(Content warning for a small amount of negative self-talk about weight and food).
“I just tried to not let myself go into my head, not listen to those voices that would throw me off.” (A friend talking about staying grounded while doing a performance that wasn’t landing).
“And yet, even when I would be finishing 3 hours of high intensity spinning, with energy still left to burn, there was still a part of me that figured that many of the “natural athletes” in the room secretly knew I didn’t belong.” (Nicole, writing about imposter syndrome in a post for this blog a couple of weeks ago).
We all know those inner voices. Sometimes they replay an actual experience from some point in our life — one of mine is a flashback to a guy snottily commenting on how they should “only let fit people on this hike” when I had a hard time climbing up a boulder on a nature walk at a provincial park. Sometimes they’re an amalgam of cultural voices — “sure you can lift 150lbs but you still look like a sausage in that dress, you’re not really fit.” And sometimes they’re a whole carnival we’ve created and perfected that replays until it’s almost an automatic loop.
I’m currently doing a formal certification program for coaching (life and work coaching, not sports), and learning to work with this inner chorus is a big part of our process. In my program, this set of voices is called our “saboteur” — the negative self talk that can show up when you’re trying to change something that matters to you — but that might challenge the “safety” of the status quo. I prefer to use the term one of my friends coined — the “committee of jerks in my head.”
I like labeling these voices jerks, because that’s what they are. They are like those muppet guys in the balcony who sit there criticizing and complaining about everything — the ones who aren’t exposing themselves or putting themselves at risk, just sitting on the sidelines throwing things.
When I’m working with clients and I hear statements like “I’m not as good at this as other people” or “I’m not the kind of person who could be that brave,” I hear a mental “click” that tells me there might be a saboteur at work. Most of the time, saboteurs are linked to pretty deep stuff — our deepest fears about our capability, lovability, fear of being alone. And they help us stay in the places where we might feel unhappy, but we feel safe because it’s familiar.
Learning to befriend our inner critics is deep stuff. In my coaching and consulting I do a lot of exploring and expanding different perspectives, encouraging people to actually talk back. One way that works for me personally is to be playful with it. Trying to hear your inner self-talk as coming out of the voice of the critical muppets is one way — you can then hold it at arm’s length, see it as something that doesn’t have to be a fixed, intimate part of you. See it as the meme it is — something glib that shows up that you don’t have to give real credibility.
Another thing I personally do is to picture my inner critic — the one who’s always trying to trip me up — is to picture it as a baby hedgehog that’s trying to get under my feet. I made a photo of a baby hedgehog my phone wallpaper for a while — reminding myself that I didn’t have to keep internalizing the fear that was constantly showing up for me, but I could see it as some external being I could have more control over. It’s actually a cuddly little thing trying to protect me — but I can hold it in my hand, be grateful that I’m being reminded that being where I am is “safe,” but I want something different. It actually works.
I was thinking about saboteurs in the gym the other day, thinking about all of the voices over my life that have made me feel like I didn’t belong there — I’m not a natural athlete, I’m a klutz, I’m fat, I’m slow, I eat too much junk, I can’t translate verbal instructions into physical action, nobody wants me here, nobody likes me.. Fill in your own self-talk here. And then imagine it as a curmudgeonly muppet or a baby hedgehog. And see if that changes anything.
What do you do to silence your inner critics?
Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede, who lives, works and talks to muppets in Toronto.
