[Issue #21] The Call Is Coming From Inside the House
A brief exploration of our inner critic and ways to disarm it
“In the inner courtroom of my mind, mine is the only judgment that counts.”
-Nathaniel Branden, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
Last week, we covered perfectionism. This week is a linking article slash essay on our inner critic - and perfectionism tends to up the ante when it comes to our inner chatter box. Our negative inner chatter box is likely a manifestation of our anxiety.
I can’t remember where I read it (racking my brain for a few days has me half-believing I read this message in Lucy Bellwood’s wonderful, humurous and honest little book entitled “100 Demon Dialogues” (check your local library for a copy or buy it, it’s totally worth it and will likely change how you think and speak to yourself), but I remember the message, which was something like this: would you want a three year old human riding shotgun all day inside your head? Or a chatty observer, always exclaiming that which you can readily see or surmise on your own, without your inner chatter box telling you a hundred things about what you’re seeing or doing?
I suffer from this, as my wife can (and often does) attest. As an example, let’s go to the grocery store.
I enter the store and immediately, the AC feels cool on my hot summer skin. My inner chatter box is already itching to tell me everything I don’t need to know, nor care about, and I wander, pulling out the shopping list to look over the items I need to grab. I walk, peruse, down the aisles and all my head is doing is overthinking everything, my inner voice going on and on, up and down the aisle. “Oh! Look at that, those cookies look great!” “Do I need to get hamburger buns?” “Hey, did you see that lady with the wild hair?” “Oh, look at this asshole, blocking the entire aisle with an empty cart!” “Why is it so busy in here?” “Someone lost a sock by the milk.” On and on it goes. And that’s just the grocery store. This happens all the time, all day long, every day we’re alive and well.
And this is just our inner voice, not our terrible inner critic.
As I meandered through the annals of the internet, skimming for research on the inner critical voice, I was underwhelmed with what came up. It’s a curious thing, our inner critic. We all have one and psychotherapy research likes to call the inner critic the judge. The judge we end up with in our adult lives is very much dependant upon our parents, external family systems, and the standards of high self-expectations pressed upon us as children.
We’ve briefly covered differing therapuetic modalities in the past and today we’ll dive into a particlar modality called parts therapy (or Internal Family Systems therapy).
What the hell is that, you ask?
Let’s go to a large holiday family gathering. Yes, with your family. Think about the people you don’t see or spend much time with within your extended family. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. For a moment, imagine everyone gathered at the appointed location, let’s say mom’s house.
As usual, uncle Bert decides to comment on the burned sweet potatoes and aunt Bertha responds with a smart-ass comment of her own, “You can’t even cook a potato in the microwave!” And off we go, the bickering begins, down, down, into the spiral that seems to accompany many large, familial holiday gatherings.
Our inner judge is one family member living inside our own internal mental system. Parts therapy work, or Internal Family Systems work, was developed by family therapist Richard Schwartz in the late 1990s after he began noticing similarities between external family systems of a patient and internal systems of the same patient. The way our holiday dinners go, or rather, how we feel when we’re in them, is a strong indicator of the inner turmoil and violent voice telling us we aren’t good enough.
The graphic below illustrates the differing parts of our internal family system: the Exiles, the Managers, and the Firefighters, which all revolve around the core identity of Self:
I’ve had the experience (and luxury) of going through a therapeutic intervention involving parts work. I worked with a therapist using parts work late last year and as I began researching inner-criticism and self-doubt, the work of Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Ethan Kross, an experimental psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Michigan, founder of the Emotion & Self Control Lab, and author of the badass and incredibly well written book, “Chatter” (which I highly recommend grabbing from the library (or Amazon) and sinking in if you’re looking for more information on the inner critic) came up time and time again.
In his book “Chatter,” Dr. Kross explores the origin and neccessity of the voice inside our heads, the voice we all seem to struggle with at some point. Dr. Kross tells the true story of a woman who suffered a stroke when a blood vessel popped in her brain, leaving her without her inner voice, and alleviating her of the negative verbal river constantly flowing up and down her neurons, or what Dr. Kross calls chatter.
Dr. Kross then explains that, without our inner chatter, we would be like ships flailing in rough seas, hoping for a safe place to anchor down. That is to say, we wouldn’t be us. Our identitites seem hard wired into this voice in our heads, so much so, that it yammers on and on about 6 hours every day. And it yammers in our dreams, too (which are being studied in relation to self-identity and our inner voice, with research beginning to suggest that our dreams are much more than our ego attempting to make sense of things), helping us navigate our day-to-day lives.
Because we can’t truly escape our inner voice, it’s imperative to learn to work with it rather than continuing to shove against it. We need that voice in our heads - but we need it to be a positive flow of information, not a negative one, and not one that never shuts up while doing actitives (like going to the grocery store). Why is a positive inner voice so important?
Our own inner voice is our inner coach. It’s our cheerleader. Our therapist. Our friend. It’s where our larger Self resides.
But, if you suffer from mental health struggles like PTSD, that inner voice has a tendency to be highly negative, shamelessly shaming, and hyper-critical, deteriorating the positive identity of the Self, turning it into something sinister.
Developing a more positive inner voice is critical to disarming it becuse, it turns out, we can’t outrun ourselves. We’re stuck with ourselves and our thoughts. Our thoughts inform our interior experiences, which then inform our external behaviors. Those thoughts stem from, you guessed it, that inner fucking voice.
This is why stupid sayings like “have an attitude of gratitude” and “think positive!” exist (and exactly why they’re so god damn irritating (because they’re true, to a degree)). In “Chatter”, Dr. Kross writes:
“A study published in 2010 drives home this point. The scientists found that inner experiences consistently dwarf outer ones. What participants were thinking about turned out to be a better predictor of their happiness than what they were actually doing. This speaks to a sour experience many people have had: You’re in a situation in which you should be happy (spending time with friends, say, or celebrating an accomplishment), but a ruminative thought swallows your mind. Your mood is defined not by what you did but by what you thought about.”
And because I was curious, I looked up and found the study Dr. Kross references, “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind,” confirming Dr. Kross’s claim.
Since we know that our inner voice is critical to our identitiy, and we can’t get away from it, how can we turn a negative chatter box into a more positive, helpful friend?
Research suggests using a skill called self-distancing (not to be confused with “social-distancing”) during times of emotional upheaval, crisis, or trigger response is a crucial first step to disarming the spiral of the negative voice. This suggestion argues against the long-touted antidote of the negative inner voice: personal introspection and curiousity.
While personal introspection and curiosity are wonderful and fundamental tools guarding against the erosion of Self, these are tools best used after emergency application of other tools - such as becoming an observer of the event, your thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. Not only does observing from a distance disarm the shame that bubbles beneath the voice in our heads, but it allows us those few precious seconds to see the whole thing more clearly, like an out-of-body-experience. If we are able to self-distance in this way, especially during crisis or trigger response, we are more likely to empower, embolden, and embrace the Self within us.
What are some other ways to begin to positively engage with our inner voice? Using your own name when in self-conversation is a way to disengage from the thoughts linking us to an event because it forces us into a mode of self-empathy and compassion.
Along with using your own name in self-talk, chatting with yourself the way you would a good friend is another way of re-building the relationship with the Self.
And doing a mindful practice of journaling in a clear and thoughtful way can offer us opportunities for positive interaction with our chatter and can help normalize what we’re feeling.
In Chatter, Dr. Kross gives a list of some practical ways to help absolve us of a chronic and constant negative inner voice. One practical way of disarming your chatter, Dr. Kross explains, is by incorporating an object of meaning (or spiritual value to you), or creating a ritual for yourself that will give you a way to anchor into a safe space within yourself during times of stress (like a Mala Bead necklace, some rock gathered while on a hike, or a Bible). Things like objects and rituals can promote a sense of control and organization to something we struggle to make meaning of and connect us to something larger than the internal chatter of the Self.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still struggle with some suicide ideation. Or that I don’t still struggle with the urges of self harm. One of the reasons I’m alive and have been able to fight off those urges since returning home from Operation Mend at UCLA (and those urges can be so, so strong, it’s terrifying) is simply due to this skill that I’ve cultivated over months of therapy and experiences. This skill of using my own name to speak to myself, pretending as though I’m speaking to a friend - sometimes when I’m completely flooded, the best thing I can do for myself is talk to one of my actual friends, in my own head. It drowns out my negative chatter box and gives me some distance, which ultimately brings clarity and peace (and as a small aside, this ability to speak with others inside my head used to make me feel crazy as a kid, but now, as a writer, it’s a blessing).
How has your negative inner voice influenced your decisions, thoughts, or behaviors? Are you open to cultivating a more positive relationship with your inner Self or give yourself more credit when you disengage in negative self talk?
“Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
-Louise Hay, “You Can Heal Your Life”
I've been doing parts work for about two years (three?) and it has been life changing. It's super painful, but also totally worth it. (It's also hard to explain and rare that I find anyone else who even knows what I am talking about when I bring it up, so thank you for this one!)
My internal negative chatter is so incessant that it’s just something I thought is part of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever given serious consideration to changing it or telling it to shut up, that I’m worthy. I’m seriously glad that it’s not just me that my brain constantly tells me I’m a POS! Thank you for the affirmation!