When a person criticizes or attacks you, it tends to trigger the parts in your Inner Critic cluster, including some parts that I didn’t mention in my previous blog on this cluster. Here is a brief description of some parts that may get activated:

1. Criticized Child. This part will invariably be triggered into its feelings of shame and deficiency by the outer attack. These feelings could be a reaction to your inner critic becoming activated, or they could be a direct reaction to the other person even when there is no inner critic activation involved. In either case, of course, the reaction really goes back to the childhood criticism from your parents or whatever the origin of this exile’s pain is. Sometimes you feel this part directly, and sometimes you are totally caught up in one of the protectors that are protecting against this exile’s feelings.

2. Inner Critic. When another person criticizes you, this can trigger your inner critic to attack you even more. It says, “See, I said you were no good. This proves it. Let me tell you all the ways.” This can intensify the pain of the Criticized Child because now it is getting it from two directions, inside and outside. Read the rest of this entry »

I encourage you to try out this simple exercise to get more in touch with your Inner Critic. Please respond and let me know how it works for you.

Exercise: Identifying the Critic and Criticized Child
Remember a recent time when you felt bad about yourself—when you felt ashamed, depressed, hopeless, or discouraged.
What situation were you in at the time?

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What did you feel emotionally?

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Take a moment to sense what that felt like in your body. Did you feel heavy in your heart? Collapsed in your chest? Weighted down? Crunched down or small? Teary?

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Those are the feelings of the Criticized Child as that part of you receives the attack from your Inner Critic.

Think back to any thoughts or inner messages that happened just before those feelings came up or while you were feeling them. Which of them were judgmental or attacking messages from your Inner Critic, which may have caused those painful feelings? Write down those messages.

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In this group, you will learn how to use the powerful IFS model in your work on yourself, both in the group, on your own, and in peer counseling with other group members at home. The text for this work is Jay’s book Self-Therapy. We will use a variety of modalities:
1. One person does individual work and everyone else supports them and learns from it.
2. Group exercises, where everyone works on a similar issue at the same time.
3. One person works on their parts by having other group members role play them.
4. Sharing your life issues and struggles and getting support from the group.
5. Practicing speaking for your parts as the arise in the group process.
6. Working through interpersonal issues that come up with other people in the group.
7. Learning about how IFS can be applied to specific psychological issues and how to develop the healthy capacities needed to resolve the issue.

Thursdays, 7:30-9:30 pm, 3 times a month
$45/session, sliding scale
Start April 8
Mill Valley, CA

Call Jay at 415-924-5256 or email jay@earley.org for more information or to join

Friday, April 2
7:00 pm
Free
Mill Valley, CA
Call 415-924-5256 or email jay@earley.org to enroll and get directions

During this evening you can…
• Learn about the IFS model
• Discover some of your parts
• Have an experience of working with your parts using IFS
• Learn about my IFS classes and groups
• Meet other people who are interested in personal growth
• Ask any questions you have

Mindy writes:
When you begin the inner critic work…because it’s so complex, are you able to begin through exploration and then filter out the parts, or should you just start with being curious about one specific part, like the criticized child! It seems very complicated and a little overwhelming! Just wondering how to even begin this work?!?!?

My response:
Usually the best place to start is with the Inner Critic part. For example, you might hear verbal judgments from your Critic or see an image of it as a harsh schoolmarm. Then you need to unblend from it and get to know it. Sometimes you might be  feeling the Criticized Child strongly, for example, feeling depressed, hopeless, or ashamed. Then you can start there. In either case, the first step is to unblend from both the Critic and the Criticized Child, so you are in Self and therefore can get to know the Critic in a helpful way.

It is useful to know about the rest of the Inner Critic cluster because these parts often come up when you are trying to work with the Critic. You might hear a part that starts arguing with the Critic. That is the Inner Defender. Or you might realize that you want to get rid of the Critic. In this case, you are blended with an angry concerned part. You need to ask these parts to step aside so you are in Self. For more details on unblending, see chapters 5 and 6 in my book Self-Therapy. Even though this book doesn’t focus on the Inner Critic, it shows how to work with any protector using IFS. (Our upcoming book on the Inner Critic will spell this out for Critic protectors.)

Then you get to know the Critic and find out its positive intent for you. This is covered in chapter 7.
Good luck.
Jay

I welcome further responses from Mindy or anyone else to this post.