📖 5-minute read
Self-critical thoughts are the inner voice that's harsher with you than you'd ever be with anyone else. 'You're pathetic.' 'You always mess this up.' 'What's wrong with you?'
That voice usually isn't yours — it's an echo of a critical adult, a bullying peer, or a survival strategy that tried to keep you safe by attacking first. It made sense once. It doesn't now.
You don't have to argue with it or silence it. Two responses work better: name it ('there's the inner critic') and answer it with the voice of someone who loves you ('that's not how I'd speak to a friend').