How To Work With Your Inner Critic So You Can Make Peace With Food
Hey, have you ever heard of the term ‘inner critic?’
If not, let me tell you what it is because it is essential that you know about your inner critic if you’re in the process of healing from diet culture.
Diet culture and your inner critic intersect with each other.
Wikipedia: The inner critic is usually experienced as an inner voice attacking a person, saying that he or she is bad, wrong, inadequate, worthless, guilty, and so on. The inner critic often produces feelings of shame, deficiency, low self-esteem, and depression. It may also cause self-doubt and undermine self-confidence. It is common for people to have a harsh inner critic that is debilitating.
Wo!
Here is a quick story for you. I was born as somebody that knew they were perfect. You were too;)
When I was a little girl I had this classmate named Mirikki and she was the tiniest girl in the class. AKA teacher’s pet. Everyone loved her because she was so damn cute. I distinctly remember going to an amusement park and I wanted to be small just like her so that I wasn’t allowed on the rides. Needless to say, I got on the ride just fine. But somehow whenever I think about Mirikki, I can say for sure that I wanted to be like her because she got all of the attention and love and I wanted some of it too.
One of my childhood bedtime stories was that I was such a big baby (ten pounder to be exact) and my mother gave birth in under an hour at home because I was too big for her to make it to the hospital and because of this well intentioned story, I can remember feeling so BIG as a child. And that big identity that I carried, was somehow less than small, and I knew it.
Those are just a couple of examples of how in our early stages of childhood we receive countless messages about our bodies and size and they really shape our inner voices and how we perceive ourselves later on in life.
By the time I hit 13 and started buying Vogue and Elle, and I saw all of those super tall and thin girls I felt like such a loser and so not good enough.
Can you relate? Do you even have one memory of feeling like you were the bomb as a child. I know I did… but over time the messaging about beauty and thinness really wore me down.
Here is the thing! If you hear the same message over and over again eventually you start to believe it’s true. And the truth was as a teenager I could hear myself thinking, you’re not X… enough. So, I thought I’d share how to work with your inner critic so you can feel great inside and not like you have an abusive partner beating you down 24/7.
Tips for working with you inner critic:
Make a list of what your inner critic is saying to you. HINT: Spend one day jotting down everything in your mind that tells you, you’re not enough. How will you know if it’s part of your narrative so often, that don’t know that it’s even negative? Well, if you don’t feel ‘well’ you can almost guarantee that your inner critic is present.
Give your inner critic a name. Mine is ED. Over the years I’ve gotten to know Ed really freaking well. Whenever I’m about to go out to a restaurant on a Tuesday to have some QT with my boyfriend Ed starts freaking out and telling me I’m not allowed to indulge on a Tuesday.
Talk back to your Ed:) Know and become very familiar with how your inner critic speaks to you and then I want you to respond back in a very logical way! You can say things like ‘I hear you Ed, and I’m still going to go out to eat with my boyfriend because I want to live my best life.
I hope this helps you find inner peace!
Love,
Soshy