, depressed, anxious and hopeless. Nothing you do is good enough. You feel stupid, ugly, fat, slow and boring. The criticism going around in your head eventually gets to you. You end up feeling sad and depressed.

Perhaps you know this voice as an echo of the voice of your parents, teachers or older siblings. As an adult it lives inside you and the criticism goes on inside what feels like non-stop.

This inner critic is useful to an extent. It guides us through life and lets us know what is right and wrong. This is part of normal socialization and helps us function in society and around other people.

But when the inner critic gets the upper hand at all times and judges everything in your life it ends up making your life miserable. You get out of touch with your true self. You get confused and feel not good enough meeting new people. You might not be able to start a new project or finish your degree because you hold back in fear of failing.  

If this goes on for many years you might shut down all your feelings and emotions and you feel stuck in life. Not able to move forward. You might develop social anxiety or depression. 

The concern about being judged, being good enough and trying to live up to outside standards and expectations can end up replacing you own inner voice. You get stuck in the role of ‘pleaser’ and can’t feel your own needs clearly.

If once in a while you do something “forbidden” and do not follow the rules and expectations you feel guilty and anxious.

Where does the inner critic come from?

It develops in childhood because every child must learn to adapt to the environment. The child learns how to avoid punishment and get his/her parents to love and appreciate him/her. The child learns that when he/she is sweet and quiet, mother and father are happy. For the child survival depends on getting love and approval, so it’s best to try to “please” and adapt to his/her the parents’ values ​​and ways of seeing the world.

The child learns to suppress and push away any ‘forbidden’ emotions and ideas. Emotions and ideas that his/her parents do not approve of. Thus a kind of inner ‘police dog’ arises to guard the child. It keeps the child within certain limits. It’s function is to inhibit some of the natural impulses of the child and takes on the voices of the parents and the community.

This police dog is called the inner critic or super-ego. It acts as a punishing, critical and corrective inner voice.

If the parents have been very critical or judgmental the child learns to criticize himself. If the parents have been absent the inner critic may have taken up the space or void left by the parents. In this manner the critic becomes a kind of parental substitute. Unfortunately often very critical as the child often will interpret the parents’ absence as ‘I am not good enough’ or ‘I am not worthy of love’.

The inner critic forms in childhood but lives on into adulthood. In adulthood symptoms of anxiety, depression, hopelessness, unrest and powerlessness as a result of a toxic or destructive inner critic. At this point it becomes apparent that the inner critic is one of the causes of the issues and some work needs to be done in order to free yourself from it. This work can take time, but will lead to more inner freedom and more contentment in life. 

Tools for working with the inner critic:

• Write down the criticism on a piece of paper
• Imagine you saying stop to the critic
• Do something you like that doesn’t have a specific goal
• Practice meditation and mindfulness

Suggested reading:

Soul without Shame – Byron Brown

Become a friend of your inner critic – Stone

In the alcoholic family the children suffer in many important areas of life due to the drinking patterns of a parent or parents. Usually the family in some measure has a lack of structure, safety, stability and predictability. This affects the children basically because children need structure, safety, stability and predictability very much in order to develop naturally.

The stressful environment of the alcoholic family causes the children to grow up fast and become adults in order to cope. In addiction they become hyper sensitive to the environment and the parents behavior. Noticing and picking up on cues in order to stay safe. They become expert in reading other people and keeping a distance or fixing a situation. They might become their parent’s helpers and therapists. They adapt to situations that are uacceptable because there is no escape for them. They adapt to their parents yelling, being absent, arguing, being violent and of course drinking.

The child will often feel responsible for the parents’ drinking and will at times try to get the parents to stop or will feel that ‘if they really loved me they would stop, so I must be worthless’. So this has a deep effect on the child’s self esteem and sense of value as a human being. When the child feels abandoned and neglected he/she will take it personally.

The consequence as adults are multifaceted and complex. They may suffer from the following symptoms.

Adult children of alcoholics may suffer from many psychological issues ranging from:

depression

anxiety

addictions

eating disorders

relationship problems and codependency

anger and sudden rage

tendency to please and adapt to others

identity and need confusion

As adult children of alcoholics it might be difficult to feel your limits and you may accept situations or behavior from people that is not appropriate. You may be a person who is very caring towards others while neglecting your own needs. You may not even know what your needs are and spend your time trying to figure out what others want or need.

In order to heal from your childhood wounds you need to face the fact that your early environment was not ideal and that you suffered as a result. You need to grieve the parents you did not have and feel the feelings that you have not been able to feel then. Working on boundaries and feeling your needs is very important and you may also have to evaluate the relationship you have to your parents today.

On Being an Ex-pat

In our increasingly globalized world people move countries like never before. This means we enter cultures we are unfamiliar with and we live in countries where we have little or no network. Expatriates usually refers to highly skilled migrants who live in a foreign country temporarily. Some work for large international corporations, others are diplomats. The children of ex-pats go to international schools.

Typically ex-pats adjust well to the new country, but occasionally the adjustment can turn out to be more challenging. Ex-pats may feel alone and isolated which puts more strain on the family or if the ex-pat is single isolation could turn into depression. 

Questions of identity are common as ex-pats have to fit in and adjust to new customs and ways of behaving. It may be difficult to understand the local people at first and understand the cultural norms. Some ex-pats engage and meet new friends while other ex-pats isolate themselves or stick to people from their home country. Either way there there is often a cultural gap and a sense of not belonging. Ex-pats may have a sense of separation from the local society and people. This can mean work becomes the primary focus of the ex-pat which leads to even more separation. Work or other addictions can provide a sense of belonging or soothing, but is a vicious cycle. The imbalance between work life and life outside can trigger symptoms of depression and anxiety. 

Another common issue for ex-pats is the issue of the ‘next step’ and the sense of being torn inside between countries. There might be a longing for ‘home’ or family in the country of origin and a constant ruminating about ‘should I move back home?’. The ex-pat might have a constant sense of missing, homesickness or longing that is felt like a sadness or depression. Or it might be a feeling of emptiness inside and of not being in the right place.

If the ex-pat has moved many times there is often a sense of not belonging anywhere. This can be confusing. All options are open and this can be both worrying and exciting. Living in the present moment in the here and now is difficult as the mind always wonders to other destinations and possibilities. 

Eventually the  rootlessness can lead to unhappiness and emptiness. 

Typical issues for ex-pats are:

• Problems adjusting
• Work stress
• Work addiction
• Anxiety
• Marital problems
• Sense of culture shock
• Isolation and loneliness
• Feeling torn between the home country and the new country
• Identity questions
• Homesickness

Living and working abroad in another culture can be a great learning experience and a challenge worth exploring. It can give you new skills and you discover new aspects of yourself and life. You grow and mature as a result. You learn to understand people from diverse backgrounds and you see that life can be lived in many ways. 

If you are struggling with your ex-pat experience psychotherapy and counseling can help you deal with the challenges. You can learn about yourself and how to overcome these challenges. 

Loneliness –  longing for contact

We live in a time when more and more people feel lonely and alone. Many do not experience having friends in real life. But they spend time on computers and social media. We have cyber friends. Contact with other people in everyday life takes up less and less of our time because we can avoid face to face contact.

Some people find they know a lot of people superficially, but don’t have anyone emotionally close nor have anyone the trust. They have nobody to turn to when they need help. We learn early in life that we need to cope with everything ourselves and be self-reliant.

How do you find friends? The answers are many: buy a dog, become a member of a club, volunteer, etc. But does it help with the feeling loneliness?

Since loneliness is experienced by people who are alone and by people who do not have many friends, but also by people who have friends and contacts the answer may be more complex.

So what is loneliness and who suffers from it?

If you have social phobia you tend to avoid other people.

You fear their criticism or rejection. You feel awkward in social situations so you avoid them. You create a life with very few contacts and eventually become more and more isolated and lonely.

If you suffer from depression you may have a tendency to isolate yourself because you feel bad. You find it hard to relate to other people and it drains you to be in social situations. Just making a phone call can be exhausting and you want to avoid it.

If you have experienced disappointment and let downs from other people you might find it difficult to trust and open up. You eventually shut others out and live your life alone. 

If you have experienced losing someone or you have moved many times in your life you might have difficulty forming a new bond. Or if in childhood you were abandoned or have experienced a death in the family you might feel uncertain about depending on someone else. Being alone can seem easier. This way you do not run the risk of losing someone, being abandoned or going through the same pain again.

Another factor in feelings of loneliness is low self-esteem and self-criticism. If you do not feel good about yourself it can be difficult to make contacts. If you do not feel worthwhile you might doubt that someone wants to be with you. Relating to friends you are passive and wait for them to contact you. Thus friendships slip away and you blame yourself for ending up being alone.

If you have many friends but still feel lonely the cause of your loneliness is not lack of contact but might rather be lack of intimacy. If you do not open up and share your inner feelings honestly you might feel lonely in the company of others. You keep the facade and no one knows you on a deeper level. The contact remains superficial and empty.

We all need contact with other people and we need face to face contact. Having any kind of face to face contact will be satisfying to us as human beings. Yet we need to have more than just superficial contacts. Having deep contact with others help us know ourselves and we feel connected. 

If you feel lonely you might  take a look at what keeps you from creating contacts and meeting people. And if you have friends but feel lonely when you are around them maybe ask yourself if you are really are opening up when you are together.