How I stopped judging myself (the inner critic behind self-development)

Something I’ve learned after being in the self development journey for so long is that you can do all the things in order to be a “better” version of yourself.

Yet, when it’s coming from the need to fix yourself because the inner critic says you are not enough, it never leads to peace and wholeness that we want. 

This is true especially in the entrepreneurial realms when it’s so easy to judge yourself based on the “results” we produce. It’s easy to get caught up in a mental loop of self-judgment and shame when we are not where you want to be yet.

I know this because I’ve been there. My inner critic used to beat me up like how an unforgiving, all-time-champion boxer would.

Anytime I would make a post online, my inner critic would be the first to comment how nobody would like what I share. And when I do see people liking my posts, my inner critic would still not be content or point out how low the number of likes are.  Inside, she would whisper to me like “see, nobody cares about you. You’re pathetic, good for nothing.” 

It was an uphill battle of needing to prove my inner critic that she was wrong, yet there I was, failing at it again and again.

The inner critic was like a clenched up dinosaur jaw, grinding me up with thoughts about what I “should” have done and questioning myself on whether I can “make it” or not. She was always making judgements around what I had done in the past, and would always be critical of my future potential. It was hard to be happy and proud of myself when the inner critic was at work (which was almost 24/7). 

And if you’ve been around in the self-development world too, you know that these self-judgements serve no good.

To point out one, these negative judgements not only create heavy feelings, they create actions (or rather inaction/paralysis) that do not lead toward fulfillment. For instance, the self-judgmental thoughts that “I suck at writing” would lead to not posting content as much as I’d like to, and therefore not serving clients that I want to. 

On the surface level, it may seem as though the inner critic is helping you “improve” yourself.

But when you look closer, you will find that it’s trying to prune you so much that it cuts off the stem of your desires.

In other words, what the inner critic mostly does is putting a cap on what you can do because we end up retracting and withdrawing ourselves. (I wrote about the inner critic and how it stops your creative expression here). 

And to let go of the critical mind, I have tried to “better” myself. Like when my inner critic judged me for having jiggly “skinny fat” legs, I would hit the gym consistently to have my dream body… only to find out later that it still didn’t like myself, with criticism around other aspects of my appearance. This is something that’s been shown time and time again like in plastic surgery patients where they still would find flaws about themselves even when they have done all the procedures they wanted.

The thing is, no matter how hard we try to “fix” yourself, the inner critic will find something (even if it is penny size) to critique why we’re not enough. 

All of this happens because all the negative self-judgements directed to ourselves come from a deeper place within us that cannot be changed by mere external fixes like Botox or strategic business growth hacks.

In other words, the negative judgments about ourselves come from beliefs about ourselves. Think of our thoughts and emotions as like smell molecules…. When there is garbage (i.e. a negative belief about ourselves), we will still not be able to extricate the offensive smell no matter how much perfume we add! 

And so here I wanted to share with you how I finally healed the inner critic that was the cause of most of the suffering in my head. That is, the inner critic feels so much need to “improve herself” because of the underlying shame around who you are.

Seeing yourself through eyes of love

So in order to heal my inner critic, first I had to look into my deeply-held beliefs. This led me to seeing that in fact, I had a lot of self-loathing, repugnant beliefs about myself. 

For instance, my thoughts that “nobody cares about me” came from a belief that I was small, unworthy, invisible. My thoughts that “nobody liked me” came from a belief that I was unappealing, unattractive in general. From reflecting on the thoughts about myself in different scenarios (I.e. the ups and downs of running a business), I then came up with a list of all the negative things I believed deep down of myself. 

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Then once you have gotten a list of these negative thoughts, you want to look at where you got them from.

Personally, I receive insights about it while meditating for a little while and Spirit would show me images of the unhealed memories/ patterns (which I talked about in this article here). To most people, these realizations of how the negative beliefs got installed can surface easily, but there can also be times when it’s much deeper (like a repressed childhood traumatic event or a past life memory). This is when I use my intuitive abilities to help uncover the roof of deep-seated beliefs and memories that my clients may be unaware of. 

To show you an example, I used to be so afraid that people would see me when I share my unpopular thoughts online. When I looked closer into it, I saw that it came from a belief that nobody likes me and that nobody cares about me. And that made sense because growing up, I always had this uncomfortable feeling of being a black sheep who didn’t fit in with the rich, cool kids in a private school I went to. I felt unlikable and unlovable because I was bullied for being more tanned than other pale skinned mixed-Chinese kids (and I am Burmese). 

And one of the ways I healed my inner critic was by giving a new meaning to the “traumatic” event: the kind that sees love.

So instead of giving a meaning that me having tanned skin = me being unlikeable by other people, I gave a new meaning that my soul chose this skin color so that she could stand out and express herself. I gave a new meaning that the reason why I was mostly invisible to boys when I was young was not because anything was wrong with me. Rather, my soul wanted to give me the gift of freedom that comes with being “invisible.” 

To you, your negative beliefs about yourself may be different but you can still heal your inner critic by giving a new perspective shift to the event that shaped the belief about yourself.

After all, the meanings you give to your life shape how you experience life, as well as how you see yourself. And the judgements of inner critic only exist because of the unloving meaning in the past that you gave about yourself. 

Seeing the gift of it all

Alongside rewiring the way I felt about my past, what also helped me dissolve the grip of my inner critic was seeing the gift of it all— including the so-called negative perceptions of myself. 

This is important because we only harshly judge ourselves because we believe that some parts of us are “bad” and therefore need to be contained.

This leads to the feelings of “not being enough” (as though something is missing and lacking inside of you and that you have to attain that from other places/achievements/people). 

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The truth is, most of our human suffering comes from blank-and-white thinking. We think that if we want to be a “good” girl, we can’t be a “bad” girl. We think that if we are to be “smart,” we can’t show our “dumb” side. We think that we can only be appealing in some aspects of us but not others. 

My dear, if you ever see yourself that way, know that nothing in nature is black-and-white.

Nothing in nature is unappealing. Every species, every season, every quality has beauty in it and serves a greater purpose. Some people may  judge earthworms as unappealing because of the way they crawl but they create nutrients for the earth. Some people may judge snails as unappealing because they are slow but they clean up the environment and on top of that create snail mucin! (one of my favorite skin care products right now) 

Anyway… my point is to say that everything in nature is perfect in their own way— including YOU! Even the things you think are your weaknesses and are unappealing about yourself contain the most valuable gifts that you may not have been aware of. 

Like for me, my inner critic used to judge me for being the “ugly girl”/ “a crow among the swans.” But I saw that there’s a peaceful gift to not trying to always be the one that turns heads. Like for one thing, this “ugly girl” inside of me is pretty darn prolific in her writings, she is greatly passionate about what she does, and is so connected to the heart of her clients. 

In truth, we only feel the need to judge ourselves because we are afraid of how perfect we already are, even in the “bad” things about ourselves. However, once you truly allow yourself to be what your inner critic is afraid of becoming, you will be surprised to find how much more magical and blissful your life becomes… with more opportunities, more purpose-led action, and more loving relationships because now you own all that you are. 

Filling up your core needs

Another thing I realized about the inner critic is that she is the loudest when my heart is unfulfilled in my own self. That is, when I am feeling as though there’s something missing that I don’t have *as mentioned earlier. To put it another way, a loud inner critic voice is a mere symptom of feeling an emptiness inside of us. 

This realization came strongly to me when I was feeling unlikable/ that nobody likes me on social media. I realized that the reason why I felt unliked was because some part of me needed to be liked. And in order to be needing something it must mean that I am not giving that to myself. To put it another way, my lack of liking toward myself was creating feelings that nobody likes me on social media. 

Likewise, if your inner critic is judging you that you’re not perfect, that is because you’re not seeing perfection in your own Self. If your inner critic is judging you because you’re slow, that is because you’re not giving yourself the permission to slow down. All the self-judgments of the mind point to the lack of love, compassion, and care we refuse to give to ourselves. 

To some people this realization (that you have the  power to fill up your own needs and therefore silence the inner critic) can be quite daunting and even triggering– especially if you grew up with parents who didn’t fill up your needs in ways you wanted. I used to be one myself so I totally understand!

However, what you will see is that once you are begin filling up your own inner needs, you will see that the love inside of you is the key to transforming anything: including all that you feel about yourself. From there, you can also begin overflowing the divine love inside of you to others, instead of needing them to complete you.

Taking compassionate action

The last piece that I want to touch on here is that, most of the time, the inner critic simply just wants you to hide— in order to avoid being hurt/ rejected by others. However, the consequence is that, like a wound that is unexposed to air, the existential pain grows worse from being hidden. 

When this is the case, you will be able to recognize it from a state of inner conflict between desires. It’s like “wanting to be seen but also afraid of being seen.” It’s like “wanting to try things but also being afraid of trying (and failing).”

The inner critic wants you to do the right thing so much that you become afraid of doing at all. Life can become highly unsatisfying when you are in this in-between, limbo state of being “protected” from failures by the inner critic.

The antidote to all this inner conflict is to take action toward your desires so you see that you are not whom the inner critic judges you as. You are more than the “labels” that the inner critic assigns you as. 

As in my case, my inner critic would judge me at one point that I was boring, I am not likable in my writings. But through letting myself write my heart out (instead of hiding myself just like how the inner critic wants me to), I began to see that I’m not those “labels” the inner critic put me as.

Like for one, I began having so much fun writing these blogs that I don’t even wonder if people find me as boring anymore. And two, I learned to accept that not everyone will like me (and my writings), but I’m devoted to serving the aligned women that the Divine asks of me.

The truth is, healing the inner critic doesn’t have to mean hiding yourself in a spiritual cocoon. Sometimes, the most potent transformation happens in the midst of action, when you are putting yourself out there and are willing to see the dragon inside of you. It occurs through taking action— where you are curious more than “protecting” yourself and compassionate enough more than “labeling” yourself. 

~

My love, the truth of the matter is that the reason why we judge ourselves is because we think it’s normal to be harsh to ourselves. But if you see a little girl beating herself up in the streets would you be able to stand that? My guess is no. And that’s what the inner critic is actually doing to you when you judge yourself. The inner critic is the voice that hitting hard on the little girls inside of us. 

But if you finally got to this point of this article, I know that you’re desiring an easeful life— that isn’t just beautiful on the outside but is also kinder to yourself on the inside. And that’s what healing your inner critic does to you. It is the ultimate spring cleaning for the soul, so you can experience that the softness, beauty, and awe that life has to offer you. For only then, can we actually create a life that is joyful to you.

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