06/11/2025
You’re likely pretty familiar with your own inner critic; it’s the annoying, persistent voice in your head that tells you that you need to be smaller, thinner, more muscular, more toned, more disciplined, more attractive, less annoying etc. (the list is pretty endless, right?).
When the inner critic gets loud or irritating, you probably try different ways to deal with it such as ignoring it, challenging it (CBT anyone?), rationalising with it, and distracting from it (more food, less food, exercise, TV, s*x, drugs, rock n’ roll).
The tricky bit here is that sometimes this stuff works, albeit temporarily. So, how do you silence that voice for good?
You can’t. You’re human which unfortunately means you have an inner critic that sometimes is going to pipe up.
The most effective long-term strategy is to stop trying to silence the inner critic but instead to start noticing it. I mean really noticing it. The next time you’re having some critical thoughts about yourself, take a second to just stop and notice exactly what the critical thought is saying, and then repeat the thought with “I’m noticing that I’m having the thought that……..” in front of it (you can do this out loud or silently in your head; it works either way). For example:
“I notice that I’m having the thought that I look disgusting”
“I notice that I’m having the thought that I’ll put on weight if I eat that”
“I notice that I’m having the thought that I’m worthless”
See if you can then notice that little shift which happens when you do this (it’s called cognitive defusion).
Even if you believe that what the inner critic is saying is 100% undoubtedly true, learning how to defuse is the first step in changing your relationship with that inner voice. This is one of the keys to giving you more freedom to do more of the things that actually matter to you and to move towards recovery, whatever that looks like for you.
For a free 20-minute consultation to talk about how I can support you in your recovery, DM ‘RECOVER.
