top of page
Search

Inner Critic and Self-Image

Your fear is not protecting you the way you might think. It’s limiting your ability to dare greatly, live exuberantly and fully express your true nature Dr Lissa Rankin

Ever heard of victimization? It is the process of being victimized or becoming a victim. Self victimization also known as victim playing is a coping strategy often used to manage negative self talk and self sabotage. This negative coping technique does more harm than good. It is often an outcome of an inability to understand and navigate our inner critic.

When things get hard, our paths unclear or even when things are going great, we often associate our emotions as outcomes of certain situations. We identify ourselves as victims of our world, our situations, our systems and organizations we are part of (family/school/workplace). An example of this would be:

Person A: Why do you look so tired?

Person B: I have been very busy with work, I have zero time for anything.

Person A: Is it some major project? When is it due?

Person B: It isn’t just one or two projects, it’s on-going and I don’t see things easing up anytime soon.

What you should understand here is that Person B:

  1. is blaming their work and work related lifestyle

  2. is not willing to create change within their given circumstances.

  3. has failed to readjust and create new systems where there is some work life balance

Even if the circumstances were reversed and Person B was receiving a compliment, it is most likely that they would’ve not accepted the praise. They would’ve probably told Person A that it was no big deal or that it was a relatively simple task and that everyone can do it.

Although this state of victimization is not a medical condition, it is a mindset that is fuelled by stress, negativity, distress, pain and fear. People with this mindset do not express a lot of negativity but they do believe that everyone else is the cause of their misery and nothing is in their hands and their efforts will not change anything. According to Dr Lissa Rankin, this type of learned helplessness is very deeply rooted in all of us and causes us to lose our inner locus of control and something called the inner pilot light.

The inner pilot light as described by Dr Lissa is this kind of higher manifestation of our intuition that not only helps us grow and evolve but is also healing in nature. It is what connects our mind, body and spirit with the infinite potential and guidance of the universe. Think of our inner pilot light as a fire that is bright and warm whereas our inner critic is dark, stagnant energy that tends to dull our inner pilot light.

You might be wondering what any of this has to do with self-image and overall health? The answer is that it has everything to do with our self-image and overall health. The first results that come up on google scholar when you look for inner voice is its effects on eating disorders, autism, self-esteem and suicide ideation in normal individuals. So what does this information imply? What are these studies trying to tell us?

To understand this we need to understand the biology behind certain body responses. Our nervous system is responsible for receiving information about the environment around us and generates responses to that information. A part of our nervous system called the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) is responsible for something known as the “stress response”, or more commonly known as the fight/flight/freeze response. A small almond sized organ known as the amygdala is responsible for identifying the stressor and is also what causes our body to respond by fight, flight or freeze. And when the body is in the state of “stress response”, major life supporting systems like digestion and healing are cut off. Because the body perceives the state of stress as a life threatening experience.

The problem arises because our amygdala cannot differentiate mortal danger from simple everyday stressors (work stress/ traffic stress) and when not handled correctly results in something known as a “chronic stress response” and this is the major cause for a number of non-communicable disease including cancers, diabetes and several auto-immune conditions like alzheimers. According to a study by Harvard Medical School, we are in a state of stress response on average 50 times a day. This means that the body’s healing centres are closed 50 times a day!

You are probably wondering how you can fix this? The answer also lies in the nervous system itself. The Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) is responsible for something known as the “relaxation response”, in this state the body is healing itself and the nutrients from our food are being absorbed. Journaling, meditation, exercise, time in nature and time spent with loved one’s are all ways to ensure that your body is in a “relaxation response”.

So what I am trying to tell you here is that, when you give away the control of your life to your circumstances and you let yourself be the victim. It is also making it easy for us to lose control over our responses to situations and that leads to a never-ending vicious cycle of guilt-shame-procrastination and self-isolation. Which leaves with a very poor self-image and in terrible health.

What you CAN do to make your life better, is take control of your life and your health. Your health is your responsibility as is your self-image. You have to be willing to step up and reclaim your power in order to start healing yourself.

Let your fear shine light on your inner voice. Let your inner voice shine light on all the aspects and parts of you that need healing. Stop resisting it and start letting it transform you. Stop hiding it and Stop fighting alone. The Fear Cure

Sources

  1. The Fear Cure: Cultivating Courage as Medicine for the Body, Mind and Soul by Dr Lissa Rankin

  2. Greta Noordenbos, Navid Aliakbari & Rachel Campbell (2014) The Relationship Among Critical Inner Voices, Low Self-Esteem, and Self-Criticism in Eating Disorders, Eating Disorders

  3. Tierney, S., & Fox, J. R. (2010). Living with the anorexic voice: A thematic analysis. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 83(3), 243-254.

  4. Alexa M. Tullett, Michael Inzlicht (2010) The voice of self-control: Blocking the inner voice increases impulsive responding

Recent Posts

See All
Inner Voice and Healing

The inner voice or inner critic more often than not dictates our perception of pressure which in turn decides how much stress we put on...

 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page