131. How to Quiet Your Inner Critic

When your inner critic gets loud, it doesn’t feel like a thought—it feels like reality.
It feels urgent, convincing, and personal.

In this episode of the Leadership Parenting Podcast, I’m breaking down why the inner critic gets so intense under pressure—and why trying to “argue with it” often makes things worse.

You’ll learn how nervous system activation gives the critic a microphone, why volume is not the same as truth, and how to use my RESET framework to come back to yourself with steadiness and leadership.

This isn’t about silencing your thoughts or forcing positivity.
It’s about learning how to recognize self-attack, reconnect with what you care about underneath it, and respond from your calm, grounded, adult self—even when things feel hard.

If you'd like to get the show notes for this episode, head to:

 https://leighgermann.com

Transcript

If you've ever noticed a harsh voice inside your head getting louder when you're tired, overwhelmed, or trying so hard to do things right, well, you're not alone, and nothing is wrong with you.

Today we're talking about how to understand that inner critic and come back to the steady, wise voice that actually leads you forward. This is Leadership Parenting: how to quiet your inner critic and come back to yourself.

Did you know that resilience is the key to confidence and joy? As moms, it's what we want for our kids, but it's also what we need for ourselves. My name is Leigh Germann. I'm a therapist and I'm a mom. Join me as we explore the skills you need to know to be confident and joyful. Then get ready to teach these skills to your kids. This is Leadership Parenting, where you learn how to lead your family by showing them the way.

I think that's part of being human. I mean the moments when that voice really spikes, when it feels sharp, when it gets convincing and maybe even a little bit relentless. And when our confidence drops and that chest tightens, and suddenly we find that we're talking to ourselves in a way that we would never talk to somebody that we cared about. If you've ever had one of those times, I want to start by saying this clearly. What that means is that you're human and you care about how things are coming out in your life, in your thinking, in your choices, and your nervous system is responding to all that caring, to all that pressure. And that's really a lot of the times where our inner critic starts to get her fuel.

So today I'm not here to tell you to think positive or to silence her as a critic, just make her be quiet. I want to give you a better, more grounded, repeatable way to come back to yourself when your inner critic gets loud. And I think the best place to start is that reality place that we find ourselves being yelled at or demeaned or maybe grappling, fighting with our inner critic. And when that happens, it doesn't feel like we're having thoughts. It feels like it's reality. It feels urgent. It feels final. It feels like it's a verdict about who we are. And that's because in those moments, your brain is not treating the critic like it's a thought commentary. Like even like it's an anxiety loop, sometimes you can catch those anxiety loops a lot quicker than you can catch the inner critic commentary.

Your brain hears the language that your inner critic uses and it treats it like it's dangerous. When you're under pressure, emotional pressure, relational pressure that happens in our relationships, exhaustion or overwhelm, your nervous system shifts into threat mode. And when that threat system is online, your brain is becoming highly selective. It's starting to prioritize information that sounds alarming, that sounds critical, that has that negative, urgent feel to it. So our inner critics tend to get a very loud and demanding microphone that gets our attention. And that's one of the reasons why that inner critic voice feels so convincing in the moment. Not because it's true. That's so important for us to keep front of mind. It's loud because your nervous system is activated and it's prioritizing that language, that negativity. Because a nervous system trying to keep you safe is not on the lookout or scanning for positive comments. They feel great. They're wonderful. We want to live in those assessments that everything's fine. But your nervous system really is built to scan for danger.

That's why you can have a moment where you feel absolutely convinced that you're failing or that you've messed everything up so badly that you're not cut out for this. And when I say that, I mean like I'm not cut out to be a mom. Do you know how many people I've had tell me directly, I am not meant to be a mother. I can't do this. My kids would be better off without me. And then hopefully a few hours later, maybe after some sleep or a shower or a walk or a sense of restoring to safety, you can look back and think, why did I say that to myself? Why did I believe it so completely and maybe question it a little bit? I'm hoping that you can do that.

Sometimes we get so stuck in those negative thought patterns and the critic has the microphone all the time. So sometimes it can feel like we don't get that reprieve or that little break where we look back and go, wow, I was being really harsh. Sometimes it feels like, no, this must be true because that's the only thing I hear. Wherever you are on that continuum, it's so important to recognize that that is just thinking. And your nervous system follows the thinking with feelings. And so if you can get into a safe situation, maybe getting more sleep or calming your body down, you might be able to think differently. In the moment when the critic was loud, you're not able to reason. You're reacting. Your brain is scanning for danger, trying to fix it fast. And when the threat feels internal, right, we're complaining against ourselves. We're criticizing ourselves. That's an internal threat. And your brain then turns inward. So instead of asking, what do I need right now? It asks, What's wrong with me?

That's a really critical clue for what we can do differently. I always want you to think when my nervous system is activated, I'd like to ask to talk about what your stress signature looks like. How do you know when your nervous system is activated? When you know that, you can start to say, What do I need right now? Because the problem isn't you. But when we get caught in those negative cycles, our first question is often, what is wrong with me?

And this is why arguing with the critic doesn't work, especially when she's loud. You can't really logic your way out of a nervous system state. What you can do, though, is lead yourself back to steadiness. And that's where you can start to deal with those criticisms that come from the inside, that harsh criticism. So we're not about trying to get rid of your inner critic. I don't know, you might think that's bad news because I think all of us kind of have that hope that if I have anxiety, I want to get rid of it. If I have really angry or sad feelings, I want to get rid of it, right? That's a very common feeling and a common goal.

And I hope if you've been studying with me, what you're learning is that that isn't really our effective goal. That doesn't help us. We're not trying to get rid of anything. The more you try to get rid of something, as a matter of fact, the more you're going to be stuck with it. And it will probably come on with more intensity. If you try to silence your thoughts or force yourself to feel better, you're going to find that you're not successful. Have you noticed that? And that's why it can feel so difficult. That's why oftentimes we throw up our hands and we say, then it must be true, because there's nothing I can do to change it. Well, I want to tell you there is something you can do.

And I like to say what you're doing instead of changing the inner critic or getting rid of the inner critic is that you're resetting. And I like to use the acronym reset. It's a way to come back to yourself when your critic is really loud, when she has the microphone, it feels like she's taking over. So I want to walk you through it.

The reset framework starts with R, where you recognize the inner critic. It might seem like this is obvious, but what usually happens is we start to hear that voice that's very critical, and we listen to the words, we listen to the message, we listen to the way that it makes our body feel, instead of being able to recognize this is a moment where I am getting hammered by my inner critic. And how you know that you're not able to recognize the inner critic and that you're just kind of getting caught up in the language is because you'll have thoughts like, I'm failing. I'm such a mess. You're personalizing it, would be a way that we say it. We're believing the things that we hear.

And what I want you to do when you recognize that it's a voice of the inner critic, is you just say, This is my inner critic. She's really loud right now. I'm in kind of this self-attack mode. I can feel that familiar drop or stress in my body. When we can recognize this, it interrupts what we call fusion. Fusion is where you have a thought and you feel like the thought is so true, it's just part of you. It's just accurate. It's defining. Your thought and you are the same.

Now, what I'm hoping you've learned as you've worked with me is that we are never fused with our thoughts, not even the good ones, not even the ones that we want to be fused with, like I'm a good person or I'm a great mom, or I love the way my hair looks today, or whatever that is. You're not fused to any of your thoughts, the positive, the neutral, or the negative. Fusion means that we can't tell the difference between who we are and what we're thinking. And I want to tell you, you've got to be able to tell the difference between who you are and what you're thinking because you are separate from your thoughts. You are a person that has thoughts. And thoughts can be all over the place. Thoughts can be positive, they can be neutral, they could be negative, they can also be true, they could be not true, they can be good for you, and they could be not good for you.

So when you recognize that you as a thinker have the choice to think the thoughts that serve you best, that's when we start to get into really having power, really being able to control your inner world by choice. And you may have times where you have a thought that makes you sad. And you choose to have that thought because it works, it's appropriate. My beloved dog died. I'm having thoughts like I'm gonna miss her. That makes me sad. I choose that thought. That thought actually works really well for me.

And as we learn not to run away from our feelings, to know that there's not a feeling in the world that you can't handle because we're practicing working on dealing with our feelings, right? Then you are going to at times have thoughts that create feelings that are painful. And if you have a dog that you loved and she passes away or he passes away, then you're probably gonna miss him and you're gonna have some sadness. This is normal life, right?

So when the inner critic starts hammering at us, when we get fused with those thoughts, we can't tell the difference between whether those thoughts are true or not true, or useful or not useful, they become something we accept. We take them on. Sometimes we wear them, sometimes it feels like they become us. So it's so important to recognize that the inner critic is speaking. If you just know that these thoughts that I'm having, and maybe you notice by how you feel inside, right? Like that, oh, that curling up shame, that feeling of such painful response to those thoughts. That might be your first clue that the inner critic has grabbed the microphone.

E, we externalize the critic. This is exactly what I'm talking about when you say, I hear the inner critic, and I'm gonna externalize it. I'm gonna make it separate from me. Okay. So here's Leigh and here's Leigh's inner critic. And I might even give her a name, something that helps me distinguish her. I might just call her the critic. I'm externalizing that voice, which helps me defuse, right? I'm separating the voice from my identity and I'm naming it as the critic. And the critic is telling me something. And already it helps me recognize that it doesn't have to be taken as truth. So I might say, This is my inner critic. I'm having the thought that I'm failing. She's telling me that I'm no good at this mothering. She's telling me that I should give up. Externalizing creates space, and space restores your power and your choice.

Okay, S. We're gonna do two things with S. First, we're gonna separate the critic's voice from your true voice. And when I say your true voice, what I mean is your conscious voice, the voice that you get to control, that you make decisions from. And we want that to be based upon your values. We want that to be based upon what you know. You know what we're training for, you guys, is for you to have as your baseline foundation true voice the knowledge that you are whole, you are valuable, and you are wise. These are truths that anchor you. They are resilient truths. I put them at the beginning of every program when I'm working with a woman, whether it's in a group setting or individual, that we need to learn these underpinnings, these things that anchor us.

Your true voice gets invited to the table. Your critical voice comes without invitation. Your true voice needs your invitation. So you're gonna have to separate it. And it helps for you to be able to know that it's okay for you to have two different voices in your head, two different parts of you, a part of you that's very critical, and a part of you that's very protective and grounded in what you know.

So the first way we're gonna use S is to separate the critic's voice from your inner true voice. The second way I want you to use the letter S is to see what's under the criticism. This is so powerful because your inner critic really isn't your enemy. She's really trying to help you. And it doesn't feel like it by the way that she treats you or talks to you, right? Because it's so shaming and demoralizing and it sucks the energy out of you. But her goal is about survival. So when you can see what's underneath the inner critic's harsh judgment, you can start to get an idea of what other feelings you might be having. Usually fear is a big part of this. When the inner critic starts speaking, it's because something precious or important to you feels like it's a little bit vulnerable. That's a tenderness, a value, or something you care about is really underneath your critics' attacks. And that's so important for you to know because seeing what's under it turns that self-attack into self-understanding. It helps you have a whole different understanding of why you're hearing that criticism in your head.

Okay, the E in reset, the second E is to engage in self-compassion. This is where now that voice of truth, you know that you're separate from the critic, you're starting to hear that language as critical language, and you're starting to recognize that you have another voice that you can start to work with it, right? And you're starting to see what's underneath some of that criticism. And now you're gonna use compassion. You engage in being compassionate, you encourage yourself with truth, you get to choose which voice you listen to, and even respond from that steady, adult, grounded voice that knows the truth so that you know how to work with your critic, not to silence her, not to be harsh with her, not to kick her in the behind, but to support her, to support the part of you that's hurting.

What you're trying to do is to get to what's underneath. If I'm talking to myself this way, then there must be something that I'm feeling really fearful about, something that feels really vulnerable, something that I care about, and I'm judging myself harshly. Where did that judgment come from? Well, I think that there's a little bit in all of us that kind of comes with us as human beings. Ultra focused, self-protected part of our brain that wants to make sure that we don't mess up, we don't make a mistake. So that could be one reason. It could be that we grew up hearing a lot of criticism. It could be that we grew up being so focused on doing everything right that we just couldn't imagine making a mistake. And so we kept ourselves very tightly wound, very carefully managed. And all of that, you guys, it comes from somewhere. And I don't even think you have to worry too much where it comes from. It's recognizing that it's here now and it's not serving you. And that what you need more than anything is support and security and safety. And that's what the self-critic needs.

So when we give ourselves self-compassion, it's not weakness, it's leadership. You are an older version of this younger part of yourself. I love to look at the inner critic like a really immature preteen who thinks she knows everything and really hasn't had enough life experience to know much of anything. She's getting so set on her ways about how it should be and what went wrong and how I should be punished by that. And when I can come in as an adult with lots more experience, lots more leadership, and almost put my arm around her and say, I know, I know, you're really worried, you're really scared, but this is not helpful and I'm going to go another way.

T, that's how we go another way. We take the next right step. We take back our control. We disengage from the commentary. You might still hear it. You can't always stop the critic from talking in your head, but you can decide where you're going to put your attention. And if you can say, I know that's my critic, and she's going, going, going, it makes it much less dangerous for you to not pay attention to what she's saying.

Maybe the next right step is to take the underlying concern you have, the fear, the worry, the maybe you made a mistake. Have you ever noticed that when you make a mistake, which everyone does, by the way, and actually that you're supposed to make mistakes because no one is perfect. So when we make a mistake, that's often the very time that our inner critic jumps in and blows it up, right? And so taking the next right step might mean that you pull out the thing you're really worried about. Maybe it's that you yelled at your kids and the inner critic is going on and on about what a terrible mother you are. And you're able to separate from her, sort through what's underneath it, and decide that you're gonna repair. Instead of spiral about what a terrible mom you are, you're gonna go to your child and say, I am so sorry that I raised my voice. I shouldn't have done that. I have been really tired. I'm gonna work on that. That is not your problem. That is not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm sorry.

Could it be that that's what the inner critic is trying to get you to do? Except she's doing it in such a harsh, panicky way that we end up kind of spiraling down and feeling worse and then feeling less able to repair and move forward with our child. Exactly the opposite of what we need. So what we're looking at doing is kind of pausing instead of pushing ourselves, asking for help instead of self-attack, repairing things when there's something that we legitimately think we could have done better. It's just the next right step.

So basically, what we're saying is that the critic is really trying to help us. I've said before that the critic is what we call a double agent. She keeps records, she uses selective memory, she points out what went wrong. But here's what she reveals if you can translate her. Her criticism is about what you care about. If you didn't care, she wouldn't have material to blast you with, right? So when she says you're a terrible mom, I want you to flip that and say, I think I really care about being a good mom. I care about my child. I care about doing this well. When she says you're not enough, the translation can be, I really I want to matter, I want to be loved, I want to do this well.

I want you to stop taking her insults literally and start listening for the values that you care about that are underneath her criticism because that value is yours. The critic doesn't own it, you do.

When she speaks harshly to you, it doesn't always mean that you're in danger. And I know that's really hard, but if you've been in labor, you know, like childbirth labor, you know this pain can be intense and still not be a threat, right? Pain can be part of something meaningful. Your inner critic can feel painful and still not mean something is wrong with you. It could mean that you're going through a period of time where you're stretching and you're trying and you care and you're human.

So instead of treating pain and her criticism as proof, we want to treat it as information. And we could do that when we're separate from her, when we don't have to believe everything our inner critic tells us. We widen the lens. Yes, the voice is loud. And also, I am still here and I know what I know is true. Yes, this hurts. And also, it doesn't get to define me. Yes, I feel afraid, and also I have wisdom. I can make a good decision, the next right decision. This is how we create space. And in the space, you get to choose.

Fighting the critic backfires. And I just want to remind you of this. Stopping the critic by attacking the critic just makes us feel worse, like we're failing. And then we say, Stop it. What's wrong with me? I shouldn't think this. That's the critic wearing just another hat, right? That's still self-attack. So I don't want you to fight her like an enemy. We want to lead her like a scared part of us that doesn't get the wheel to drive. We're gonna be firm and compassionate and boundaried.

So here's what I want you to practice this week: a simple, simple plan. Number one, write your intention somewhere you see it. This intention reminds you of those values we're talking about. You can use the ones that I love because I think they're so powerful, or you can create your own. I am whole, I am valuable, and I have wisdom. Any version that feels believable to you works. Next, put it where you'll see it. Because when your nervous system is activated, you won't remember the truth easily, right? The nervous system rises up, that lower brain, it kind of blocks off our upper brain. All this training we're doing right now, this sounds so great. You have a plan, and then your nervous system acts up, it's hard to reach it, right? That's why the critic kind of jumps in and takes our attention and it feels scary because that's the only voice we can hear. So I want you to write this thing down and make it visible where you can see it.

Second, use this reset process once a day, not just in crisis, practice resetting in small moments so it's available to you in the big ones, where you recognize any little sound of the critical voice and then externalize it. There's the E. Then see what's underneath it, then encourage yourself with truth, and then take the next right step. That's the reset process.

Translate your critic when she says something harsh. Ask, what do I care about that's underneath this? This is how you reclaim your values. This is how self-attack becomes self-understanding.

Okay, guys, if your inner critic is speaking up right now, I want you to hear me because it's not a sign that you're failing, it's a sign that you're starting to break open this pattern in which she's been in charge and you're starting to take your power back. And you might start to notice her more. And I don't want you to be worried about that. I want you to practice recognizing that it is just a voice and you get to choose whether it's serving you or not.

You are whole, you are valuable, you have wisdom. And every time you return to that truth, especially when it's hard, you're strengthening the steady version of you, the version that can lead with more clarity and take you in the direction you want to go. And hopefully with so much compassion. You don't need the criticism to be a better version of yourself. You get to do that with compassion. And you're allowed to make mistakes and still stay on your own side.

So if you hear the critic, don't hand her the microphone. Put your attention back on where you have choice, and you're gonna start to feel like your power returns to you. You're gonna get better and better at it. I hope this is helpful. I'd love to hear your comments.

If you want to reach out to me, you can get me at leigh@leighgermann.com
. I'll send you an email back. We can talk about this. This is so powerful, you guys, for us to feel resilience in our lives and be free of this harsh critic that can really make it hard to get through our day. I hope you'll give it a try. Thanks for spending time with me, and I'll see you all next week. Take care.

If you feel like these ideas really speak to you, but you're not sure how to actually apply them in your own life, I want you to know you don't have to do it alone. I'm currently opening a few one-to-one coaching spots for moms who are ready to go deeper and get personalized support as they build their own resilience. This is where we take everything we talk about here and we tailor it to your life, your story, your goals.

If that sounds like something you're craving, just head to leighgermann.com and click on one-to-one coaching. We'll set up a free call to talk about where you are, where you want to be, and whether coaching is the right next step for you.

You can always find me on Instagram at @leighgermann or on my website at leighgermann.com.

The Leadership Parenting Podcast is for general information purposes only. It is not therapy and should not take the place of meeting with a qualified mental health professional. The information on this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition, illness, or disease. It's also not intended to be legal, medical, or therapeutic advice. Please consult your doctor or mental health professional for your individual circumstances.

Thanks again and take care.