How to Address Your Inner Critic with Self-Compassion and Mindfulness
I don’t know about you, but I still tend to beat myself up pretty hard for the mistakes that I make. I’m definitely better than I used to be. My self-compassion practice is working, that’s for sure.
Back during my undergraduate, I would completely tear myself down for making a spelling mistake in an email. Yeah, I wasn’t kind to myself. Now, even a few of these blog posts have spelling errors and I’m truly okay with it. Not because I’ve gotten lazy or stopped caring about doing good work - but because mistakes happen and I’m no longer obsessed about being perfect.
There are moments, however, when I fall into the pit and can’t stop kicking myself long enough to realize that everything is okay.
Just like last Sunday evening.
A friend was over to watch a show with me. She and I were settled in on the couch with our tea and cookies and 15 minutes into the show, my phone rings. It’s another close friend, with whom I had made plans to call that Sunday evening ...which I totally forgot about until that moment.
To be honest, I didn’t think about what was happening. In the moment, I simply asked my friend who was over if she would mind if I picked up the phone and a 45 minute phone conversation later, I’m realizing how much time has gone by. The minute I put down the phone, I felt it. That awful - uh oh. I made a mistake. I felt how inconsiderate I was towards the friend that was already over. And an immediate thought about how I could have handled it better, just if I had stopped a thought for a few seconds about what was happening. I could have caught it.
I apologized and acknowledged what I had done right away. Owning my mistakes usually lessens my desire to go after myself emotionally; I can tell myself right away - you owned up to it, you did the right thing.
But this is a friend who means so much to me. Her friendship is so central to my life. The fear of losing any level of friendship with her is devastating. So while you may think that my transgression was not life-altering, the fear of the consequences do feel that way.
And this fear pushes me to lose perspective. And now I’m full on emotionally beating myself up. So hard and so loudly, that I don’t even hear or feel my friend’s kind understanding.
No matter how much I try to tell myself “You’ve done the next best thing, you acknowledge your mistake, you apologized from it, you will learn from it,” my critical voice is much stronger - “You’re so stupid, this could have so easily been avoided, there were 598 ways you could have done things better, you are an awful friend, you ruined your relationship with your friend.”
Which then means I am apologizing to my friend over and over and over again. And ignoring anything she is saying because I’m too focused on the emotional punches my inner critic is throwing. So then another fear adds on top - what if they weren’t angry before but are now angry because I keep apologizing and that must be annoying them?
Vicious cycle of fear and reaction to that fear.
Fortunately, my friend was the type to help me get up and make my inner critic back down. But, unfortunately, this is not always the case. Other people might take advantage of you while you are down due to your own inner critic.
So learning the skill of self-compassion helps in so many ways - it protects you from being taken advantage of, it helps you take in compassion others give you, it helps you feel more compassion for others, and it helps you retain perspective when you do mess up (like we all do at some point or another).
Self-compassion for me begins with regaining perspective. I ask myself questions to help me get back to reality:
Did I take responsibility for my actions?
Did I meaningfully apologize? I.e. did I just say “sorry”, or did I say “I’m sorry for…I wish I had done <this >instead.”
What did I learn from this experience?
Am I committed to growing as a person from this experience?
Can I picture and experience the idea of me forgiving myself? Then try to experience what forgiving myself feels like.
Can I recall the words that the other person said after my apology? What were they? If they were kind and understanding, did I believe them? Did I take in the words or ignore them?
Have I done everything I can to correct my mistake?
Remind myself that making mistakes is not the abnormal thing in life. It is the normal way of life.
In situations like these, regaining perspective will feel like a fever has finally broken. I am then present enough to do some compassionate practices like sending myself kind and understanding thoughts:
“Wow, that was scary, I understand how afraid you are of losing that friendship. It’s understandable that you would react that way. Here’s a warm, reassuring hug for you. You are loved. You can love yourself, it is normal to not be perfect. Let’s curate some loving-kindness right now.”
I gotta tell you. That meditation never gets old.
Then, whenever I’m ready, I like to watch a video or read an article on self-compassion to help me solidify this process. Here’s a short six minute one that reminds me the components of self-compassion and how important it is to our lives. Which then reminds me that it is not selfish or a luxury to practice self-compassion - it is a fundamental element of life.
So when you are being hard on yourself, try the perspective question and kind self-talk, it’s not only good for you. It’s good for humanity.
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