Dear Critic,
We are just merely having some bad moments!
Even just asking this question sheds light on the way in which we expect unreasonable things from ourselves. Lately I’ve been coming across articles on our “Critic”, the part of our self in evolution created for “self check”. It is there for the purpose of alerting us to behaviors that might need adjusting. But more times that not it serves as a berating and spiteful part of our self talk that causes shame, disparity, punishing self behaviors and low self esteem.
I experienced this very thing myself today with heightened awareness and extreme discomfort. The last couple days I had been dealing with a lot of “moving away from” transitions, which has never been a strength of mine and giving voice to the Critic on that has not been a picnic! But I was processing. Then unrelated this morning I needed to interact with someone from my past and right out of the gate an all too familiar dialogue was coming at me. It immediately reminded me of the deep vulnerability, anger and sadness I lived in previously and prolonged a long time ago. It switched me back into “sparing survival mode” to protect myself from the hissing sound of the gaslight and the need to protect myself and show my teeth. I was surprisingly immediately destabilized.
I thought I had shaken it off to start my day and get to working because after all the Critic told me it was ridiculous to still have that be a button that gets pushed, and haven’t I learned anything? With that might have even come a side bar from the Critic of, “Why do you have to struggle so much when others have it so easy? Don’t you see how everyone is living a better life? Just look at Instagram!”
Because my Critic was egging me on to push through like the champ that may or may not have won the sparing match, I went to deal with all at my desk. In my state of rattle I made a terrible error on an email. I included someone by hitting “reply all” that was not to be included, and detrimental if so. Normally I am right on top of handling all in the proper way. Well.. as if I wasn’t feeling bad enough… The Critic entered its hay day! “You STUPID unglued, sad sack of crap, how could you walk through life like this. You F**cked everything up.. it will never be the same.. period! Don’t you know what everyone thinks of you now? You are a life long F**k up.” Whoa!! Loud and clear! I decided to first apologize to those involved – then let everyone know that I needed to sign off for a bit, that I had been emotionally triggered just before and regretted not taking the time I needed before jumping into another task.
I went outside – put my bare feet in the grass, tried to breath and the dialogue continued with my Critic, “Darc.. come on… this one you have to give to me – you royally messed up. This is all mine now!” That’s when I posed the question, “Is it okay to give into the bad day so far and somehow find comfort?!” “Doesn’t this happen to others?” Why is it not okay with our Critic or perhaps our society to have messed up, have a bad day, be emotionally destabilized as we work through the possible whys or to just acknowledge and accept that feeling sad and mad is happening and ok. Had I felt that acceptance and compassion, I would have recognized that I needed to straighten myself out before taking on the next task.
We hopefully try to teach our children to identify what they are feeling and to be okay with it in the moment, but to then be aware of our actions in response to those feelings. This is how we teach and build emotional intelligence, self-compassion, empathy and growth. But is it possible that we struggle with this life long because our in place Critic won’t allow it!? It has been scientifically proven that negative thoughts and emotions are “larger” and have more power in the brain than do positive thoughts or emotions. That’s why it’s easier to be swept away in a downward spiral than an upward spiral.
In Positive Psychology we talk about balancing out the brain with a ratio of 3 positive thoughts/emotions to 1 negative, and that is part of how we find well being. 5 positive to 1 negative if in a relationship! That’s how hard we have to work at balancing the huge presents of the Critic and its gang of thugs.
This was a huge lesson today in handling self-awareness. The need to put duct tape over the mouth of the Critic while figuring out self generated sources of comfort around feeling bad. Not judging oneself by way of the Critic for feeling destabilized as the Critic rambles on that these feelings aren’t important because I’m not important, just as I was told earlier. What happens when no one is watching out for us? It comes time to knock out the Critic in the ring and pile it up with the rest of haters!
