Day 9 Self Critical

I'm incredibly self critical. I have attributed this to my financial success, as I'm sure many here might resonate with, but the pressure I put on myself is certainly at unhealthy levels. I treat myself worse than I would an enemy. If I make a mistake, I'm unrelenting. Even in an activity that I have no business being so critical about. It can be something like a game of golf (which I never play) and I somehow expect myself to be a pro. The inner voice is a maniacal, horrible, abusive.

Why am I like this?

I think back to my childhood and being the first born in a large family (including many cousins), a lot of expectation was placed onto me, but I'm not certain I can blame anyone for that. I was intelligent, charismatic, precocious, athletic, and with decent character. I liked the attention. I hated sharing the attention with my brothers, or anyone else for that matter. I think back to those growing years and I was always showing off, expecting praise, expecting awe of my specialness, but now that I have three children myself, that seems quite normal. Perhaps I never grew out of that psychological phase?

Perhaps when my mother and father divorced (I was 6) and I was told I had to be the man of the house, perhaps this expectation expanded on my own self expectations; that I was to do a man's job when I was only a little boy.

Whatever the reason, the need for praise and the pressure for perfection I placed on myself was ever present. And that voice was always there, always unkind. The crazy thing was that when I did receive praise, the satisfaction was temporary. I was always onto the next thing, always moving forward, always having to improve, to beat my previous score, to expand my abilities. These seemed like good qualities, challenging myself to always be better.

But there was never any lasting joy, and almost always a return to negative self talk. I could never be good enough, perfect enough, successful enough.

As I got older, I did really well in business, but I always doubted myself. Was it me, or the fact that I had great partners? Was it me, or the fact that I had help from family to get me started and stay patient with me as I learned? Is there anything I'm really good at? Am I deserving?

And now when I start something new, that pressure, that critical voice is always there. The voice of reason is there as well, but the fearful, selfish, mean, arrogant voice is there as well. You don't deserve this. You're going to fail. Everyone is counting on you...

I start each day with a prayer of gratitude, but while I often say the words, the feeling behind the prayer is somehow muted, as if I cannot take gratitude in the abundance all around me. I know deep down that it's there, but it's difficult to wade through the words to the feelings. I feel like I have lived most of my life under the psychology of what I lack rather than the gifts I have received. It's sad, frustrating, and psychologically exhausting.

This is my pain. This is my deep pain, and I still find myself sweeping emotions under the proverbial rug. I focus mostly on this deep self of lack, of feeling less than, when I have so much to be grateful for, so much success, beauty, and good fortune.

I'm nearly 44, I have a beautiful family, a happy marriage, a decent income that supports our family, I'm blessed to have a huge family, even my grandparents are still living (what a blessing) and while I know all of this and tell myself this every morning, the other voice is still somehow louder. And it says, "without me, you wouldn't have success. I'm the voice that pushes you, so stop being a baby, and get to work! Oh, and by the way, you're bound to fail, and you don't deserve success, and you're an imposter. And when you do fail I'm going to berate the shit out of you until I grind you down to dust!"

This is the voice I need to stand up to. I need to work on recognizing these thoughts and emotions, and not falling into their trap, but acknowledging they exist, noticing them and setting them aside. Awareness is the first step to fighting the critical voice. I know this, but it's damn hard. But the life I want to live and the man I want to be for my wife and children is there if I can simply raise awareness to the voice, but no longer give it any power. This is the work I'm doing. Thanks for reading...

 

Hi LAguy,

I want to recognize the depth and precision of your post. And I also want to say that the distancing from ourselves, the sense that we're removed from the direct experience, the depth of our experience is common. It is the flavor of "ego" and can't be helped.

As you suggest, awareness is the first step. It may be the alpha and the omega actually. Awareness that x, y, or z is happening in us at this moment. Then letting these experience be themselves... may be the beautiful resolution.

The critical voice is one of the main barriers to allowing ourselves to be as we are. For instance, your lack of "real gratitude" is judged by this voice. The presence of the critical voice itself, is judged by you. You're rejecting yourself for these human experiences.

As far as TMS work, your deep and brilliant report above can explain your symptoms. When you know this much about your inner workings, simply connecting this understanding to all the work by Dr. Sarno about the conflicts between what we feel vs what "we think we should feel" can go a long way toward symptom resolution. You're learning that the symptoms are psychodynamic, not physically caused. Without doing a lot more, this is huge.

Also, the critic voice does cause a lot of suffering, and it is natural to want to learn a way to not be "under the thumb" of this voice.

I recommend A Soul Without Shame by Byron Brown for a deep dive in this. It introduces a way to disengage from the old relationship with the Inner Critic. This is life-changing work and possible. It opens us to disengaging from our familiar sense of self, with all its personality patterns. Outside of this personality box, there is freedom. We have to see the suffering first, which you're doing.

Andy

 

My gosh, Andy, thank you so much! I'm going to grab that book straight away, thanks for the recommendation as well as the feedback. "your lack of "real gratitude" is judged by this voice." I love this so much. You've given me much to contemplate and I appreciate it so much.

 

Hi, @LAguy,
I share your pain with thia miserable inner critic. I am finding a little relief lately by trying to talk nicely to myself. Because just shutting up the critic doesn’t really fix the situation. I need some positive feedback to reverse the damage. It feels very weird to talk nicely to myself. I know it’s going to take some time.

I don’t think this is “perhaps” at all. That’s a traumatic blow, and you might want to explore that.

 

Hi Jan,
Good to see you too! I am enjoying all the good vibes and pointed help I see here.
I hope you're well.
Andy

 

I second this. Great to see you back here @Andy Bayliss , especially when a post is about the Inner Critic. No one else can answer these questions as well.

 

Thank you. I will explore "man of the house" a bit more in my journaling.

I heard of something that Peter Attia was prescribed to help with the inner critic and I'm going to try to start to do this. His therapist said that whenever that inner critic starts berating himself to stop, literally take out his phone and record a mock phone call to a friend. So he takes out his phone and pretends he is calling a good friend who just had the same scenario happen to him/her and is being self critical, and then his response is what he would say to that good friend. His goal was to record it immediately and then send the recording to his therapist. He claims it stopped his inner critic within something like 30-60 days and it was permanent. I'm giving it a shot, but it's not easy.

 

Wow that sounds like a great idea! But hard. I hope you share how it goes!

 

My favorite book for learning more about and brain retraining from you inner gremlins is a small book called Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson. It's a fun read, with great illustrations.

 

This sounds like a beautiful practice. Restating the situation with kind words. Beautiful.

 

Hello to you Ellen!

 

Thanks for the book recommendation. Its been ordered : )