This is one of my favorite passages in “Journaling Power: How to Create the Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live” by Mari L. McCarthy.
Through my daily journaling, I learned to recognize my negative automatic thoughts – those well-worn and limiting “tapes” that play in your head, over and over, as they inhibit progress. We all have these negative thoughts from time to time. Journaling has helped me eliminate them.
This article originally appeared in the August 2, 2020 edition of Fit For Joy
My Inner Critic also shouted loudly when I decided to follow my dreams to become a singer: again I had to talk to him very firmly. My journal revealed how he had been empowered through the treatment I received as a child. The message I got from my parents and teachers was to keep quiet and be invisible; this did not help me to become a creative writer or singer. At school, I was once sent away from the chorus for allegedly being tone-deaf (though the problem was actually my shyness).
These rejections affected me deeply. As I grew up, I began to think of myself as “staccato,” a musical term that meant “with each sound or note sharply detached or separated from the others.” I didn’t feel that I expressed myself in a way that flowed naturally, so I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t speak out, let alone sing out. As I progressed through elementary school, high school, and college, I excelled at solitary tasks that did not require me to speak out loud. My Inner Critic told me to keep quiet and I obeyed his commands.
Journaling enabled me to break this pattern and cast aside the negative self-image I’d developed. Remarkably, I became a singer despite the many discouragements I’d suffered as a child. As you’ll see in Chapter 5, the daily practice of journaling led me to take the first step in this once-scary direction – and then the next step and the next. With the help of my journal, I committed to the daily practice that learning to sing well entailed.
Of course, that meant listening to my voice (oh, yuck!). I taped all of my voice lessons and forced myself to pay attention to. In time, I learned how to treat myself kindly and gently and discovered how relaxing, breathing and drinking water not only made me a better singer, but a far less wrinkled one!
Now if I’m honest, it’s taken years to tame my Inner Critic. It wasn’t an overnight victory. But it’s all happened through journaling. Through writing every day, I’ve learned to live in the present moment. I’ve cleared out the old messages that seemed to be stuck deep in the cells of my body. Managing my Inner Critic was a huge part of my journaling practice for many years and I continue to grapple with him on a regular basis.
As you start your journaling practice, don’t let your Inner Critic get the better of you. In the next section, I’ll explain how the Inner Critic develops and how you can keep him under control.
It’s good to be aware of the Inner Critic right from the beginning of your journaling journey. Some people have more trouble than others with this interfering entity, but pretty much everyone will experience his voice some of the time.
Right now you could be thinking: “The whole journaling idea is probably a waste of time because I’m not really a writer,” or “I doubt journaling will change my life: it seems a bit of a hippie thing to do.” These thoughts create resistance to the whole process, and that’s typical of the Inner Critic. As soon as you try something a little bit different, he goes off on a tirade.
So let’s unmask him and put him in his place!
Psychotherapist and writer Dennis Palumbo defines the Inner Critic as “the persistent, sometimes harsh and almost always shaming ‘voice’ that belittles or invalidates your work.”
It is, of course, part of you, a component of your psyche that manifests almost as a sub-personality of who you are. It’s linked to your ability to make judgments, discern your likes and dislikes, and form opinions so that you can make decisions.
The Inner Critic developed as soon as you had language skills and could understand your parents’ comments, particularly when they used the word “no” and rebuked you. You internalized these comments and began to hear their “no” even when they were not physically present. If your parents were often critical, then your Inner Critic became a powerful negative voice in your head, forbidding certain thoughts and behaviors. If your parents were very positive and encouraging then you may have experienced it far less. But the Inner Critic isn’t just a product of your family upbringing – teachers and other authority figures, and the wider society you grew up in, were all influential in its development.
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