THE INTERNAL CRITICIAN AND HOW TO HANDLE IT

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In general, in popular psychology, it is customary to scold the Inner Critic. I myself from time to time write something abusive about him, I am sinful. And that is to say, he sits in his brain and whines, with varying degrees of awareness and persistence: "You are an asshole. You won't succeed. You're screwing up again. Look, don't make a mistake!" It's clear what the results are, right? Only the one who does nothing is guaranteed not to be mistaken, and voila: at the limit, a person stops doing anything at all. So as not to be mistaken, but of course

It is with this psychological education that people often have problems with starting any new business: how to start if you demand guarantees of success from yourself? The future cannot be predicted 100%, and future success is always only a probability, not a given. People who have an overdeveloped internal, sometimes unconscious, self-exactingness often persuade themselves and those around them: "Now, if I took it up, I would wow! I would have achieved such success! I could have done much better than these who make a dude. " The problem is precisely that "these here" - they do, and such a person, criticizing others, does nothing himself - or, in any case, much less than he could.

When the Inner Critic is not so total, but is still under weak control of consciousness, this translates into problems with the completion of any projects. There is already enough resources to start something new, but as soon as the matter is nearing completion, and thereby giving yourself an internal assessment, a plug arises. All the time it seems that it is still not good enough, it still needs to be finalized, supplemented, corrected, and finally embrace the immense so that the mosquito does not undermine the nose! Pareto's Law says that the first 20% of efforts provide 80% of the result, but for people who have succumbed to the unconscious influence of the Inner Critic, the last 20% of the result is never achieved at all. Projects are simply not completed, or their completion is fraught with such enormous efforts and internal dissatisfaction with oneself that this further leads to an escalation of problems with productive activities.

From what has been said, it is clear why the Inner Critic is so disliked. However, paradoxically, initially this psychological structure is formed in order to bring good to a person: it is he, the Inner Critic, who ensures our ability to adequately interact with society, and by and large all that he wants is for us to be successful in society. It would seem that the goal is something worthy? As often happens in psychology, a worthy goal, realized without the control of consciousness, turns into its opposite: I wanted the best, but it turned out as always - this is about him, about the unconscious action of the Inner Critic.

Remember how animals are trained. What does a trainer do to teach a dog to jump over a high bar? He sets the lowest bar of all, and every time he gives the dog something tasty when she manages to jump over it. At first, this happens almost by accident, the dog is easy, and even tasty is given, and she jumps happily. Gradually the trainer raises the bar, and each time positively reinforces, speaking in psychological terms. And it would never even occur to any trainer to set the bar to the maximum height, and each time give the poor animal a pendel when it hasn’t jumped to it … dogs, so that she bites you. In this situation, she will definitely not jump anywhere, nafig such a pastime surrendered to her.

Man is the king of beasts; however, this does not prevent him from treating himself at times worse than the dog. In an effort to take the highest bar, he does what he does not do with himself: he scolds, and distributes pendels, and frightens with bad consequences … The dog would have gone crazy long ago and had a bite of everyone, but the person is only surprised: that my life is getting harder and harder ? Do you want to jump over the bar less and less? And it increases the strength of the pendels, until it folds its head in the fight against itself.

What to do?

1. Introduce positive reinforcement, cancel pendels

2. Consciously control the height of the plank. She must be:

a) achievable;

b) easily achievable.

Anything above "easily achievable" is a reason for congratulating yourself on your success and positive reinforcement.

If the "easily achievable" bar is not taken, this is an excuse to adjust your ideas about the easily achievable, and to encourage that, they say, I will gradually learn. Do not scold yourself under any circumstances, it is harmful and unconstructive, see paragraph 1.

3. Extend the limit of horror

If setting the bar at an easily achievable height for yourself is horrifying: "Aaaaa! This is not enough for!" - to analyze how dangerous it is. Well, not enough. So what? Specifically. What will I do then, point by point.

4. Borrow the energy of the Inner Critic

Ideally, the Inner Critic should be re-educated into the Inner Caregiver. Since he wants good for you, let him want him ecologically competently, under the control of consciousness. It makes sense to talk to him - what does he want? What is its ultimate goal? How could he help you achieve it more consciously? Where does it make sense for him to direct his energy?

When studying oneself and one's reactions, a person is often faced with the fact that any activity is felt as "impermissible", despite the fact that it is logically understandable that it is necessary. This often happens with aggressive impulses - and, as you know, the minimum quantum of aggression is the statement "I exist!" - that is, as an example, the answers are "yes" or "no" instead of "I do not know". And if you need to say not just "I exist!", But also evaluate this fact positively (for which, obviously, you will need to evaluate yourself positively) - there often comes a complete total stupor, not always even conscious.

Consider an example of praise. Often people praise themselves, figuratively speaking, the language does not turn. The Inner Critic rages on the inside and yells: "You don't have to lie, you are not like that" - why, instead of praising yourself, you want to sprinkle ashes on yourself and kill yourself with your head against the wall, i.e. there is, on the contrary, autoaggression.

In this case, first you just need to logically figure out, analyze what is happening:

1. It is unlikely that the ideal goal of the Inner Critic is for a person to kill his head against a wall. This, takt, "stock for a rainy day", if it does not work out that a person does what he wants. What is the positive intention behind his activity? What exactly does VK want you to be better?

2. Moreover, on this path, the Inner Critic also wants to protect a person from something terrible, which is worse for him than death. What is this horror-worse-death? What terrible thing can happen if you praise yourself? Why is it dangerous to do this? What is VK trying to protect against in this way? (Most often, either condemnation of society or passivity appears here.)

3. Is this horror-worse-death always really that terrible, even in small quantities and under any circumstances? Or is VK yelling preemptively, despite the fact that in moderation it may be perfectly acceptable? (A fraction of the condemnation of society in the person of Princess Marya Ivanovna is quite acceptable: we are not dollars to please everyone, and in our time, not everyone likes dollars.)

Is it even useful? (Periodic inactivity allows you to rest, without which fruitful work is generally impossible.)

4. As a result of the analysis, it turns out that VK totally prohibits activities (in our example, praise yourself) in order to protect against total horror - worse - death. But an ordinary person is able to completely consciously protect himself from the total condemnation of society, or there total passivity - this he himself does not want. And small doses of horror-worse-death, as it turns out, are not horror at all. It turns out that VK looks like a forgotten sentry: selflessly (totally and unconsciously) protects from what we are able to protect ourselves from quite consciously, taking into account the nuances of the situation. It's time to tell him about this, and remove him from this post.

5. And so that he is not bored, since he is accustomed to following something, let him monitor the fulfillment of his positive intention. Those. observes the height of the bar, positive reinforcement, keeps track of success and praises for the slightest achievement

6. It is clear that he will not succeed right away. Reeducation is not a quick matter, there are occasional breakdowns and kickbacks. This is fine. And here it is important not to turn into an inner critic of the Inner Critic: do you already know what a positive intention lies at its basis, and what seems to him horror-worse-death?

Just every time he starts up inside, tactfully remind him that you have taken the protection from horrors under conscious control, and the way he will engage in positive reinforcement of his positive intention.