So often when the Critic speaks to us it is as though a sin has been committed, a crime has been perpetrated, or a dark and evil deed has been done. The Critic does not simply give opinions or express feelings about things. Its statements become a judgment from heaven above.
When the Inner Critic speaks to us, it does so in a particular way. It makes pronouncements. It does not simply give opinions or express feelings about things. It makes absolute pronouncements. It sounds as though a voice from the heavens is handing down absolute truths to us—something like the Ten Commandments. This ability to make itself sound like absolute truth is one of the reasons that the Critic is so difficult to deal with. The major problem in dealing with the Critic is, of course, the fact that most of us do not have the foggiest notion that it is speaking to us. Even when we are aware of its voice, we usually have no separation from it because it sounds like it has the truth of heaven behind it.
For example, let us go back to the peanut butter party that we spoke about in chapter 1. The Critic says to our midnight snacker, “You are a slob. You do not have an ounce of control and you never will.” If the snacker happens to be in the field of health and healing, the Critic might add, “And you are supposed to be helping people? I cannot believe you!” The fundamental doctrine that is being advanced by the Critic is as follows:
1. You have no business eating at night.
2. You should have perfect control at all times.
3. Normal people would not do this.
4. A health care professional, in particular, should have more control.
5. Problems of any kind are bad.
A sin has been committed. A crime has been perpetrated. A dark and evil deed has been done. The effect of this kind of statement is profound. You feel like a slob. You become a slob. You feel out of control. It does not matter that you have control in a hundred other areas. It does not matter that you have clear boundaries at work or in many of your relationships. It does not matter that you did not eat the peanut butter and jelly sandwich the night before. You become the slob and the out-of-control person that your Critic says you are. Its comments become a kind of judgment from heaven above.
For women, this judgment often has to do with their sexual attractiveness. Marie awakens in the morning, looks in the mirror, sees her body, and in particular her breasts, and she feels a sense of profound negativity about them. She believes that they are too small. Her Inner Critic, for that of course is who the culprit is, compares her breasts constantly to other women, and in every case her breasts are found inferior. The conclusion that her Critic reaches is that she will never be truly attractive to a man.
Using the Voice Dialogue method, we have a conversation with her Inner Critic because we want to help Marie to hear this voice and to begin separating from it. We ask Marie to move over to the place where the Inner Critic is sitting, and, as we described in the previous chapter, we begin to talk to the Critic directly.
FACILITATOR: It seems that you have some very negative feelings about Marie’s body.
INNER CRITIC: Well, quite frankly, I think she has a terrible body.
FACILITATOR: Could you tell me what you don’t like?
INNER CRITIC: Well, quite frankly, I don’t like anything about her body. She’s much too thin. HER FRAME IS WRONG! She just has a wrong frame. Nothing fits together properly.
FACILITATOR: She mentioned being very sensitive about her breasts. I assume that it is you who criticizes them.
INNER CRITIC: Well, like I told you, she has a wrong frame. The rest follows. Nothing works. Her breasts are terrible because they’re too small! They sag! Just look at her. Anyone can see that. Just look at her. It’s obvious to anyone who looks at her. Can’t you tell?
FACILITATOR: Not really. She looks fine to me, but then I’m not her Critic. That’s your job.
CRITIC: WELL, YOU SHOULD SEE HER NAKED! (A favorite expression of the Critic.) THEN YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND! (Pronouncement complete.)
It is not just the words that matter when the Inner Critic speaks. It is the quality of energy behind these words. This is why we have capitalized a few of these comments. So powerful are these statements and so deeply into the psyche do they go that Marie experiences herself as having a wrong frame whenever she looks in the mirror. When she goes shopping she will have a terrible time because she has a frame that is all wrong and there is nothing she can try on that will work for her. Her Critic has spoken!
So powerful are these kinds of judgments that many people we know have literally stopped looking in mirrors because what they saw was simply too unattractive for them to tolerate. It is as though they are wearing Inner Critic glasses and everything about themselves is seen through these lenses. A piece of the shattered glass of our hobgoblin’s mirror (described in chapter 1) has penetrated the eyes of our poor victim, and everything about her looks terrible. Often when we try to help people separate from the Critic, someone will say to us, “But it’s true, what the Critic says is true, my breasts really are too small!” The absolute truth is known. The Critic has spoken. So for the rest of her life, Marie walks around with a sense of total inadequacy about her body.
What is particularly amazing is that these pronouncements have little to do with objective reality. A hundred people could tell Marie that her body is lovely and really mean it. The Critic will have none of this, and it is this critical perspective that will prevail so long as Marie has not separated from these internal judgments.
The judgments of the Critic about our moral imperfections can be even more devastating. When the Inner Critic tells us that we should be ashamed of ourselves—our actions, thoughts, or impulses—and its comments are backed up with that sound of absolute authority, we cringe. We just know that we cannot defend ourselves and we are deeply shamed.
When we consider issues of low self-esteem and shame, we generally try to understand where they came from. This understanding of the past is certainly essential work for our personal growth. We can, however, also deal with the present. We can become aware of the fact that the Inner Critic is operating inside of us right now! We can begin to see how much of our low self-esteem and sense of shame and depression is a function of this Critic who has learned from so many different sources how to do its job.
What a boon to our personal growth it would be to recognize this critical voice as a voice, nothing more and nothing less, and to be able to deal with it in an objective way! The ability to separate from the Inner Critic and no longer be dominated by its negative injunctions will result in a major shift in one’s sense of self-esteem and self-worth. Can there be a better motivation for doing this work?
When you hear and read about the voice of the Inner Critic a hundred times, a thousand times, then you begin to get some perspective on this matter. The job of the Inner Critic is to criticize. The more we are victims of its absolute judgments, the more power it gets. The size of the breast is really not an objective issue. If you separate from the Critic and decide your breasts are fine, then it will point out that something is wrong with the way you raise your children. It will tell you that you are too selfish or too giving. It will tell you that you are a bad father or husband or wife or mother. It will let you know that you are not really a good friend. The Critic does not care about your breasts. It cares about criticizing. Criticism is its lifeblood. In Voice Dialogue conversations it will often say to the facilitator, “But what could I possibly do if I did not criticize him?”
If we were going to express this as a kind of universal principle, it would go something like this. The sense of authority, purpose, and meaning that we lack in our own lives is often carried by the Inner Critic. The lack of awareness that we have of our different selves, and in particular the Inner Critic, provides a playground and feeding lot on which the Inner Critic can develop and grow into the heavenly emissary it has become within most of us.
As you read this, you are already learning to separate from the Inner Critic and learning to handle it so that you are no longer under its domination. In the course of your personal development, as you take back the authority and purpose of your life that is rightfully yours, you develop a capacity for awareness that is decisively greater than the original power of the Critic. With this new power and authority available to you, you have the possibility of redeeming the Inner Critic so that it can begin to function in a very different way in your life, a way that supports who and what you are. The realization that your Inner Critic is not a heavenly emissary speaking absolute truths is a great step forward in taking back this power.