In the last blog, I showed how the Inner Critic is in the Self-esteem dimension of the Pattern System. Each of the seven types of Inner Critics also resides in a dimension of the Pattern System. Let’s look at the Perfectionist:

The two polarized protectors are the Perfectionist and the Sloppy Part, which just does tasks in a cavalier way, not caring about how well they are done or the consequences. The healthy version of the Perfectionist is the Inner Mentor who helps you to do things in an excellent way without judgment or extremes. It is caring and supportive and knows when something is good enough. The healthy version of the Sloppy Part is the Inner Champion who supports you working in an easy flowing way without sacrificing quality. And it also supports your feeling good about yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pattern System is a way of understanding different types of parts and capacities in the human psyche and how they are related to each other. (See  for more details.) There are various dimensions in the Pattern System such as self-esteem, power, intimacy, and accomplishment. Each dimension involves two polarized IFS protectors and two related healthy capacities. (There is also an exile involved, but I will leave that out of this blog.)

In the Self-esteem Dimension, the two polarized protectors are the Inner Critic, which tears down your self-esteem, and the Prideful Part, which tries to build it up by impressing other people or having grandiose ideas of how special you are. The healthy capacities are the Inner Champion and the Inner Mentor. The Inner Champion is the healthy version of Pride because it supports your self-esteem as your birthright. It reminds you that you are valuable just for being yourself and you don’t have to achieve anything or be anything in order to feel good about yourself. Your Inner Mentor is the healthy version of the Inner Critic because it helps you improve yourself in areas where you need that, but it does this with complete self-acceptance, kindly support, and encouragement. Your Inner Champion and your Inner Mentor naturally go together. They are integrated instead of fighting each other the way Pride and the Critic are.

Your goal in Inner Critic work is to develop your Inner Champion to support your feelings of self-worth, and to transform your Inner Critic into an Inner Mentor that functions like a good parent in helping you to grow.

Inner Critic parts want us to be a certain way, to fit a certain mold. The Perfectionist wants you to be obsessively perfect. The Taskmaster wants you to be hard working and striving. The Underminer wants you to be overly cautious. And so on. If you are that way, your Critic may not attack you and make you feel bad because you are living up to its standards. We may have parts that simply are that way. For example, I have a Taskmaster part that is a striver and achiever. It isn’t a Critic because it doesn’t attack me. That part just works too hard. You may have a part like this, and if it fails to live up to the Critic’s demands, then you may get attacked for this. That’s what I mean about the Inner Critic being an enforcer. It tries to enforce its standards for you by attacking you if you don’t meet them.

Luckily, my Taskmaster isn’t a Critic, and I have been working with it for many years to lighten up and allow me to relax, enjoy my life more, be present, and be free. Today it did that. It relaxed its push to get our Inner Critic book out as soon as possible. I have been feeling very happy today because of that. I feel like a burden has been lifted and I feel easy and expansive. Such a nice way to be.

Inner Critic parts often seem to be very powerful and frightening, but this is often a front they put up to be able to do their job. When you get to know them, you view can often change dramatically. Here is an example of this:

Sarah was really frightened of her Inner Critic. It screamed and yelled at her and crushed her with its attacks and it power. It told her that she was worthless and would never amount to anything. She visualized it as a huge powerful monster with great muscles and a loud voice that was beating at her. However, once she got into Self and was openly interested in getting to know it and its positive intent, it gradually changed. It became smaller, less threatening and more reasonable. When she came to understand what it was trying to protect her from, her image of it morphed again; now she saw it as a frightened kid who was doing its best to act tough to prevent a terrible tragedy. It was afraid that if she felt OK about herself, she would put herself out in the world and get shamed. Therefore, she felt compassion and caring for it. She saw that the real Critic had been revealed, like the little man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz.

IFS recognizes that a protector can’t fully let go and transform until the exile(s) that it protects have been accessed and unburdened. However, there are situations where it isn’t practical to do this right away. Then you can connect with the protector from Self and negotiate with it to allow you to take the lead in a difficult situation in your life where this protector normally takes over and causes problems. This means that you can change your attitudes and behavior in some situations even before the underlying exile has been healed. Here’s how to do this with an Inner Critic protector:

First make a connection with the Critic but understanding what it is trying to do for you and appreciating its efforts. Then it will be possible for it to cooperate with you and learn a different way to respond when a situation triggers it. You can learn to negotiate with it to allow you to lead whenever such a situation arises. Explain that Self can handle this situation and make this decision. The Critic doesn’t have to be extreme about it. The Critic became extreme because it was dealing with a dangerous and harmful situation in childhood, and it believes that this is happening again. Furthermore, there wasn’t a Self there to help back then, and the Critic hasn’t realized that you have a Self available to help now. Or maybe your Self hasn’t been fully available. But now that you are doing this IFS work, your Self has been accessed and can help. And now that the Self and the Critic are connected, the Critic is more likely to listen to the Self and trust what the Self is saying. Read the rest of this entry »