Welcome to IVF This, Episode 115- The Inner Critic

Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends. I hope you are all doing so, so well today. 

I want to share a little bit about what’s been going on for me, personally, and why it drove me to write this episode.

So, you’ve may or may not have heard me talk about how I have ADHD. I was diagnoses when I was 20 or 21. It was actually what’s called an incidental finding, it wasn’t something that anyone was looking for. Around that time, I was working at a neuropsychologist’s office that specialized in psychological testing.  I was finishing up my bachelor’s in Social Work and I was also doing an internship at that time as well. But, while working at this testing center, I was asked if I wanted to be a testing administrator and I agreed. So, I went through a pretty generic battery of testing so I could familiarize myself with how the tests went. 

When I finished the testing, the neuropsychologist evaluated me and kind of casually said, “Hey did you know you have ADD (at the time is was called ADD)?” He also found that I have a non-verbal processing disorder around special reasoning and if that sounded like a made up thing, all it means is that I can’t really think about or manipulate objects in my mind in like a 3 dimensional way. But since I am not an engineer, architect, or a professional musician that reads sheet music- that one wasn’t anything that has really affected me. But the ADD, now ADHD- wow! When I looked back on that, it has been CLEAR as day since grade school for me. So I got some resources and I was really able to develop strong, what’s called, compensatory strategies or systems to help me be successful without needing medication or therapy for that specifically. 

Well, a little known fact about ADHD in women is that it is impacted greatly by hormones. So it would be more difficult to manage my ADHD during my period and stuff like that. It can also be very challenging post-partum.  

So, with each of our children my ADHD has gotten a little bit more challenging to manage. Culminating with this most recent post partum, that littlest is one year old now. So I just turned 39 and it has been a herculean effort to do a lot of things that were nearly effortless in the past. 

So, I have to go through another battery of testing, because I cannot locate my original tests in order for my dr to prescribe me a stimulant medication. I have tried non-stimulant and there’s just no improvement so here we are. 

Now, why am I telling you all all of this? Great question, I’m so glad you asked. Because over the past few years, I have thought that maybe I also had some depression. Clinical depression. And as I am learning more and more about myself, that depression is likely the result of my ADHD running amuck and being untreated for many years after I would have been considered needing a clinical intervention; especially over the past like 18-24 months. So, when I do not stick to a pretty strict routine of exercise, mindfulness which for me is usually some form of journaling, and some other things, then my depression will kind of get into the drivers seat and we have to kind of slog our way back. And this has happened pretty much every month, with the ebb and flow of my hormones. 

And so this is where the inner critic comes in. When I am not sticking to my routine, and that depression kicks in, the volume on my inner critic turns up full blast. 

So I think one of the interesting things I’ve noticed about podcasting and about being a coach and talking to a lot of IVF’ers is that, when I get on the phone with people or they meet me for the first time, or even sometimes I think after we’ve been coaching for a while, they tend to think that maybe I’m not human or something. Like, I don’t have feelings or I’m at a point where I’m beyond negative emotion or, I don’t know, they kind of tend to put me on a pedestal a little bit. 

And I just want to assure you, that is not true. It is not what coaching is about either. I still have all the same humanness that everybody else does. What coaching does is it just helps you navigate your messy humanness better and helps you navigate all of those emotions better. It doesn’t take them away. It doesn’t make you a robot and it doesn’t make me somehow immune to being nervous or uncomfortable. I feel all those things too. The difference is now I just know how to deal with them. I know what to do with those emotions when they show up in my life and how to coach myself. 

Which is what lead me to write this episode. The last year or so, I’ve really been focusing on how to manage my inner critic and so I want to share what I’ve learned with you all. 

I have basically three things that I want to teach you about dealing with an inner critic. I love teaching you things in three because I think three is easy to remember. So, we’re going to go with three again. 

So, the thing about an inner critic, first, is that most of us aren’t aware that our inner critic isn’t us. And that’s really problematic. We just tend to believe the things that our inner critic says to us. It’s been yapping at us for so long that we don’t know often that what it says isn’t true. We hear the insults and the limitations and the jabs and the, “You should have done it better. You should have done it differently. You’ll never be able to do it. who do you think you are? I told you so. What makes you think this time would be different?” 

Those kinds of things, anything that sounds critical, anything that you wouldn’t say to a friend, when we hear those things and we just think they’re true, we just think we’re making observations about who we are, that’s when the inner critic is so problematic because, when we think it’s us, we can’t distinguish what it offers us versus what we could believe about ourselves. 

So, the first thing you need to know about how to deal with an inner critic is that you need to become aware that you have one. You need to be able to understand the voice that that inner critic speaks in and how it is different from how you speak, right? 

And most of us have a version of that critical inner voice. And who even knows where it came from? It doesn’t even matter, honestly. We could spend a lot of time talking about why it’s there and what happened in your past and all of that. But I think it’s so much less relevant and less useful for you in the moment than just noticing that you have one. 

Sometimes you will hear me refer to this inner critic as the “Drunken asshole” in your brain. I also really like the idea of thinking of our inner critic like a roommate, which is a concept I learned from Michael Singer, and he wrote a book called The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself. I just loved this book. I Audibled it and I’m going to listen to it multiple times. I just loved it. 

But one of the things he says in that book – and I’m going to quote him – he says, “There’s nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind. You are the one who hears it.” I want you to think about that. I’m going to read it again. “There’s nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind. You are the one who hears it.” 

So, what he’s saying there is that the you that is you, the you-est of you, the true you, the you that isn’t your body, the you that isn’t your brain, the you that isn’t your mind, the essence of you, the you that exists after death, whatever your beliefs are, that is you. But then there’s the mind and the voice of the mind. And that is not you. That is words. That is patterns. That is habits. That is neural pathways. That is unconscious thinking. That is who knows where it came from and a whole lot of often not-usefulness put on repeat in our brain, which if we don’t question, we think is us. 

But it is not. You are not the voice of the mind. You are the one who hears it. And what he also teaches is to kind of consider that inner voice like a roommate, which I love. It’s like a roommate that you can’t actually kick out of your brain. It’s a roommate that you can’t actually kick out of your house. It’s just there. 

And so, if you can just decide that you have this roommate and it’s not a problem for the roommate to be there and you can recognize when it’s the roommate talking versus when it’s you, you will have created awareness of your inner critic and you will be able to separate the you that is you from that critical voice, and that is the first step. That is awareness. 

For me this usually comes in the form of, “you’re so lazy.” Or “You’re never going to be able to do what you want to do with your business.” “You’re always yelling at the kids; you’re such a terrible mom.” “You haven’t lost enough of the IVF/baby weight.” 

And these are just the inner critic’s feedback now. The thoughts have morphed and changed over time, depending on what’s been going on in my life, so it took me a LONG time to understand that awareness piece. 

Sometimes, a question that I get related to this is, “How do I tell the difference between an inner critic and my inner wisdom? What if the part of me that is wise is the same as the part of me that is the critic? Is there a difference? How do I tell?” 

And so, what I want to offer to you is that yes, there absolutely is a difference between your inner critic and your inner wisdom. An inner critic will sound urgent to you. The volume will be louder. It will sound more shrill, punitive, seeped in disdain. 

It’s different for different people. Sometimes people actually do hear a voice in their head. That doesn’t mean you’re crazy, but some people’s inner narrative actually sounds like a voice, and some people don’t have it sound like a voice, it’s more like a thought. 

But regardless, the volume and the urgency of an inner critic will be louder, faster, more pressing. It will seem more serious. It will kind of speak in a way that demands your attention and is harsh, versus inner wisdom, which is slow and soft and calm. 

So, again, first we need to develop our awareness. We need to understand that the critical voice, all of those kind of nasty judgments, things we would never say to other people but yet we hear them in our own mind, we need to become aware that that isn’t who we are. That’s just a voice in our head. That is our inner critic, our roommate. And there is a difference between our inner critic and our inner wisdom. 

And then secondly, I think it’s super useful to, instead of going to war with your inner critic, instead of developing an adversarial relationship with it, to assume positive intent from your inner critic, to kind of meet it with compassion and meet it with curiosity in a voice that sounds like, “What’s going on? What’s bothering you?” Like you would talk to a small child. 

If you see a small child throwing a tantrum, upset about something, you would probably ask them what’s going on so that you could better understand. You wouldn’t shut them out or be mean to them. You would just be curious. You would be compassionate. You would be interested. 

And I think that’s so much more useful to respond to an inner critic with compassion and the assumption that it is attempting in some way to keep us safe. It has a positive intent. 

Maybe it is just part of your past experience that associates a particular risk with rejection and it’s trying to prevent you from taking risks so that you don’t feel rejected again. It’s trying to prevent you from setting that new goal so that you won’t be disappointed. And it comes across in a very critical manner. 

Maybe it’s the voice of someone in your life. I almost titled this episode, “Your Inner Mean Girl,” but I decided against that because, for many of you, the inner critic doesn’t necessarily sound like a female. It can sound like a male. 

Maybe it’s the voice of your father. Maybe it’s your grandfather. Maybe it’s a teacher. Maybe it’s your mother. I don’t know. But I want you to think about what is this voice, assume that it intends positive intent, that it’s trying to keep you safe. And give it, so that you can recognize it, a little bit of a character. Like, what is it like? Who is it? That will help you recognize it. you can even name it if you like. 

For me, it’s a mash-up of a few different people. Not like I can tell the difference, if that’s this person, or that’s that person. But like two are elementary teachers that I had in 4th and 5th grade. I think they decided, early on, that I was difficult and so they responded accordingly. Another is an old soccer coach that I had, that was like an early iteration of Jillian Michaels and would often just yell at me and say, objectively awful things to a child. Anyway, I want you to see that it’s not necessarily just one thing, or one person- it’s very often a mashup. 

But I try to meet this mash-up, I’ve affectionately named him Stanley. Stanley was a patient I met in an ER I was working in, at the very start of my social work career. He was very well intentioned, but he had ZERO filter. Like if he thought it, he said it- zero gangway, no self-editing mechanism whatsoever. He was this little old, rumpled guy with a bald head and I remember him wearing a blue button up, short-sleeved shirt- I have no clue if this is how he really looked, but it makes me chuckle when I think of him. 

And I can just picture what my inner critic looks like.  And it’s so valuable to do something like that because it helps you in the moment go, “Oh, that’s just Stanley...” or whatever. “We love Stanley, right? That’s just what Stanley does. He sits on the couch and smokes cigarettes and tells me that I’m messing up my life. It’s fine. He’s just trying to keep me safe. She just thinks that his way is the right way and that if would just follow his instructions...” It’s like a well-intentioned uncle, you know. 

So, become aware, notice the difference between your inner critic, your inner wisdom, decide to assume that your inner critic means well, and meet it with compassion instead of developing an adversarial relationship with it. and if it’s helpful to you, give it a character. What is it like? Consider giving it a name so that when it shows up in your head, you recognize it as not you. 

And then thirdly, once you notice your inner critic, I want you to make a conscious choice of how you want to respond. I want you to not limit your possibility, your beliefs, your thoughts, your dreams, your goals by what your inner critic tells you that you can and can’t do. I want you to make a conscious choice. 

You don’t have to have the inner critic leave your mind. The roommate doesn’t have to leave the house. You can actually take it with you wherever you do. You can imagine, it’s like in the car with you, it’s along for the ride, but we’re just not going to let it drive. 

We’re going to take the keys back and we’re going to drive our own car, our own life. We’re going to make our own decisions consciously. And so, that dialogue with your inner critic might sound something like, “Okay, I hear you, you’re trying to keep me safe. There’s a part of you that thinks that what I’m about to do is a very bad idea. I know you just don’t want me to be hurt. But it’s okay, I’ve got this. I’m going to do it this way. We’re going to be alright. Don’t worry. It’s fine.” 

You can peacefully coexist with your inner critic, that roommate. You can let it be there and you can still not let it interfere with your life. It doesn’t have to hold you back. It doesn’t have to define any decisions that you make. It doesn’t have to steer you in any direction. It doesn’t have to limit you in any direction. You’re the driver of this life and you get to make your choices and you don’t have to listen to that inner critic. 

So, in summary, awareness, notice that it is not you. The voice in your mind is not you. Your inner critic is harsh and loud. Your inner wisdom is soft and gentle. When you notice your inner critic, assume positive intent meet it with compassion. And then once you notice that your inner critic is there, just make a conscious choice of how you want to respond. You get to drive the car, alright? 

Ok, that is what I have for you today. 

I do have some really exciting things coming up in June. I’m going to be launching another round of my group coaching program. It will start mid-June, small, intimate group setting. I’m capping the group at 5, but if there’s enough demand, we can have more than one cohort. 

So if you’ve been listening for a while and just haven’t been sure about working with me, this is your chance to get all of this goodness, at a fraction of the cost of my one on one program. 

So go to my website, www.ivfthiscoaching.com and get on my email list because that is where all of the details for the group coaching will come from. 

Ok, that’s what I’ve got for you! Have a wonderful week, and I’ll talk to you soon.