The inner critic: troll of the mind

Are you familiar with your inner critic?

Most people recognize the inner voice that narrates and interprets the world and passes judgement on just about every aspect of it. This “judgement passer” is your inner critic.

And, it could be a “mind troll”. When it is focused on others, it can damage your relationships by creating anger, disappointment, or placing blame. When it turns on you, it can slow you down, make you nervous, or even become paralyzing depending on how loud you let it be and how seriously you take it.

If you have a “mind troll” of an inner critic, you can change that and turn your inner critic into a guide.

I am very familiar with my inner critic. As a recovering perfectionist, I have been working to tame it my whole life. Otherwise, if I took it seriously, I would feel like hiding under my desk most of the time.

We humans, as you may know, are not perfect. We are loaded with flaws which are food for our inner critics. Mine would be fat if I wasn’t very disciplined about feeding it. I have learned that trying to be perfect so that there is not food for your inner critic isn’t really very effective because your inner critic can feed delightfully on potential mistakes and flaws as easily as real ones.

While inner critics have been in human minds for generations, they have become particularly problematic these days because they are so easily hijacked and fed by marketers who access them through any cage you might have arranged for them through the internet.

So how would one deal with this if it is a problem? Well there are multiple ways. The most important one that you can do on your own is to distinguish your inner critic from yourself. When you have done this, you can begin to choose whether or not to give what it says importance. Since the inner critic can feed on itself, resistance if futile.

The best thing to do is accept that you are human and have this tag-along critic who once may have been helpful, but is now unnecessary. Let it know everything is fine, it has been working hard enough, it can rest and you can tune it out.