Jasmin Lee Cori, M.S. - Author, Mind, Body & Spirit

“Idiot!”

Is this what you call yourself when you stumble or make a mistake?

My niece called herself an idiot last week when she made a small error cooking. When I commented on it, she assured me she would never call her children that. I believe her. Ann is a particularly giving woman and very conscientious as a parent. So how come she doesn’t extend that to herself? What gives?

The Inner Critic

As a psychotherapist I get to listen in on that voice chattering away in people’s heads, and although I work with very nice people, how they speak to themselves can make me cringe.

There are different names for the critical voice in our heads; the most common is Inner Critic. It’s always more complicated than a simple description, but let me explain one framework, which is that this critic is trying to protect you. It does so by trying to warn you about ways you should not be and push you to behave in acceptable ways. The problem is that this critic is really a young child operating by black-and-white rules. It’s like a terrified four-year-old desperately trying to keep you in line, warning you the world will end if you don’t do something just right. This steering system is overly clunky and the means of reinforcing the desired rules is also primitive. Mocking, ridiculing, threatening with extreme consequences are actually rather coarse influencing strategies.

Wouldn’t you like a kinder voice inside your head?

An Inner Ally

What if you think of this voice you want to cultivate as an Inner Ally? Whereas the Inner Critic is like someone who kicks you when you’re down, this Inner Ally is someone who helps pick you up.

It helps develop a nurturing inner voice if you have (or had) someone in your life who was especially kind and supportive. For me it began with “practicing” the response of a therapist I was working with at the time. An external resource is internalized. If you absolutely can’t think of someone to base this inner ally on, you can work with a fictional image or an archetype. Everyone has been exposed to images of a nurturing other.

Begin by imagining what an ally would say when you make a mistake.  Rather than “Idiot!” is would be more reassuring. Maybe something like “You did your best. It’s okay. You learned something.” With practice, this voice is there more and more of the time. I would say late in the process of integrating it, this voice feels indistinguishable from you.

This is a very brief introduction to nurturing self-talk. In my book, Healing from an Emotionally Absent Mother, I go into greater detail, using the framework of Critical Parent messages and Nurturing Parent messages with exercises.