Loud Inner Critic? Here’s How to Quickly Shut It Down!

A couple friends and I recently sat down for a conversation about all things related to your loud Inner Critic — especially how to quickly dial down the volume of negative over-thinking. (aka “catastrophizing” … “rumination” … “self-recrimination” … etc.)

The conversation was so full of ah-ha moments and practical tips that I had to ​share the top takeaways with you​!

Linda Goldfarb 

Do you have a loud Inner Critic? Not every voice you hear has a right to dictate your actions. Today’s guest gives us ways to lower the volume on unneeded narratives.

Don’t go anywhere – Staying Real about Faith and Family begins: right now.

[Intro music]

Linda Goldfarb 

Welcome to Staying Real about Faith and Family. If you’re looking for community where you can get real about life without resistance, you’re in the right place. I’m Linda Goldfarb. Each week, my co-host, Heather Greer and I, along with our guests, offer personal insight to encourage transparent living from a biblical viewpoint with practical applications. Staying real with the Holy Spirit’s leading is what we’re all about, and we pray that today’s episode blesses you. Let’s go to Father.

Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the opportunity to come and to feed into the lives of your children. We thank you, Lord, that you have prompted our guest to put down on paper what many people need to hear about the words spoken into their lives. Lord, we do need to grab mightily to you and Your Holy Spirit. Help us during this time to be able to differentiate between what needs to be heard, what is readily available, and the direction that you want us to go with every single word, every phrase, everything we use today. If at any time during our interview, we say something that’s not what you want Your kids to hear. We are so happy if you just delete it. Don’t allow it to be recorded. We’re good with that. We only want what you want us to offer. We do love You, and we praise You. In the mighty name of Jesus, amen and amen.

Alright, my friend, it is so good to be here with you. And I always get excited about this portion of the show. It’s when I get to say hello to my sweet, precious, wonderful friend, Heather Greer, who’s not next door. Heather, I so wish you were next door! I had the opportunity to see your home, to be in your church, to be in your community. I absolutely loved being there, and I kind of miss chumming around with you a little bit. But it’s great to be here on the show with you today.

Heather Greer 

It’s great to be able to meet with you, too. And you came just a little early, we started fall, but we are just now starting to have some real peeks of color. It’s not even as good as it’s gonna get yet. And so you’ll have to come back sometime when we actually have the fall color. Because I know you said in Texas, it’s just like – they fell.

Linda Goldfarb

Yeah, it’s fell. We don’t have fall.

Heather Greer 

Yeah, and we do. And so yeah, you’ll have to come back a little later and see us when we have all the fall color.

Linda Goldfarb 

Oh, you know I will do that. I will absolutely do that. I love – fall, to me, is a time of, it’s so representative of our seasons in and out, of knowing who Christ is, walking on those those high moments and then experiencing the valley moments; but you know, even in the fall, when the leaves fall off of the trees, there is purpose. And that’s what I really love, because without the foliage falling from the trees, then what’s under the ground will not come to surface. And so I just love it.

Yeah, in Texas, we have hot, hotter, fell. And it’s like, forget about it.

(Heather laughs)

So I’m excited about our guest. And when I thought about her coming on, I was like, there’s a lot of different topics that we could cover with her. So we’ll see. Maybe we can coerce her into coming back on with us after this episode. We’ll see if she can. We’ll see how she handles us first. So I’ll let you go ahead and introduce – 

Heather Greer

We are a lot to handle! (Laughs)

Linda Goldfarb 

We are.

Heather Greer

We want to welcome everyone to today’s episode. We are so glad you’re here with us today. And we want to introduce you to today’s guest, Cheri Gregory. Through Scripture and storytelling, Cheri delights in helping women draw closer to Jesus, the strength of every tender heart. She is the co-author of five books, including Sensitive and Strong: A Guide for Highly Sensitive Persons and Those Who Love Them. Cheri and her college sweetheart, Daniel, have been married 36 years.

We’re happy to have Cheri Gregory join our conversation as we discuss overcoming our inner critic. Cheri, it’s great to have you here on Staying Real about Faith and Family. 

Cheri Gregory 

Well, I am just excited to be here, Heather and Linda. So thank you so much for the invitation.

Linda Goldfarb 

Oh, and thank you for saying yes, this is, this is really great. And I think it’s kind of long in coming, but I’m buying into God’s perfect timing, and I’m trusting Him, right, for this timing.

So we are looking at the loud Inner Critic, that, that kind of, that negative narrative that can hit into us. Share with our listeners:

What is an inner critic and does everyone have one? 

Cheri Gregory 

I love how you use that phrase ‘negative narrative,’ because it really is a story loop. It is, it is this narrator inside of our minds that almost sounds like a different voice – and for some of us, it can sound like several different voices.

Some of it, it can be a voice from the past, like it might be a relative or, or a teacher or, you know, a boss or something like that; but it’s an inner voice that sounds like a bully and is constantly after us.

And for some people, it’s unending. For some people, it crops up at some times more than others. But the kinds of things it says are going to be these really cliched phrases, like, “I cannot believe that you…” or “What on earth were you thinking?” or “You always…” Like, it doesn’t follow any of the rules for good psychological communication, it breaks every single one of them.

And I thought everybody had a loud Inner Critic. I thought everybody laid awake at 2:37 in the morning rehearsing everything they had done wrong the day before and worrying about what they might do wrong the next day. And then I had a conversation with my dear friend and co-author, Kathi Lipp, and I found out she has no inner critic. She has no inner dialog, like it is just quiet inside her head.

And when I learned that, my first thought was, ‘I cannot imagine what that must be like.’ And second of all, I was like, ‘I want me some of that. I want me some downtime.’ Because for the longest time, my inner critic was so debilitating. It was just, was truly the loudest voice, and I really couldn’t get away from it.

So – but not everybody has one.

And so two things with that: one is, if you’re listening and you don’t have an inner critic, please know that the people in your life who are trying to tell you what theirs is like, they aren’t making it up. This is not something they’re doing for fun. Like, really, these thought loops, that, that negative narrative really is running through their head, and they’re not choosing it. It’s automatic. It’s on an automatic loop.

And second of all, if you’re listening and you do know what I’m talking about, there’s hope. It is not something that just because you’ve had it all of, all of this time, it’s not something that you are just destined and doomed to kind of try to survive through.

There actually are ways to dial down the volume of your inner critic.

Linda Goldfarb 

Well, and I appreciate that you address both sides. I’m similar to Kathi in that I don’t feel a lot with the thought loops that are bullying me. And I do have thoughts, what I, what I call my, my little girl, where she’ll bring up the past, these are actual things that have happened, yeah, and I have to kind of recognize, ‘No, that was then, this is now,’ and you don’t own me. So I kind of see it for what it is, and push it to the side.

But if we’re not familiar with this negative narrative or this, these thought loops and that others have them, we can become a critical voice to those who are dealing with a loud Inner Critic! I mean, that’s like double duty right there. And if you’re that individual, you’re like, ‘Well, I can’t even get away from anybody, because when I try to explain it…’ it’s like you’re speaking to someone, and they’re seeing you with two heads, and because they don’t get you.

Cheri Gregory 

I appreciate that empathy, Linda, I really do.

Linda Goldfarb 

Well, and I’m glad that you’re here, because there are things that – this is real. The struggle is real. And if we can address it, if we can recognize it, own it; and for those of you that have vacant thoughts, own that this is real, for someone – it’s going to really improve your relationships. So I think this is very powerful, very powerful. 

Heather Greer 

I have to say, I’m on the other side of the fence from Linda. I’m one of those people that my thoughts are constantly, constantly going. And sometimes it’s just normal thoughts. It’s ‘Oh, I like that tree’ as we pass. ‘Oh, and now there’s a cloud’ and ‘Oh, there’s this.’ And my husband is completely taken, taken off guard that on the way to church, I’m thinking something the entire way to church. And he’s like, ‘Seriously, your thoughts are like this all the time?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah. You mean there’s nothing going on in there for you?’ which sounds rude, but there’s nothing going on in there, quite literally.

And, you know, I have that going, but then, in addition to that, I also have that inner, inner narrative going on that’s negative, like, and my husband being the complete opposite of me sometimes looks and – well, like Linda mentioned, she was in our neck of the woods for a while, and she went back, and I spent the entire two hour ride home going “I wonder if she really did have a good time. I hope she had a good time, but maybe she didn’t have a good time. Maybe I should have taken her here instead of here. Maybe we should have done this. I know it’s not what she–” And he’s like, “Stop, you heard what she said.” “Well, yeah, but–”

Cheri Gregory 

Girl, I just want to, I want to reach to the computer and high five you in the worst way. Because, I mean, part of what you described is this rich inner life, right? And I would not give up that rich inner life for anything. I love being a deep processor and a reflective thinker, but that added overlay of the overthinking, and the “Yes, she said she had a good time, but did she really mean it, or did she just say it to be nice? Now let me analyze the look on her face for the next 25 minutes.” I get it. I so get it.

Heather Greer 

And so, so there are different voices. There is that inner normal narrative. There’s the Holy Spirit speaking to us. There’s the, there’s that negative narrative going on.

So how can we tell the difference between our loud inner critic and our conscience, the Holy Spirit trying to speak truth to our hearts?

Cheri Gregory 

Yeah. And that’s a great question. And for the longest time, I thought it was all the Holy Spirit. And I was like, ‘Whoa, I am constantly in sin and needing to reform.’

And then I had people who were like, “Well, just stop it. Just let it go. Just don’t think those thoughts.” And I was like, “Well, now, since they’re making it sound so easy, I must be even worse. I must even be even further away from God, because I can’t control my own thinking.”

And of course, that’s one of the, you know, the ways you know the Holy Spirit is in your life is that you have self control, and I can’t control what’s happening in my own head –

– so here’s the thing, and I think I just illustrated with even my pace of speaking and the fact that I don’t think I breathed there. The inner critic is this frenzy. It is this attack that comes on furiously, it comes on fast, and the accusations are global accusations. Like, you are not just a loser, you’re a complete loser. You know, you don’t do this sort of thing a lot, you do it all the time. You don’t just disappoint a few people, you’re a disappointment to everyone.

And the bottom line emotion when it’s the inner critic is shame. Which is very different from guilt. Guilt is ‘You made a mistake.’ Shame is ‘You are a mistake.’

And so, you know, some of the statements that, you know, I jotted down just as examples: ‘Who do you think you are wasting money again, you always are a drain on this family’s resources.’ ‘You have legs that work perfectly well. You are always so lazy, why would you call a Lyft just because it’s hot and humid in Chattanooga?’ That comes from an experience a year ago. ‘A truly responsible person would never even consider…’ and then dot dot dot, fill in the blank.

So these are huge, very powerful, kind of sweeping statements. And here’s the thing that has just been such a gift to recognize over the last few years especially: the whole concept of the gentleness of Jesus has become so sweet and valuable to me, because it helps me recognize when it’s the inner critic, who sounds nothing at all like Jesus.

Now, yes, Jesus could be bold, and could really speak truth when there were people who needed to hear that kind of truth, but the inner critic isn’t speaking truth. The inner critic is just taking a small grain of truth and distorting it into a warped negative narrative that used to then have a huge influence over my behaviors.

Where that gentleness of Jesus and that quiet, still, small voice of the Holy Spirit. First of all, it’s going to be conviction. It’s not going to be shame. It’s going to be, instead of that feeling of the anvil falling on you, like the crushing weight of the inner critic, for me, at least it’s more of a twinge. It’s more of a, ‘Ooh,’ you know, a, you know, check in my spirit. But it doesn’t feel like I’m being felled. Right? Like my knees aren’t being knocked out from under me in some tremendous way.

And it’s also very specific. Like I remember one time I was in the Apple Store – it’s actually very funny. The guy next to me was busy chewing out this young – she couldn’t have been more than college age – customer service rep, and I sat there in my bubble of better than thou, and I judged him for half an hour for being such a negative individual. I’m not going to call him names, right?

So I sat there and I was just getting more and more indignant. Well, then when this young woman tells me that I’m going to need a whole new phone, I lost it at her. And I’m part way through words coming out of my mouth, and the Holy Spirit is like, ‘Hey, Cheri, you remember that guy, that guy sitting next to you, that you were judging for half an hour? Do you realize you sound like him right now? You’re using the exact same tone of voice, you’re using the exact same language. Do you really want to keep doing this?’

And I paused, and I was – I can, I can still feel what that felt like. It was so different than the loud inner critic. It was this almost warm glow of, “Oh, thank you Lord for catching me in the act.” Like, He didn’t even wait till I was on the way home. He didn’t wait until two days later. Like, I stopped talking, and I said, “Oh, this has nothing to do with you. I need five minutes to deal with the sticker shock, but this has nothing to do with you. Can I have five minutes and you, can you come back to me?”

And I sat there, and I was remorseful. I felt terrible that I had started to come at her, and I also felt grateful. I was so – I felt so loved that the Holy Spirit came and, and knocked on the door and said, ‘You’re doing that thing that you just saw somebody else do.’

And so the next day, when I got a little survey, a customer service survey, I was able to just lay out the whole thing, and I called her out for being a servant leader, because that young woman had taken such good care of this other guy.

But my whole point is that if that had been the inner critic, it would have been lambasting me the whole drive home; but instead, it was a moment where I was able to identify I used a tone of voice, I used words I didn’t want to use, and I was able to pause, apologize, and then – other than telling you this story today – I’ve not thought about it since. There’s not some ongoing, continued recrimination. Like, it’s done, and I have the awareness when I’m in a similar situation, that if I’m not careful, I could do it again.

And again. I have, I have gratitude for that.

So for me, that’s the difference between a loud inner critic and the Holy Spirit, like it’s night and day, night and day. 

Heather Greer 

Well, and I like that you shared that story, because it really shows the difference between that loud inner critic – you would have been beating yourself up all the way home. You would have been just, just really breaking yourself down because of your mistake; where the Holy Spirit’s work wasn’t to do that, but to show you so you could redeem the circumstance, so you could be built up in doing things God’s way.

And there is, you know, the exact, not the exact same circumstance, but I went to a restaurant recently and I cut off somebody on the way to our table. I did not realize I stepped in front of them. We were coming from different directions, but for the next half hour, all I could think of was, “Oh, my goodness. I stood in front – how could I have done that? That was so rude. I hate it when people do that to me. And then I sat here and I did that to them,” and and it just kept going in my head, this, this guilt.

That wasn’t the Holy Spirit! That was that loud inner critic trying to make me feel bad when God knew my heart was not, ‘Hey, I’m going to step in front of this person and be self-centered.’ It was literally I did not see them. And, you know, sometimes I’ve even found that inner critic likes to use godly ideas to trip us up. Like, “Well you know, hospitality is one of the things that the Holy Spirit likes, and you’re not, this wasn’t hospitable. Did you hear what you said to them or how you accidentally” – only they won’t, the inner voice won’t say accidentally – ”how you ignored them, how you didn’t answer their question, how you didn’t,” you know, whatever. And “You weren’t being very hospitable. You weren’t being very, very loving and kind to them.”

And so instead of, like, in your situation, the Holy Spirit, if I had really done something, would have come to me and said, ‘Hey, you know, I, you need to check your attitude. And let’s get this right. Let’s, let’s go back and be the person that I know you want to be,’ rather than just putting down because I messed up in, in my head, wasn’t hospitable enough, or wasn’t, you know, welcoming enough, or whatever it happens to be.

So I find that sometimes that, that loud inner critic does use godly ideas, godly concepts, yes, to try and tear us down.

Cheri Gregory 

Well, and I love the illustration you gave, because it could be very easy then for the inner critic to hop in and say, “You know, maybe this is God revealing your true, selfish heart, and you need to spend more time focusing on how selfish you really are.”

Now, of course, we’re all selfish, like we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I’m not trying to argue with that. But, yes, you know, I do find that – especially for those of us who have Biblical background and are, you know, a Christian worldview – in many ways, it does give the inner critic added ammo to use against us.

So Heather, I really appreciate you, you bringing that out.

Linda Goldfarb 

Absolutely. And – I give a talk, and it’s the voices of influence that that we listen to, and I had mentioned one, our, our inner girl, or your guy, your inner, your inner boy and the enemy, the destroyer, likes the loud inner critic.

Cheri Gregory

Oh yes.

Linda Goldfarb 

He is a manipulator with that, and that just feeds right into his ploy, right? His, his destructive behavior.

I will admit, when you said that your incident happened at the Apple store, my mind went right back to my visit with, with Heather, and we literally went to an apple orchard. And I went there, and it was a real apple store. (Laughs) I mean, I went in and I bought apples, and Heather, I’m going to tell you right now, Sam loved the apples that I brought home. And I’m like, can I pack those apples and bring them back?

I know I kind of went on a tangent there for a second (all laugh), but these are the apples that you want to bite into, not necessarily the apple that’s on the back of our machines.

But in the same, in the same moment, there was a woman who placed an order – Heather was like, “Is there one of these items?” because they sold apple products, right? So, apple dumpling, apple this, apple that. And I was like, the apple dumpling sounds great. There’s no way I could eat one. And a woman bought an apple dumpling. 

Have you ever seen an apple dumpling, Cheri?

Cheri Gregory 

Oh, my mother used to make them. They’re amazing. They’re huge.

Linda Goldfarb 

With the pastry, and then the apple that’s baked inside, and it’s – a woman was there, and she got it out, where it was served to her. And as she turned, I said, “Hi, can I take a picture of your apple dumpling?” And she just stared at me, and she had a gal who was next to her, and they both just looked at me, and I was just going to take a picture of it in her hand. And when I got my camera or got my phone out and went to take a picture, she took it and gently placed it on a counter, and then stood back.

And I went, ‘Well, I guess I’m taking a picture of it on the counter.’ As I walked away, Heather was like, “Did you take a picture of her, of that apple pie?” And I said “I did. And right now I’m feeling really bad because like, this woman’s going, ‘Where’s, who’s this person, and she’s just taking–’” So I actually put words in the mouth of the woman, and she never spoke to me. Can we do that too?

Cheri Gregory 

Yes. That is a great point. That is a great point. These negative narratives, we can write entire screenplays, and we do the voiceovers, for people. I call it living hypothetical lives where we – and the thing is, these, these, these answers to the question, ‘What if?’ ‘What if this happens? Well, then this will happen, and then this and then this will happen,’ and they breed like rabbits.

And so that’s where having this whole host of inner critical voices can come from. Okay, since we’re being honest here, there have been times I’ve actually burst into tears over things I imagine my husband saying that he never said! Never, ever said. Like, this is why it’s so important that we recognize that this isn’t true, that this is not truth, that just because it’s something that’s been happening for some of us, all of our lives, doesn’t mean that it has to keep on happening.

Because one of the things that we know is that our brains don’t necessarily distinguish between truth and fiction, very easily, and so unless we are keenly aware, and we are the ones who, I think, like you said, we control, as, as mature adults, we should have have the the control knob for our own inner, inner thoughts, um, we can put ourselves into a whole world of of drama and hurt that doesn’t serve anybody. 

Linda Goldfarb 

Oh, so good, so good.

And I like that it doesn’t serve anyone.

You know that’s a very good way of differentiating between ‘Is it the Holy Spirit, or is it that critic?’ Because if it doesn’t serve anyone, and we know that Father and our life, we’re all about serving. And, and He places in us that desire to serve. And so the words He gives us will serve us, and those He puts us in front of.

So with that in mind, then, what happens to us, to our situation?

What do we do, then, when the, the inner critic is the loudest voice that we hear?

Cheri Gregory 

Well, I’m going to use a few big words here, because I’ve done research, and I love precision of language because it helps me understand.

For many of us, we go into reactivity, and I am big on emotion being something God has given us as a gift. It’s information that we can use to help us make decisions. But reaction, there’s a big difference between feeling an emotion and then going into a reaction. And when we go into reactivity, at least for me, that’s when I, often I’m not in my prefrontal cortex, I’m just kind of reacting out of a trauma response or a fear response.

And so when that loud inner critic is busy yelling at me, and then somebody bumps into me in some aspect of my life, I can go into some kind of huge reaction, and then my inner critic has even more, you know, data to work with, even more to beat me up with. 

Rumination is a big, can be a big part of this, where we just, like we already talked about it being a loop. It just goes on and on and on and it’s hard to stop.

There’s another term that I find really helpful, and that’s self-recrimination. And if you break that down, the root word of recrimination is criminal. And we’re literally criminalizing ourselves. We’re really, literally, basically putting ourselves back into jail over and over again. You know, Christ came to set us free, and we’re like, ‘Nope, I’m back in jail. Nope, I’m back in jail. Nope, I’m back in jail.’

And then one of the hardest ones is called counterfactual thinking, which is believing that I should have known all along, information that I only recently got. And it’s such an interesting thing in our brains, where, when we get certain information and it’s like, oh, that’s so obvious. We can, it can then color everything, and we’re like, “Well, of course, it was obvious. I should have made a different decision;” and it can be so hard to realize “But no, when I made that decision, I didn’t have this information.”

You know, I used to have the hardest time with the idea that I made the best decision I could at the time. My inner critic would never let me get away with that. Never, ever, ever. And I’m now to the point where I’m like, “No, I trust my younger self. I trust 2023 Cheri, I trust 2022 – now, just to be clear, that’s lower ‘t’ trust. I grew up knowing, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and not on your own understanding, in all thy ways, acknowledge him, and He shall direct thy paths.” I’m not talking capital ‘t’ Trust.

But when it comes to, to areas in which I didn’t sense God giving me strong direction, I’ve realized “No, my loud inner critic is pulling me apart with newer information and beating me up. That’s counterfactual thinking. I’m not playing that game anymore.”

But those are some of the things, the rumination, the reactivity, the self-recrimination and falling into counterfactual thinking.

And it’s exhausting. It is absolutely exhausting.

And there was an article I love, I’m just going to quote a quick line from it – it’s about self compassion as a spirit, as a Christian spiritual practice; and it says “Self-criticism has many negative psychological consequences, and it is corrosive to one’s soul.” And I thought that was just such a great line, that this inner critic is corrosive to our soul. 

And those of us who’ve experienced it, we can say “Yeah, yeah, I know what that’s like.”

Linda Goldfarb 

Absolutely. And I’m, I’m thinking of additional phrases, and I’d like us to take a moment and address specific listeners to this podcast. Because this is Staying Real About Faith and Family. And so I know that we have mamas that listen. We have grandmamas, we have grandpas, we have dads, we have singles, we have – we have so many individuals in their particular season of life, who, if they recognize at a young age that this inner critic is not accepted, right? I rebuke you. I’m not receiving you. I’m thinking there’s probably ways we can do that. I think you’re going to probably talk about that.

A phrase that I use because of – and you had mentioned this – we’re in the industry. I’m in the Christian communicator industry. I go, I speak, I teach. I actually do have those inner voices as an audio book narrator. So I create a lot of those. But one of the phrases that I will speak into myself, or the inner critic does, “I should have known better. Maybe they shouldn’t have, but I should have known better.” “That should have never happened.” “Oh, Linda, really? You think you’re all that in a bag of chips,” you know? And recognizing that that is not the voice that I am to listen to.

Heather and I talk about this often: God’s voice lifts us up. We lift up the faces of others, and that’s what we listen to, is when someone is lifting up our face, when they are truly seeing us. And I can get stuck in that counterfactual thinking, and it’s not true.

I have done that with my husband, not really with other people, but with my husband when I was at a very difficult season in life, I, I’d been married for 10 years, married young. Had gone through some toxic life, just really toxic life. And actually, a lot of the critical narrative came from a human. And I started believing what that human was saying. And bought it. Stuck that into my head, and said, “Well, if this person loves me, then surely they wouldn’t be lying to me.”

And even though I didn’t see myself that way, if you hear it again and it loops, it ruminates, or you ruminate on it, right, we have the hippocampus, and we don’t have delete buttons in the brain. But with that hippocampus, I bring something in, and if I loop on it and loop on it, then it goes into long term storage, and I need to recognize quickly what’s coming from God and what isn’t. And that is huge. So this has been, this has been great.

Heather Greer 

I am so glad you brought up the fact that it’s reactive! It causes us to be reactive. And you know, we’re talking about hearing that voice, but sometimes we’ve listened to that voice so much that we don’t even have to hear it to be reactive.

You know, I think about different times that that, like my husband and I will have conversations or whatever, and it comes out, he’ll say something, and immediately, without me thinking about that inner voice, without me thinking about all the times – not that he has, but that inner voice has, put me down. I immediately go, “Don’t call me stupid. I’m not stupid. I’m not dumb.” And he’s like, “Where did that come? I never called you that. I never – that’s not what I was saying,” but – and in my head, I wasn’t hearing an inner voice, but I’ve listened to that inner voice so many times, that I programmed myself to react. To jump to the automatic conclusion of that inner voice. And it makes me reactive and defensive.

And, and so I was really glad that you brought that up, because that, that came immediately to my mind, that the different times we’ve had those conversations, it is like “I wasn’t saying anything like that!” But because of my inner voice and having listened to it for so long, that’s immediately where my emotions carried me. And so we do have that voice, and it does speak loud, and sometimes it takes over, just like, like I was talking about, but – 

What are some ways we can dial down the voice of that loud inner critic?

Cheri Gregory 

Yeah. I so appreciate you bringing that up, Heather, because the fact that it becomes a trigger, and it doesn’t have to be a voice; and what you’re describing here is that we’ve got neural networks all laid out. And you know, one thing that somebody says, or even a tone of voice, can just trigger that whole thing happening.

So I’m going to answer your question, but first, I want to give some really good news, that at least was really helpful for me as I’ve been going through this whole process. 

Because for the longest time, I would try to break this habit of the inner critic and the habit of listening and the habit of – and I could never seem to do it. I wasn’t seeing results. So here’s the good news: and that is the process inside the brain of losing the wiring, of the pruning of that old wiring and the building of the new wiring, that actually happens even when we’re not seeing results yet.

So even the fact that we are trying to resist, even if we don’t do a good job of it, even if we’re like, ‘Oh, it’s the loud inner critic,’ and then we, we cave again, or, ‘Oh, okay, I’m gonna try to–’ Every single time we resist at all, for even the slightest amount of time, we are actually weakening the old neural networks and strengthening the new ones, even if we feel like we’re still messing up.

And for me, as a recovering perfectionist who thought it was, you know, that God was going to give me the victory if I was close enough to Him, and I was going to see it immediately, that was really comforting to know that keeping continuing practice, practice, practice, and the process will happen, and over time, we’ll see more and more results, even if we didn’t see them early on.

So I want to say that.

So I think the first and most important thing for me is receiving the gentleness of Jesus through His Word. And I’m one who tried to use scripture, memorize scripture to beat my loud inner critic into submission. And it did not work. When I used scripture as a weapon against myself, I felt even guiltier because I could memorize that. I could spout it, and it made no difference.

But to be able to immerse in God’s Word, to go to, to go into a period of time and just hang out with Jesus, and to say, “I need you,” you know. And you know, one of the scriptures I chose to share here today is 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, which says “Praise to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we are seeds ourselves receive from God.”

And you know, doing just a short word study on that I discovered the word comfort, there’s actually two different meanings: and so one of them means comfort, means help, encouragement and consolation; the other one means to draw near. And so part of the comfort we receive from God is his presence.

Yes, there are times He helps, He encourages, He consoles, He gives us information that we need to have; but the way that the verse could be read is “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all help and encouragement, who comes near to us in all our troubles, so we can come near to those in any trouble with the encouragement we ourselves receive from the nearness of God.”

And so yeah, sometimes comfort is going to be, you know, doing things that are helpful or encouraging or exhorting. But what I loved about this is to recognize that first and foremost, God comes near to us, and then from that we can come near to others.

So the nearness with, in my relationship with God, the gentleness of Jesus, and from that lens, all scripture suddenly becomes so much more than just ‘a one and done,’ ‘a quick verse,’ you know, a potential way to, another way to beat myself up and become something that is truly transformational.

And then the other thing that’s just been you truly life-changing for me is recognizing that self-compassion is not ungodly just because it has the word self in it.

I was raised to be suspicious of anything with the prefix self. If it had self, it was automatically selfish.

And I’ve come to understand self compassion to mean receiving God’s grace for myself. 

So it’s not actually about me, it’s just I spent so much of my life being like “You get God’s grace. You get God’s grace. Everybody gets God’s grace; except for me, I get the inner critic.”

And so recognizing that self compassion is an actual practice that does change the neural, the neural network, and, and it, it shuts down the loud inner critic when I am aware that that’s what’s happening.

I had a little incident that happened not long ago. I was visiting my father, who was, who just had heart surgery, and I’d been there for a while, and I wasn’t sleeping well, and it was the last day of our visit, and I went to Starbucks to pick up an order I placed on my cell phone, and when I walked in, it wasn’t there. We were on a tight turnaround. We were on, you know, a real schedule, and I suddenly realized I’d ordered it at a store 10 minutes down the road. And I was like, ‘What am I gonna do? I can’t waste money. It’s the worst thing in the world to waste money.’

And I was like, so I quickly placed another order, and as I walked out to the car, my inner critic started in, you know, ‘Do you think money grows on trees? Can’t you tell the difference between…’ and then a different voice spoke up, and that voice said to me, ‘You must have been so very tired to have made a mistake like that.’

And I was stunned. Like, that was the moment where I was like, ‘Part of my brain is still doing the loud inner critic thing. But this is the voice of Jesus. This is the gentleness of Jesus speaking truth.’ Because I was absolutely exhausted. I didn’t mean to waste the $5. And here’s the really cool thing about practicing self compassion. Later on that afternoon, my husband came, and he did or said something that annoyed me. And you want to guess what the first thing was that I thought? ‘He must be so tired to have said a thing like that.’ 

And so here, for all my life, I thought self-compassion was all about me, me, me; and it turns out, no, it’s about receiving, fully and intentionally receiving God’s grace for myself and speaking His truth into the situation.

And honestly, the inner critic doesn’t stand a chance. Like, it’s almost like watching a balloon that’s been getting bigger and bigger just shrivel up and fly away, because suddenly it realizes I’m not playing that game anymore. I don’t believe that stuff. I cannot bash myself for wasting $5 on Starbucks; and say to myself, “Cheri, you must be so very tired. Wow. You’re going to need more tenderness and more gentleness today than you realized.” And then for that to actually extend to other people, that’s a miracle. That is the power of God at work.

Heather Greer 

I love, love, love that you touch on trying to beat up the voice with scripture, you know, because I don’t know how many times when you are dealing with that voice, when you’re dealing with the negative thoughts, you get “Well, just remember you are fearfully and wonderfully–” I know that! Here. I know that in my head. But I’m not feeling it in my heart right now. It’s like trying to beat up that negative voice with a wiffle ball bat. (Linda laughs) It’s hollow. It’s empty. It’s gonna sting a little bit, but it’s not gonna do any lasting damage.

Linda Goldfarb

Not gonna do harm.

Heather Greer

And it doesn’t come from just, yes, it does come from – scripture is a very powerful thing. Scripture tells us that, I believe that, I believe when we speak scripture, it does have power in our lives. I don’t want to take away from that. But. Until I’m so close in relationship with God, that I can see me as He sees me; not just hear it, not just ‘I’m fearfully and wonderfully made,’ like actually see it from Him. What a difference that makes.

And it seems like such a little thing, but it really isn’t.

And you know, we look at our kids and how they can be scared to do something. They can be, “Oh, I can’t do this. I can’t do this.” But the word from their mommy, “Yes, you can. You’re braver than you think. You can do this.” Whatever gives them what they need to go out and do it. And you’ll see those little kids, “I’m special, because my mommy says so.” And they totally believe it! (All laugh) They totally, totally believe it. And they should!

And we need to be so close to God that when He says “You’re special,” we can say, “I’m special. And I know it because my Daddy says so.” And, and that being what allows us to quiet that voice is just – like you said, it seems like such a little thing, little difference, but it makes all the difference. So, so I’m glad you brought that up.

Linda Goldfarb 

Powerful.

Your scripture reference, I call that the blanket scripture. Because I’ve always seen it as near to me, holding, holding me, comfort, as in comforter, right? As in that comforting blanket, and drawing it close and holding it. He protects me against the chill of the night. He protects me against what would keep me from sleeping soundly and trusting his word with the capital ‘T,’ right? He is trustworthy. He is my source of trust over what the world will speak into me.

And realizing through this process, I have to recognize that the loud inner critic, though I hear him, hear her, is not welcome and can be displaced with a truth that I walk in on a daily basis. It’s looking and going, ‘I know what you’re trying to do. I recognize you, and you have no time with me.’

And we can do that once we have heard this. Once we have been told. ‘Wait a minute. You mean this whole time, this has not been the Holy Spirit beating me up? Because I know that God will beat us into submission with–’ But no, no, no, no. No. That’s not what He does.

This is such a powerful topic, Cheri, because what you shared with us, and you mentioned it earlier as well, is once we know, once we get that this is a conversation, this is a narrative that goes on in the lives of so many people, and when we recognize it, we own it for what it is. It doesn’t own us. Then we do have the means to turn down the volume. We have the ability to control it. We have the, the, or we can have the wherewithal to say, “Wait, stop. This is not acceptable. And God would never speak to me like this.”

And that is so powerful. And this is – y’all, this is what we need to be teaching our children. It makes me think, Cheri, that if we’re parents and grandparents, and remember, remember as grandparents, you may have your grandchildren and you think because they’re little, those are the ones you’re impacting; you’re still impacting your children, who are so much older, because you are still their mom or their dad.

Are you an inner critic that’s speaking to them from the outside? Are you an outer critic? Don’t allow your words to be what they start looping. Don’t do that, folks. Think about what you say. What words do you want spoken into your life, and how is that received? I always will coach my, my parents, my clients, when you’re speaking to someone, do their eyes go down? Does their face go down?

You know, the inner critic, Cheri, pushes our head down as much as an outer critic. And perhaps, if we’re looking at our children and they’re having a conversation with us or another adult or spouse, someone that we love; and they start talking, and then they put their head down – could it be they’re hearing that inner critic? Is that what could be happening? I think we have to be very alert and aware that this really does happen, folks.

Cheri Gregory 

I appreciate your sensitivity to that, Linda, that is so true. 

Heather Greer 

Well, and that leads us into today’s thought consideration: I control the volume of my inner critic.

Linda Goldfarb 

Amen and amen.

And Cheri, we greatly. Thank you for being here with us, and you have several books, as we mentioned; one of them, Sensitive and Strong: A Guide for Highly Sensitive Persons and Those Who Love Them. Thank you for adding that back in there. Would you tell us a little bit about the, this book, please?

Cheri Gregory 

Yeah, I found out that I’m a Highly Sensitive Person over a decade ago, and suddenly everything in my life that hadn’t made sense made complete sense.

You’ll appreciate this, Linda: I spent my life thinking I was a failed extrovert, because I love me my people. I adore my people. And then I hit a wall, and I have to get away. And what I discovered is I’ve got a, I’ve got this temperament overlay that is being a Highly Sensitive Person.

And so that’s where the deep processing comes from. That’s where some, a certain amount of sensory processing sensitivity comes from, some emotional intensity, high empathy. And about 20% of the population is highly sensitive, whether it’s a male or female. I think that that percentage is higher in the church.

So Sensitive & Strong is the book that Denise J. Hughes and I wrote together, specifically for HSPs from a biblical worldview, and of course, also for those who know and love HSPs.

Linda Goldfarb 

Absolutely. And we do have, we have the link to sensitiveandstrong.com.

And you said that when you join the email list, y’all, you can order the book at half price. So that is a great bonus to have. When we understand the design, then a lot of things fall into place. Greatly appreciate that from you. Thank you so much for that, Cheri.

Heather Greer 

Well, and you also have a wonderful giveaway for our listeners. And I have to say, I’m really excited to end our call and go take this quiz. Because, you know, a lot of times we don’t want to be called sensitive. “Oh, I’m not sensitive. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be the one that you have to be on eggshells about.” But there’s a positive to it too. It’s not all bad. Just like Linda and I have talked many times in discussing the different personalities, anything that’s, that’s seen as a negative, when it comes under the control of God can be used in a very positive way. And I believe our sensitivities can as well.

So you have this giveaway of the ‘Am I A Highly Sensitive Person Self-Quiz’? Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

Cheri Gregory 

Yeah, it’s just a, it’s a 25 question quiz. And you know, I’ve always been a quiz taker. I can tell you who my Disney Princess is, if you want to know. But it, it helps, it helps somebody who is a Highly Sensitive Person have a sense of, you know, whether they’re an HSP, and then which areas of – we always call it a constellation of sensitivities, because every HSP is different.

And somebody who’s not an HSP could take it for themselves, but also could think about the questions from the perspective of somebody they love.

It also ends up being a wonderful discussion tool for a family. Our family happens to be a family of four HSPs, but let me tell you, our constellations are completely different. So we’re all a little bit on the sensitive side, or we like to think of it as being highly perceptive. If, you know, if you’re not a fan of the word sensitive, highly perceptive is a much, much better word.

So it, again, it increases understanding and the ability to have great conversations with everybody in the family.

Linda Goldfarb 

Nice. So you wouldn’t be a HSP, you’d be at HPP. So. Either way, folks, when we understand better, we have more ‘aha’ moments and we have less moments of self- and what was, what was that phrase, self– is it incrimination or rumination?

Cheri Gregory

Self-recrimination.

Linda Goldfarb

Yes, because when we do that, oh my goodness, we don’t even need anyone else to beat us up. We’re doing it all by ourselves.

Cheri, this has been fabulous. Thank you so very, very much.

Cheri Gregory 

Oh, thank you both for having me.

Heather Greer

Yeah, thank you. This has been so much fun. And also so truth-filled. You wouldn’t think talking about being sensitive and the loud inner critic, it could be, but this has been a great discussion, and I have really enjoyed the discussion. And so we do want to thank you for being with us, Cheri.

And as always friends, we invite you to become part of today’s conversation by visiting our podcast web page, stayingrealwithlinda.com and by joining our Facebook group, Staying Real with Linda Goldfarb.

We look forward to hearing from you and ask that you subscribe to our podcast. Take a moment to review it, rate it, share it with a friend, invite them into this conversation with us.

Linda Goldfarb 

We always want you to be a part of our conversation. May Yahweh bless you and keep you in all that you do. Until next time, this is Linda Goldfarb – 

Heather Greer

and Heather –

Linda Goldfarb

staying real about faith and family.