What might happen if you talked to your friends as harshly as you let your inner critic talk to you? If you think your friends would start running for the hills, you are right!
We don’t strengthen our friendships by being worst critics, chastising and berating our friends and calling them names. We also don’t support our friends in their times of need by tearing them down.
Step back for a few minutes and think about a time recently where a friend called you in distress. How did your friend feel after that conversation with you? Did you pick your friend up, dust her off and remind her just how strong, resilient and determined she really is? Did your friend say “thank you – I’d be lost without you when I am overwhelmed?”
How did you feel after that conversation? Did you feel warm inside and really good about how you are able to show up and offer the best medicine ever to your friend?
Supporting your friend is good for her – and just as good for you. Helping others get through their challenges is how we get in the reps needed to become better coaches for ourselves.
The big pivot for us is to train our inner voice to be a helpful, supportive coach — not a harsh critic.
I will let you in on a stunning revelation — we really twisted ourselves into knots by believing that a harsh inner critic would motivate us to be our best self, would cultivate a “can do” attitude and codify a self-determination that was iron clad.
We got that all wrong — a harsh inner critic does not bring out the best in us or help us build resiliency, confidence and grit. A harsh inner critic only amplifies our uncertainties: self doubt, imposter syndrome, limiting beliefs and lack of confidence.
Let’s be honest – we know this intuitively. It is why we would never talk to a friend like we talk to ourselves. We would never hire a trainer, tutor or coach who berates us non-stop. Who do you turn to when you need some moral support, a pick me up, an inspirational boost? I’m guessing you don’t call someone who would shred you to pieces.
For more than 20 years, Kristin Neff, author of Fierce Self Compassion, has been trying to get us to fire the inner critic and train our inner coach. She is a myth buster and this myth that self-compassion is a “soft” skill is one we got all wrong. Kristin has proven time and again that self-compassion builds durable, desirable strength.
When I first read Kristin’s book, Fierce Self Compassion, I was captivated to learn that we have two nervous systems – our primal nervous system where the fight, flight, freeze or fawn responses get activated — and our parasympathetic nervous system; the “tend and befriend” more sophisticated nervous system. In the four short years since Fierce Self Compassion was published, we have learned even more through neuroscience about how to bring our parasympathetic nervous system online faster and easier, so that we don’t stay stuck in fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode.
Think of this just like an update, upgrade you’d install on your phone. When you first install that upgrade, you have no idea what will magically be changes and advances that you’ll begin to incorporate into your daily life. But over the course of a week or so, boom — you are skillfully those new advances.
For most of us, we were not consciously aware that we even possess a “para-sympathetic” nervous system. Who knew we could “tend and befriend ourselves?”
It should make you laugh and cry that we have operated primarily on the primal nervous system since the dawn of time; that we have made things so much harder than they had to be. It might break your heart that all this time you’ve been short-changed by a harsh inner critic that kept you gridlocked in perceived shortcomings.
Kristin Neff has been proving through all her deep research that self-compassion is far from “soft”. Self-compassion is a super power that builds strength, confidence, resilience and has phenomenal motivational benefits.
Ethan Kross builds on Kristin Neff’s research in his book, Shift: Managing Your Emotions So They Don’t Manage You. Ethan shows us through first hand experiences and relatable stories how our friends scaffold us and support us in ways that help us grow and begin to trust ourselves more readily. Then he teaches us to train our inner voice to become our inner coach. He encourages us to talk to ourselves just like we would talk to a friend. Ethan is an experimental psychologist and neuroscientist who is proving that upgrading our inner voice to that of best friend and coach shifts us into personal empowerment. In other words, we get out of our own way and on our own team.
Dr. Marc Brackett, author of Dealing with Feeling, draws on Kristin’s work too, making it crystal clear that self compassion is a gateway to inner strength, tapping into our full human potential and a renewable source of grit and resilience.
Dr. Brackett is also a myth buster and a change-maker. He wants us to educate each other – and especially our children – about this nervous system upgrade. He urges us to break the generational pattern of inner critic and introduce the real human power of inner coach.
So here’s the flex – how we talk to ourselves matters. An inner critic does not motivate us. A harsh inner critic keeps us stuck. All that “tough love” berating, belittling and criticism tears us down. It weakens us.
On the other hand, an inner coach brings out the best in us, reminds us of how far we’ve come, how much we’ve grown, what we are capable of accomplishing when we put our minds to it. When we link an inner coach with the right mindsets, we are unstoppable and unsinkable.
Take some time today to contrast how you feel when your inner critic shows up and derails you. Now think about your best friend showing up instead of that inner critic and scaffolding you just when you need it most.
Who are you going to call? The inner critic or your inner coach?
Just like ghostbusters, let’s bust this myth together — self compassion builds strength – the kind we can depend on to get us through hard times and cheer us on to reach our big dreams and goals.
Start talking to yourself like a best friend.
