How Your Negative Inner Critic Kills Your Happiness—And What To Do About It

by Margaret Paul

Do you have an inner bully that just won’t leave you alone?

And is he or she dragging you down, making you feel bad about yourself, and sapping your confidence?

So many of us do!

That’s because from the time we wake up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night, we have company:

Our thoughts.

More to the point, our internal dialogue.

It’s your brain giving you a play-by-play of what is happening, what happened in the past, what’s about to happen, what you should worry about, and what you are looking forward to.

That internal dialogue doesn’t let up for a minute! If you’ve ever meditated or tried to observe your thoughts, you know what I mean.

Blah blah blah blah blah. All day long.

Your internal dialogue can be boring, repetitive, and benign, as when you’re going over your to-do list in your head, or replaying a conversation you’ve had with your partner.

Or it can be cruel and biting, and it can spoil your peace of mind and happiness.

This is particularly true if you have that “inner bully” keeping you company.

For example, your internal dialogue may go something like this at first:

The coffee is good today.

And look at that sunrise! Wow, the pinks and blues are outstanding. I should take a photo and post it on Facebook.

It’s already Thursday. The week has gone by quickly. I can’t wait to sleep in and hang out with my love on Saturday.

You start your day feeling pleasant enough.

But then later that morning, after driving to work, dealing with traffic, reviewing your appointments, and replying to emails, you’re not feeling so pleasant anymore. Now your internal dialogue may sound something like this:

People are constantly complaining to me. I’m everyone’s doormat!

How can I relax when there’s so much to stay on top of…I hate this job.

It’s secure, sure, but it’s not the best job or what I’m really interested in. The money is okay, but I’ll never get out of debt. I’m stuck here.

Yeah, I’d like to do something else, but I have no idea what. I’m so directionless. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get my act together?

And tomorrow is my annual physical. I know my doctor is going to say I need to eat healthier and exercise more, but how am I supposed to do that when I sit at my desk all day? Not to mention there’s always cookies and candy in the break room. Can anyone possibly have that much willpower? I wish people were more considerate and would stop bringing that stuff in.

Also, it’s been way too wet and cold lately to get outside to exercise. Not that I have time or energy for that anyway, with all the stuff I have going on.

If only my kids weren’t so lazy and entitled, I’d get some help around the house.

Or maybe, I should stop being such a pushover and put my foot down for once, instead of letting everyone walk all over me.

I can’t get any respect.

And just like that, you’ve gone from feeling light and happy to dragging-your-feet, down-on-yourself malaise in a span of a couple of hours.

The energy and motivation you had to get things done has disappeared.

And you can’t relax, because you’re worried about things that weren’t even on your radar an hour ago.

Ugh.

A Bully Keeps Whispering In Your Ear All Day

Sometimes you notice these thoughts, and sometimes you don’t.

When you do notice, it’s like there’s a bully whispering in your ear all day:

You screwed up again.

You’re lazy.

Fat. Ugly.

Inept.

Is there any wonder you get dragged down into a spiral of self-consciousness, anxiety, and guilt?

It’s vicious.

But there’s a way to stop that negative internal voice. How? By listening to another voice that’s buried even deeper inside you. (Meaning, you’re even LESS aware of it.)

This is a voice that you’ve probably been ignoring or suppressing your entire adult life.

It’s the voice that’s begging to be heard, loved, and cared for—by you.

It’s the voice of self love.

The voice of self love is even more powerful, because it is the voice of wisdom, inner guidance, and compassion. It is the voice that knows exactly what you need in order to be happy and healthy, and what you need to let go of in order to thrive.

The voice of self love is uplifting and transformational, and can give you the courage to change your entire life.

Whereas the negative, inner bully is a voice that only serves to bring you down and limit you with fear and shame.

That’s why knowing how to listen to the voice of self-love is critical to your happiness and wellbeing in a way that the OTHER internal voice is not.

The Voice You’ve Been Ignoring That Needs To Be Heard And Loved

The bullying, critical, and obnoxious voice in your head that’s always telling you you’re not good enough, or that people don’t like you, or that you’re unattractive, is not the voice of self love.

It’s the voice of what I call the ego wounded self.

You may recognize that voice. It’s the voice of your parents or caregivers when they spoke to you as a child, or to each other, or to other adults. Those who weren’t compassionate or understanding toward you, themselves, or others. They’d say things like:

Why don’t you get your act together? What’s wrong with you? Why is everything such a drama with you?

And now that voice is in you. It’s louder and more persistent than the other voice inside you, which is the voice of your Inner Child—our true self or essence, our feeling self.

Our Inner Child is the part of us that’s the ageless expression of Divine love.

It contains our unique gifts and talents, our natural wisdom and spontaneity, our curiosity and sense of wonder, our playfulness, and our ability to love and connect with others.

Our Inner Child is the unwounded part of our soul.

Here’s the really exciting part:

Our Inner Child contains the key to our lifelong joy and happiness.

When we learn how to listen to what our Inner Child needs and wants, and take loving action on behalf of our Inner Child, we can heal our moodiness and emotional pain.

That’s because when we learn how to listen and respond to our Inner Child, we learn how to uncover and heal all our inner demons, because we develop an effective way to love ourselves.

How To Listen To The Inner Child Instead Of The Negative Inner Critic

The idea of “loving yourself” is very misunderstood.

Loving yourself means that you learn to value who you are in your essence. It’s a process of connecting with and listening to your Inner Child—your soul essence.

Basic to loving ourselves is seeing our whole selves. When you see yourself as a whole self, you see yourself as you would see a beloved child—lovable, valuable, worthy of kindness.

Loving ourselves also means that we are devoted to learning who we are, and taking responsibility for making ourselves happy by managing our pain with love and compassion.

It means speaking up for ourselves.

It means listening to what gives us joy, and taking action to manifest what we want in the world.

Loving yourself is not self-indulgence. It’s not buying yourself an ice cream sundae because you’ve had a hard day.

Think of what a child needs to feel loved: being seen, being listened to, being acknowledged for the lovable person they are.

In the same way, we are loving to ourselves when we look beyond the negative internal dialogue to the Inner Child that’s trying to tell us, with both words and feelings, what it needs in order to heal and feel whole.

How do you do that? Through a process that I created with my colleague and friend Dr. Erika Chopich, called Inner Bonding.

Learn The Process That Can Transform Your Life From The Inside Out

Inner Bonding is a 6-step process that heals the underlying reasons for painful feelings, relationship conflict, procrastination, inexplicable moodiness—and much more—by showing you how to dialogue with your Inner Child in order to take the actions necessary to be loving to yourself.

I explain how and why this process works and teach you the 6 steps in detail in my eBook, Thriving At Last: 6 steps to Miraculously Transform Your Life… From the Inside Out.

Thriving At Last not only gives you the theory and “why” of Inner Bonding, but it presents you with therapeutic self-reflection exercises that take you through this process in real-time.

You’ll learn:

• The single biggest reason for painful, unpleasant feelings, and how to get relief from guilt, anxiety, and malaise in a matter of minutes, when you learn and apply this proven system
• The subtle, but critical difference between feeling your pain and taking responsibility for your pain, and why you can seem stuck in the same, often predictable, pattern of emotions from which there seems to be no easy way out
• An exercise that will help you discover the childhood origins of your inner conflict and painful feelings, and how to heal from these subconscious, emotional “wounds”
• The underlying reason why it’s often so hard to stop overeating, reaching for junk food and alcohol, zoning out on Netflix or social media, and the process that will help you gain control over those mindless, unhealthy habits for good

With what you’ll learn in Thriving At Last, ALL aspects of your life will improve, and you’ll be able to maintain a more blissful state of mind more often, because you’ll quell that negative inner voice.

You can feel better immediately, starting with Step 1, as I describe in my eBook here:

There’s no reason you have to be the victim of that negative internal voice for the rest of your life.

Why not learn how to converse with that voice for your higher good, instead of listening to it to your detriment?

That’s what the 6-step Inner Bonding process in Thriving At Last will show you how to do. I’m so grateful to be able to share this miraculous process with you.

Blessings,

P.S. Is your partner a difficult person? Are your children driving you batty? If you think there’s always someone getting in the way of your peace of mind, you’re going to want to read this article about the true cause of our emotional struggles, and why hoping others will “step up” or change is pointless, and what DOES work to make our life easier: