The Inner Critic

In this episode of Stories From The Lost & Found, I explore where the inner critic comes from, why it can feel so convincing and how we can begin working with it through Internal Family Systems, subconscious healing and compassionate self-awareness.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why the inner critic is often a protective part rather than a personal flaw.
• How early experiences can shape subconscious beliefs such as “I’m not enough” or “I have to be perfect.”
• Why fighting, silencing or arguing with the inner critic can make it louder.
• How Internal Family Systems helps protective parts feel seen, understood and safe enough to soften.
• The role of neuroplasticity and subconscious work in creating new beliefs and patterns.
• A simple grounding practice to reconnect with your body, cultivate curiosity and ask yourself, “What do I need right now?”

Your inner critic is not trying to destroy you. It is often an exhausted part of you that learned to protect deeper wounds in the only way it knew how. When we meet that part with presence instead of resistance, we create space for greater trust, compassion and lasting change.

Tune in to this episode to understand the voice beneath your self-criticism and begin building a more supportive relationship with yourself. Follow, subscribe and share the episode with someone who may need this reminder.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Stories from the Lost and Found. I'm Krishna Avalon, subconscious therapist, breakthrough coach, and acupuncturist, someone who spent 24 years helping people change from the inside out. I bridge neuroscience and ancient medicine together to show you what's actually driving your life because it's almost never what's on the surface. Each week we'll go deep into the patterns, wounded parts, and the real stories behind why we get stuck and how we find our way through. If you're ready for honesty, depth, and tools that actually work, you're in the right place. I am so glad you're here. Good morning, and welcome to this space where I get to help you understand a little bit deeper a part within you that may be running the show quite often. This part of you sounds just like you: your own voice, your own thoughts, which is actually what makes it so difficult to reach and can be very exhausting to live with. It might sound something like I should be further along by now. Other people handle this just fine. Why can't I? Why am I so sensitive? What's wrong with me? I don't do anything right. Very convincing voice. And not actually true. So let's look at where the inner critic actually comes from, not just emotionally, but neurologically, at the subconscious level, where it was built and where it still lives. We'll go over what it means as a subconscious program and what it means when the inner critic is part of you. And from the framework of IFS, internal family systems, we get to know parts of us, validate them, and witness them, which is often what these parts of us need to become less extreme in their expression. We'll also get into what it looks like and feels like in the body before you can even hear it in your thoughts. And then I want to offer you tools to work with in the moment and explain tools that help you move forward. The people I work with tend to understand intellectually that the inner critic developed in childhood, maybe later, but usually early childhood. Most people can name the parent or the teacher, the environment, and they can tell you exactly where it came from. But that's not enough to move forward. Which is not a failure of insight, it's a structural problem. Understanding where a pattern came from is a conscious level process. But the inner critic isn't living in the conscious mind. It's subconscious, encoded in the part of the brain that stores memory, your automatic responses, and the emotional programs that run your life. Here's the neuroscience that makes it more concrete. Your conscious mind controls approximately 5% of your life and your behavior. The other 95% is being run by your subconscious, the part that holds your habits, your reactions, your behaviors, your beliefs about who you are and what you deserve and what's safe. The inner critic is a program, and it was likely installed early. Most of our subconscious beliefs are in a place before age seven, during a very developmental window when the brain is very receptive, spongy, almost hypnotic. So we absorb the emotional environment we're in and draw conclusions about ourselves from it. Not my parent was stressed out and took it out on me. The conclusion a child's nervous system or subconscious mind makes is I am too much. I am not enough. I have to be perfect to be loved. If I get this wrong, something bad happens. And then these conclusions get stored as programs. Subconscious running underneath everything. And the brain then builds a system to manage fear underneath that. And that system is often an inner critic. And this is where IFS, internal family systems, and Psych K, the subconscious process that I was trained in, each offer something very powerful. And I want to walk you through what each framework actually does for your inner critic. In IFS, the mind is understood as a system of parts, different aspects of you that carry different roles, different fears, and different protective logic. For instance, part of you wants to take a leap, make a big decision. Another part absolutely doesn't. Part of you knows you're great at your work. And then there's another part that might be convinced you're one mistake away from being found out. Within the IFS model, the inner critic is a type of manager part. So the managers get a lot of cred in society. They're often overworking, hyper-vigilant, perfectionist, people-pleasing. They run protective strategies to keep you safe from an anticipated threat, and they're protecting us. They're protecting the exiles within us, the wounded parts, because they believe, the protectors believe that they are keeping you from a deeper pain that will be too overwhelming for your system. But the logic, subconscious, not reason, goes something like this. If I criticize you before anyone else does, the blow will hurt less. If I keep the bar impossibly high, you'll never get complacent and humiliate yourself. If I make you small enough, you won't take risks that might expose you. The critic is not here to destroy you. It's trying to protect you using the only tool that it knows. And this is how IFS is different because a lot of frameworks teach us to bypass the parts of us that we don't like or are uncomfortable. Even in meditation, trying to make something go away. But here's the layer underneath the critic that most approaches never reach. The manager part only exists because there's something deeper, it's protecting. Parts of you that carry the original wound. The younger part who was told she was too much, the child who performed perfectly and still didn't feel enough. The girl who learned that being seen meant being criticized. So invisibility became safety. So let that land, because that's that's huge right there. The exile is carrying the original subconscious belief: I am not enough. I am not safe. I am too much. The inner critic's entire job is to make sure that the exile never gets activated, because if the exile's pain services, the critic believes it will be unbearable. But this is also why fighting the critic doesn't work. When you try to silence the critic, replace it with affirmations, or argue it down, the manager escalates. Because from its perspective, you're threatening the entire protection system. Parts that feel attacked don't soften, they dig in. What IFS actually does with the critic is the opposite of fighting. The process moves in a specific sequence. First, the critic needs to feel safe enough to step back, not be eliminated or dismissed, but step back. And that only happens when it trusts your self energy. Self is the term in IFS that we use to describe the core of who you are. It is already within you. Whole and healed. It is calm, curious, compassionate, loving, present, and wise. And self has always been there. These parts of you, like the inner critic, they need to get to know you in your self energy so that you can be more self-led in your life and less parts-led. When that protective manager experiences you in yourself, it feels seen because you're extending that curiosity, presence, and love to this critic. The critic was developed very early in your life to protect your system. Imagine reflecting or how you would respond to like a three to five-year-old who felt so scared and alone and had all this responsibility for trying to keep you safe. That's often who that inner critic is within your system. And when it starts to know you in that self-energy, receive that self-energy from you, feels validated and seen, held, not alone, witnessed. It starts to do what we call unblend. And that's where it can give you space. It can soften, it can rest. Usually these parts of us are exhausted, but they need to feel safe, softening. And not because you forced it, because that part no longer needs to protect so hard. The brain has a property called neuroplasticity. The ability to form new neural connections and recognize existing ones throughout your entire lifespan. You're not stuck with the programming you have. Even from the most difficult things. IFS and Psyche are quick and gentle. My clients notice shifts within one session. Ten sessions is usually the results people are after. It's going to affect many areas of your life, and all of the people will start to notice who. Maybe you've even had difficult relationships with. As you work with the parts within yourself and you change your subconscious programming, the world and people start to respond differently to you pretty immediately. Neuroplasticity just requires the right conditions. That's your brain's ability to have a new experience. Psyche K, it's not a name I love, but it's called psychology and kinesiology was created by a psychologist, as was IFS. Both of them have lots of science behind them. They are grounded in neuroscience. Psych K works by creating what's called a whole brain state, which is a condition in which both hemispheres of your brain start communicating optimally. And this is verified by EEG research. So let's think about what that means. Most of us are running the inner critic pattern from one side of the system. The left brain has strategy, analysis, self-talk. The right brain holds the emotional residue, the felt sense of not enough. That was installed even before language. Most approaches work in only one of those hemispheres. Affirmations are left brain. Emotional processing is right brain. And the two can't communicate the update to each other unless they're in a whole brain state. So Psyche helps you get to that place in your brain where you can be very relaxed, and that's where change can happen. That's where new programs can be installed and where we can peacefully unattach from triggering stressful or traumatic behaviors, however big or small, doesn't matter. And again, one session you notice shifts. Ten sessions is let's look at all areas of your life that you want to expand or grow or move forward in. For the inner critic specifically, a psych K process might work to create new beliefs, like I am enough exactly as I am. It is safe for me to be seen for who I am. I love and accept myself. In a regular conversation, those statements can sound true but feel hollow at the same time. Because you can agree with them consciously, but the subconscious is what's running the program. So you might try to talk yourself into something. If you have to present, if you have to show up somewhere, if you have to be seen, you might be trying to talk yourself into things, and it's so much work where you still feel the rev and the panic inside your system. It's because your subconscious has not expanded into those beliefs. From an IFS lens, it's because those parts of you need to feel safe and held. And this is why I love to work with both frameworks together. I don't always, but with clients that I get to work for, you know, with for a series of sessions, we are often blending both modalities because it just gets you where you need to go, like right now, rather than having to spend 20 years in talk therapy. We can talk as much or as little as you like. Change is immediate and long-lasting. You don't ever have to do a same subconscious balance again. You just keep expanding on the trust of yourself, on your worth, on what you believe you deserve. So let's go into a practice. So as you're sitting in a psych session, sitting in what we call a balance, you might feel a lot of nausea and then the nausea clears. You might feel your back tighten and then it releases. You might feel your jaw clench clenched, then it releases. Sometimes you're crying, crying, crying, and then you're just not crying. Sometimes you're so pissed off, and then you're just not. So the shifts happen mentally, emotionally, or physically, but often we feel those in our body. Same thing with IFS. That inner critic might come through as tightness in the shoulders, a migraine, sensations of heat. And so as we work with these parts of our system, that energy clears and your body feels different. So let's drop in. I want to take you through cultivating more self-energy and then extending that to a part of you that needs your attention. Maybe it's not the inner critic. You know, when you feel super tight in your shoulders, your jaw, your neck, you have a headache. Maybe it's a critic, maybe it's judgment, maybe it's anger, maybe it's overwhelm. And those two, those are protective parts that need witnessing. So let's cultivate some self-energy right now and extend that to a part of you that needs it. So close your eyes if it feels good. Put a hand on your heart and take a couple breaths. One more. Down into your heart. You can even imagine that you're like a scuba diver who is coming down beneath the surface to where it's quiet and still into your heart space. Take a couple breaths. And from here, feel an openness and a curiosity within your own heart. Openness and curiosity, some presence, just by taking some deep breaths, slowing it down. Letting the light come in. Coming into stillness. Open curious. Now noticing what's happening in your body. Is there a place of you that feels tight? Stuck? Gripping. And just notice. Notice where you feel that in your body. All you're doing here is noticing. You are seeing the part of you that is tight, tense, holding. Now I want you to practice sending some curiosity and openness to this part of you. Take a couple breaths. This is very simple but very powerful practice of slowing it down and noticing. Very powerful to extend curiosity, openness, presence to the part of you that needs it. You're letting it know that you see it. You're letting that tension, gripping, stagnation. Any kind of stress. You're letting it know that you see it. That is all. And that you're here with it. Extending the presence and the curiosity to this part of you. Taking another couple breaths. Besides letting it know that you're here with it and that you see it. Which is no small thing. Just this alone can change your entire experience. You could start to practice asking yourself or this tension or this part of you that needs you. What do you need right now? And you're not asking within any kind of agenda. You're not trying to change it or fix it. Parts do not like that. They can tell when you have an agenda, and they can tell when you're just curious and open and present. And if you don't get an answer right away, totally fine. Sometimes parts need to get to know you before they just give you that information. But sometimes they're ready to tell you right away. And your body will tell you everything you need to know. So this is the practice for you. Practice slowing it down, allowing the light to come into your heart. Dropping beneath the surface where it's loud. Coming into your heart space. Extending the presence of curiosity and openness to the part of you that needs it. Telling this part that you see it and that you are here with it. And then asking it what it needs. That language is tricky for you in any way. You can just ask yourself, what do I need right now? I want you to practice that. We are often used to looking outside of yourselves, ourselves, at what everyone else needs. This is the practice of coming back into your own energy, acknowledging the parts within you, extending presence, curiosity, love by asking yourself, what do I need right now? And again, this will change your life. And you can do this so many times a day. This is a beautiful one for empaths who get lost and have a hard time coming back to their energy. Your critic, though, if that's within you. And any other part will very much love you slowing down and noticing. So that is your practice for today. If that lands and I hope that it did, I've got so much more for you. And I'll see you in the next episode. Our next solo episode will be going into people pleasing. Have a beautiful day. That's a wrap on today's episode of Stories from the Lost and Found. If something here resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it. Send this to someone who really needs to hear it. And if you are ready to go deeper, I would love to support you. Download my free workbook. It walks you through your own subconscious blocks. You can find that link in the show notes. Or if you're ready for a real shift, book a free strategy call and let's figure out what is keeping you from moving forward. I'll see you next week. Your next breakthrough is closer than you think.