Your Inner Critic and your Beautiful Bean
Let’s do a little brain talk today and how it’s related to your inner-critic. I’ll try not to nerd out here but the brain fascinates me!
First we need to sort out the areas of the brain and what they are responsible for. This will be in very layman’s terms so all of my brain scientists friends out there, don’t come at me :)
If we go super simple the parts of the brain I’d like to talk about today are the “Upper Brain”, the “Lower Brain”, neural pathways between the two, and the Amygdala.
The Lower Brain is responsible for several vital functions: It’s where your brain stem is, which is responsible for things like breathing, balance, coordination and reflexes, your limbic region which deals with the functions of emotion, memory and arousal (stimulation). That part of the brain is also responsible for your fight, flight or flop response to danger (flop is also referred to as freeze).
The Upper Brain is the most developed/advanced brain area, intelligently regulating our thoughts, actions, emotions and planning, and is highly involved in personality development. The Upper Brain also has extensive connections to other regions to the brain (neural pathways that help the areas of the brain to talk to each other).
Amygdala this little area, about the size of an almond, is responsible for processing and expressing emotions. It is especially sensitive to anger and fear and is always patrolling for danger and threats. When this little guy senses danger it has the power to take over your Upper Brain and go into protect mode.
Are ya still with me?
Now, where does the inner-critic live? The primary function of the inner-critic is to keep us safe from danger, but I bet it doesn’t feel that way when you’re stuck in a relentless thought loop of nasty self-criticism. So you would think it comes from your Lower Brain.
Well kinda…
Back when we lived in caves and needed to take cover from the Tyrannasaurus Rex on the daily the Amygdala was the star of the show with its keen instincts toward danger, the more it had to protect and call out danger the better it got.
Now in 2023, we don’t have the same fears of danger as back then nor do we have them as often. BUT, our Amygdala functions on the same high alert as it did back then.
What does that have to do with your inner-critic?
Everything.
What happens when you have financial trouble, you lose a job, have a death in the family? Or when you try to change a habit, even if it’s something that’s good for you?
Your Amygdala senses danger and jumps into action, but it kind of goes into OVERDRIVE (because it’s so good at its job). So even with your very intelligent Upper Brain the Amygdala can kind of cause a disruption to our rationale and objective thinking process. It’s here that your inner-critic can step in and go all out and on repeat talking to you about all the reasons you shouldn’t, or why everything is terrible, or that you’re not smart enough to figure it out.
It can be an imposter protector.
What are your critical thought loops?
You can make peace with your inner-critic. My coaching program would take you through a step by step process, but here are some things to consider.
Create Space - the inner-critic often speaks very quickly and convincingly. Slow it down, become the “watcher” of your thoughts, this is developing your mindfulness muscle, and it sees things much clearer. Slow down your breathing, journal what comes to mind. I use “thought downloads” in my program. Sometimes seeing words on paper, even if they are not coherent sentences bring a ton of clarity.
Be kind to you - Interrupt your inner-critic with kindness. I do this by asking myself would I ever say these words to my daughter/son and the answer is always no. It’s a reality check. Do the same for yourself, most of us speak to our pets better than we speak to ourselves, so for your mental health, please check yourself on this.
Practice gratitude - our brains have a negativity bias, we naturally lean toward the negative so you have to consciously acknowledge the good. Isn’t that weird, we all say we want to be happy but we’re wired to see negative first - thanks Amygdala (*FUN FACT - the Amygdala uses about 2/3 of it’s neurons to detect negativity and then stores that into your long term memory - this comes from a study from the Marabella International University Centre). So it’s important to take time to recognize the good, or the positive experiences we have. Start a daily list of 3 things you are grateful for or appreciative of and notice how you feel in your body as you write them out (mind-body connection).
I hope you found this insightful and that you’ll begin to disrupt your inner-critic. Reply back and let me know how things are going in this this area of your life and what you think about your inner-critic.
Do you know someone who could benefit from reading these weekly blogs, or that needs a coach, send this one over to them and tell them to sign up to receive the weekly send out. I also have a free session for anyone who wants to sign up and see how coaching can improve their lives.
Your inner-critic can become a positive force and is the key to overcoming limiting thoughts. Can you imagine what your life could look like, the dreams you could achieve and the career success you could have by living in deep confidence every day?
Looking forward to hearing from you! Have a great week!
Chris
