Inner Critic
Ever wonder why your inner critic, a relentless voice that can be so loud and often whispers doubts and insecurities is so persistent? It all comes down to our brain’s evolutionary wiring.
The limbic system and the amygdala, the ancient sentinel of emotions, known for its role in processing emotions and triggering the fight-or-flight (stress) response, plays a key part in the development of our inner critic. This part of our brain is hyper-vigilant, it continuously scans the environment for danger, ensuring our survival. At its origin, it’s positive, it aims to keep us safe by highlighting potential dangers and mistakes.
Add early life experiences, societal and cultural influences and genetic predispositions and our inner critic can turn into a formidable foe. Coupled with our prefrontal cortex, the logical overseer of our thoughts and actions, these dynamic duos shape the narrative of our inner critic.
Our prefrontal cortex is involved in laying down new memories and dampening learned fear responses and together with anterior cingulate cortex it amplifies negative information in our surroundings and makes us pay attention to it. It also contributes to the formation of critical thoughts and self-judgment, but it has something that our amygdala and limbic system doesn’t have, and that is an ability to think rationally and logically and therefore it can challenge the validity of our negative inner critic.
It is when this carefully orchestrated dance of brain regions is out of balance our survival mechanism becomes maladaptive. This can lead to negative self-talk and low self-esteem, habitual negative thoughts and behaviours, chronic anxiety, depression, insomnia etc.
Fortunately, there are many strategies and practices we can adopt to turn our inner critic from foe to a friend.
One of them is the transformative power of hypnotherapy which can help recalibrate our neural circuitry and foster a kinder inner dialogue. With a use of hypnosis, we can bypass the analytical conscious mind, and with less resistance we get to access the subconscious mind, the root cause of our inner critic’s critical voice. Through hypnotic suggestions and visualization, we can sow the seeds of self-compassion and self-empowerment and reframe our negative self-talk for a more supportive inner dialogue.
Other practices such as mindfulness, meditation, self-compassion and exercise contribute to cultivation of an inner critic that is more friendly and nurturing and by understanding how these brain regions interact we can reframe our thoughts in a more positive light.