In last week’s post, I wrote about the inner critic and why it’s important to get to know yours. I’ve put together some writing exercises and prompts that I’ve used in the past to help me in the process of paying closer attention to what my inner critic says to me and, ultimately, silence it (because I’d much rather hear what my inner nurturer has to say, instead).
How to use these inner critic writing exercises
I recommend following these exercises in sequence, perhaps making them part of your morning routine for the next five days. Make yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee, grab your favourite journal, find a quiet, cosy corner and get started.
I find it’s best not to overthink these kinds of exercises. Forget about grammar and how well it reads and express yourself without judgment. If you have the time, I’d also recommend a ten minute meditation beforehand to clear your mind, settle into your body, and get grounded (apart from day four when I suggest a meditation you can follow after the writing exercise).
Day one: Get to know your inner critic better
Today, we’re going to try and get to know our inner critic better by finishing these sentences. The sentences are there to act as a point of inspiration, so if you feel like writing entire paragraphs for each one go ahead. Free form writing is useful here. See what insights you can unearth.
- My inner critic is…
- And it’s tone of voice is…
- My inner critic looks like…
- I remember it first protecting me when…
- The harshest thing it says to me is…
- But that isn’t true because…
- My inner critic is loudest when…
- My inner critic tells me I can’t…
- But that isn’t true because…
- My inner critic is quietest when…
- I would like my inner critic to know that…
- My inner critic makes me want to…
- If my inner critic wasn’t in the driving seat I’d feel more confident to…
Day two: Write a letter from your inner critic
I absolutely love writing letters as a way of getting to know the different parts of me that are vying for my attention. For today’s exercise, I invite you to write a letter to yourself, as if it were coming from your inner critic. Tap into that voice that’s overly critical or protective of you, and let it know you want to hear what it has to say without judgment.
Then start writing from that perspective. Let it tell you what it’s afraid of, what is behind all the criticism. It’s helpful to remember that the inner critic is trying to protect you and once served that very function. It’s our job now to befriend it and allow it be heard (but ultimately tell it that we’re okay).
Some questions you can ask your inner critic while writing are:
- What are you afraid of?
- What are you trying to protect me from?
- Why do you feel you need to be harsh and judgmental?
- Why do you think I cannot handle this?
- What are you struggling to let go of?
Once you’re done, give yourself a big pat on the back and park it until tomorrow.
Day three: Respond to your inner critic
Today, it’s time to respond to whatever your inner critic wrote to you yesterday. I recommend trying to think of using your inner nurturing voice for this exercise; if you’re unfamiliar with the term, just think of how you’d talk to your closest friends if they were going through a rough time. Our inner nurturer is our compassionate, understanding voice, and the aim is to eventually strengthen it so much that it’s ‘louder’ than the inner critic.
While responding to the inner critic, I recommend thinking of the following:
- It might help to let your inner critic know that you’ve heard it out, thank it, but tell it you’re safe and you don’t need it to protect you so fiercely anymore.
- Your inner critic, ultimately wants to keep you safe. Perhaps you can write about a time you had a setback or difficult time but you got through it.
- Remember to be compassionate and understanding towards yourself.
Day four: The worry list
The inner critic loves to amplify our worries and ignore all the positives in our lives. More often than not, it ruminates over the same concerns, over and over again, without actually offering any constructive advice on how to approach the perceived problem. And sometimes, there are actually no problems at all.
For this exercise, I invite you to list out all your worries. Anything and everything that comes to mind, from the smaller things through to big life decision type things. Sometimes I find that just writing my worries out alone helps me to gain perspective.
Once you’re done writing them all out, I recommend doing a ‘leaves on the stream’ meditation, which basically entails imagining a beautiful, slow-moving stream. Every so often, imagine a big leaf falls into it and floats down the river. You can imagine yourself sitting by the stream, watching the leaves float by. You then become conscious of your thoughts and every time one of them comes to mind, imagine it’s written on one of the leaves. Then watch the leaf with your thought on it float away.
If you prefer guided meditations you can try this one:
Day five: Reframing the negative
It’s really useful to be aware of the main things the inner critic likes to say to us so that we can start replacing those thoughts with ones that are kinder, more compassionate – and that serve us better.
So, I invite you to use the following two writing prompts:
When my inner critic says…
I can reply to it with…
Some examples of are:
“When my inner critic says I’m too old to start my own business I can reply to it with age is nothing but a number and many successful entrepreneurs started their businesses later in life.”
“When my inner critic says I’m lazy I can reply to it with rest is healthy and necessary in order to feel motivated for the week ahead.”
I recommend doing this for the three to four most common negative thoughts that you have, and then spending the rest of the week replacing them with your reframed thoughts.
Reflect on your week
I hope you’ve enjoyed these exercises and that they’ve helped you gain some insights into how your inner critic operates. Ultimately, this is a journey of a lifetime, one that requires you to constantly be self-aware and know your triggers (sorry, there are no quick fixes!).
I’ll be sharing more about the inner nurturer in the coming weeks and how you can strength that voice instead. It’s like a muscle, the more you exercise it the easier it will be to default to a more compassionate voice and the inner critic will slowly but surely become quieter
Let me know if these were helpful!
How did you find the exercises? Do you have any interesting insights you’d like to share?
Disclaimer: I’m not a psychologist, nor a trained therapist. This advice is based on personal experience and research, and it is no substitute for professional medical intervention and/or therapy.
