0:00

There's this little voice on the inside

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that seems to revel

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in pointing out all of my mistakes

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, pointing out everything that I do

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wrong , all the things that I could have done

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, that sends me on these rabbit trails

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of oh my goodness , I

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totally blew that . I'm a terrible person

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. Like what are they going to think about me ? And

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this is a common problem with introverts

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and highly sensitive people . We struggle

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with negative self-talk , we

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struggle with having an inner critic , and so

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today on the podcast , I

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want to help us right Because

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it's something I'm working on still too . I

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want to help us learn how to silence that inner

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critic and overcome the tendency

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to engage in negative

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self-talk . Are you looking

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to manage your emotions and calm your mind

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so that you don't feel overwhelmed by all the hard times

0:50

going on right now ? Would you like to find

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true rest and peace in God and

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a little joy in your weariness ? What

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about understanding why you feel things

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so deeply , especially when you're stressed

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? If so , you're in the right place

1:02

. Welcome to the Peace-Filled Mind podcast

1:05

, your go-to resource for practical tips

1:07

, real talk and encouragement . I'm

1:09

your host , latoya Edwards , life and mindset

1:11

coach and , most of all , a woman who's

1:14

walked through pain and suffering , just like you

1:16

, no matter what you're currently facing

1:18

in life or how you've dealt with things in the

1:20

past . I'm here to help you find

1:22

peace , joy and hope again . Pop

1:24

in those earbuds and let's get to it . Before

1:27

we jump in to today's topic

1:29

, I want to just start with

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a couple of deep breaths so that

1:33

we can all be super

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grounded and calm as we tackle

1:37

this sometimes

1:40

difficult but important topic . Okay , so

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just breathe with me . In , out

1:46

Again

1:48

, in and

1:51

out . All

1:54

right . So inner critic what

1:56

is that ? Well , it

1:58

is this little thing on

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the inside of each of us that

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likes to criticize , critique

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, tear apart

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all the things that we do , what

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we think , what we feel , what we say

2:14

, what we don't say , how we act , how we don't

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act , and it can be really

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discouraging , okay , especially

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for highly sensitive people and

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introverts , because we

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are already people that

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have heightened sensitivity and

2:31

are very introspective

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. So we are always kind

2:36

of thinking through things and thinking

2:39

of different possibilities and how

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to like , improve and grow , like that's just kind of

2:43

our default is . We are always gonna be looking

2:45

in to see , ooh , what could I have done different , what could I do

2:47

better . You know , how can I grow , how can I change

2:49

? And when we add on something

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that's like super critical and

2:54

nagging , it really has

2:57

that spin in a really , really

2:59

negative direction

3:01

, right ? So where

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does this inner critic come from ? Well

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, it can come from a lot of places . It can come from past , right

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Past experiences . It can come from culture

3:11

and society , and sometimes it's

3:13

even like our own personal insecurities . So

3:15

I'll give you an example . For me , my

3:17

inner critic came from

3:20

past experiences . I grew up in

3:22

a household with a very

3:24

critical parent , always

3:26

being told that what I was doing was

3:28

wrong , that the fact that I was different was a problem

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, like nitpicking

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every little thing from

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sunup to sundown . It was maddening

3:37

. It's why I ran

3:39

away as far as I could when it was time to go to college . Okay

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, so I have a lot of past experience doing that

3:44

. I also have a lot of societal pressures , and this is

3:46

something that I know that you can all relate to is because

3:48

, for whatever reason , our society

3:50

is very extrovert

3:53

, friendly , and so when you

3:55

are a person who doesn't behave

3:57

that way , if you're not perceived as outgoing

4:00

and super jovial

4:02

and super friendly , right , if you're quiet , if you're more

4:04

reserved , if you move at a slower

4:06

pace . If you

4:08

are extremely emotional

4:10

because of that heightened sensitivity that we

4:13

have , you're often critiqued and looked down

4:15

on that and that can lead to personal

4:17

insecurities where everybody has things that they're

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not super happy about themselves , that

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they feel insecure about , but that

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inner critic really heightens

4:26

that and makes it worse . And , as

4:28

somebody who is highly sensitive or introverted

4:30

, right , it gets super

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amplified because we're already

4:35

super sensitive , we're already really

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reflective and introspective and so when you kind

4:39

of add in that inner critic , it's like

4:42

putting gasoline on a fire . But

4:46

this doesn't have to be the case , right

4:48

, we know that our

4:50

worth and our value and our identity is

4:52

not found in our past experiences

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, it's not found in what culture says . You know

4:56

it doesn't come from like the insecurities

4:58

that we have . We should be finding our identity in Christ

5:01

and learning how to look

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at yourself in a positive light . Look

5:06

at yourself in view of what God's word

5:08

says can really really help

5:10

combat negative messages that

5:12

you're getting from other places , and it can help

5:14

you to silence your inner critic . So

5:17

how can you recognize

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these patterns of negative

5:22

self-talk or how can you recognize

5:24

, you know , when your

5:26

inner critic is kind of running amok

5:29

. Well , there's

5:33

some common things , some common patterns

5:35

that you're going to see , okay , so I talked

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about it a little bit before

5:39

. Right , the cultural expectations

5:41

kind of being nitpicked , right , those

5:44

all come from feelings of inadequacy

5:46

. Right , that we are not enough , that there is somehow

5:49

something faulty or wrong

5:51

or broken in us because

5:53

we relate to the world differently

5:55

than other people around us . Right

5:58

, we also have fear of judgment , of being judged

6:00

unfairly and incorrectly

6:02

because we are different . And

6:05

then there's also this struggle of perfectionism

6:07

. We want to get it right , we want

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to get that approval , we

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want to have that sense of belonging

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and that understanding

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and of being seen and known and loved and all those things

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which can really drive a person towards perfectionism

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, like trying to do everything perfect all

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of the time . And so when you

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are dealing with feeling like you're inadequate

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or feeling like you're going to be judged which can also

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be fear of rejection and perfectionism , this

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is going to be a pattern throughout your life

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. Like , I kid you not , I can look back on

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my life and I can see like little

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stones , like across a river , on

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my journey with perfectionism , all

6:43

right , so the same thing is probably

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similar for you and

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if you're like , well , that kind of makes sense , but

6:50

I still don't know what my patterns are . Listen

6:52

, it's not a problem , because it's really

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easy to find out what these

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patterns are . You just need to start

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paying attention to your thoughts , right

7:01

, and to your emotions . So one

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thing that I like to do with my clients is

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I like to have them take a week and

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just keep track of , write down

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journal . You know what

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are you feeling throughout your days

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, and so , like

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I felt angry

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. Okay , like what

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happened ? Like what was it that made you

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feel angry ? What were some thoughts that you were

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having ? Now I tell this story a lot of

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like kind of being worn out and exhausted , and walking

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into the kitchen and there's flour and there's eggs and

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there's a mess All over the kitchen , and my initial

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response is to be angry and frustrated because

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, oh , my goodness , my kids are just out of control

7:39

, don't appreciate my hard work . They just like

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to make more work for me , right is the thought , when

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the truth was that they were trying to do something nice for

7:46

mommy , but making her breakfast , and they were small , so

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they made a mess , right ? So I can

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look at my emotions and my thoughts

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and be like , oh my goodness , like I'm noticing

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a pattern . Anytime that I experience

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this , I feel this

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and I think this . And that is how you can begin to

8:01

track and become more aware of

8:04

the thoughts , the negative thoughts

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, that are kind of following you around right

8:08

, and the longer that you can

8:10

track this , the easier it is

8:12

to see the patterns . So

8:15

what do you do ? What do you do when

8:17

you have identified

8:20

these negative thoughts , when you realize that your

8:22

inner critic just needs to hush up ? What

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can you do ? Well , number one

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, we can replace lies with truth

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. Scripture calls this taking

8:30

thoughts captive , making them obedient to the

8:33

word of God . So you can counter

8:35

any kind of negative self-thought

8:37

, any kind of inner critic that's

8:39

going on , with the truth , and you

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can do this with scripture or without scripture

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. So for me , in

8:46

that example , when my self-talk

8:48

was telling me that I should be angry because

8:50

my kids were ungrateful and unruly and out

8:52

of control , the truth was no

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, my kids love me , I

8:57

have good kids and they were so thoughtful

8:59

and they saw me working so

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hard that they wanted to help me out by making me breakfast

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. Ok , so you just tell yourself the

9:05

truth If you want to pair

9:07

on scripture with that , that's awesome . If you start

9:09

having this feeling that

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there's something wrong with you , that you were broken

9:14

, that you were like made incorrectly

9:17

, you can tell yourself Psalm 139 , 14

9:19

, I'm fearfully wonderfully made , and so

9:21

it works both ways . You want to find ways

9:23

to tell yourself the truth

9:26

every time something negative

9:28

starts to pop up , because the goal

9:30

is is that eventually the truth

9:32

will become louder than the

9:34

inner critic . You can also

9:36

do affirmations , and

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I don't mean like wacky manifest

9:41

things , like mantras like that . I just

9:43

mean finding truth that you

9:45

can repeat over and

9:47

over and over again to yourself over yourself

9:49

during the day . Okay , Great way to find

9:51

this is scripture . Find scriptures that are going

9:53

to encourage you , that speak truth to you

9:56

, and turn them into affirmations . Right , you

9:59

can take any scripture

10:01

and make it an affirmation . So Psalm

10:03

23 is a favorite around here , and

10:05

so if I am feeling like

10:08

I have no

10:10

options , I don't know what to do , like it's just all a mess , I can

10:12

turn that Psalm into affirmation . I can remind

10:15

myself listen , I have everything that I need

10:17

because I have God . He's

10:19

going to help me find rest by taking me to

10:21

green pastures and leave beside the still waters . You can

10:23

do that over and over and over again with

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whatever scripture it is that you're studying or reading or memorizing

10:28

. Turn those into affirmations and

10:30

put them on cards and take them with you so that when

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you're having a rough moment , you can pull them out and

10:34

read them to yourself . The other

10:36

thing to do is to pray . Right

10:39

, we can renew your mind , which just

10:41

means , right , changing your thoughts . That's

10:43

all . Renewing your mind is . It's changing your

10:45

thoughts , and a great way to do this

10:47

is to just sit down and

10:49

talk to god about what you're thinking and what you're

10:51

feeling to like take that burden

10:53

off of you and give it to him and

10:56

ask him to help you think the way he

10:58

thinks about you , think the way he thinks about

11:00

your situation . It's super helpful

11:02

and it's super easy to do . So

11:05

what are some practical ways

11:08

that you can begin to silence

11:10

your inner critic and deal with this negative self-talk

11:12

? Well , the first thing that we talked about was

11:15

right , tracking

11:17

your thoughts , and so journaling is

11:19

a great way to do this . Journaling is a great

11:21

way not only to identify what

11:23

you're thinking or

11:25

kind of what's playing on that tape in your head

11:28

, but also to process it and reframe

11:32

it . What

11:36

you know am I telling myself , what story

11:38

am I telling myself right now about my situation

11:40

or about who I am ? And you can journal

11:42

that out . And then you can go through it

11:45

and do something like truth journaling where

11:47

you like , identify each individual

11:49

thought , and then is it true ? Yes

11:51

, okay . If it's not true , then

11:53

you literally write out what the

11:55

truth would be , and you can do that

11:57

as many times as you need as a way to

12:00

process what you're thinking , process

12:02

what you're feeling and begin to reframe it by

12:05

thinking something different . All

12:07

right , being sure that you have community

12:10

, that you have people around you and

12:12

in your corner that are going to be there to nurture

12:14

you and love on you and support you , to

12:17

help you develop positive self-talk

12:19

. You know , like when I go to my girlfriend and I'm like , oh my

12:21

goodness , I'm so terrible , I'm so dumb , I'm so this , and

12:23

that she's like , wait a minute . Like you are amazing

12:25

, you are intelligent , you are gorgeous , you are this right

12:27

. Have those people around you that are gonna really like

12:31

counter that exposure that you're getting

12:33

to negativity . And

12:36

then the last step that I want to leave you with for today

12:38

is remember , as an introvert

12:40

, as somebody that's highly sensitive , like

12:42

you need to have time to yourself , and

12:44

so , yes , it can be a

12:47

problem if , when you're by yourself , you just have

12:49

the negative spiral going on , but

12:51

solitude can be a really

12:53

peaceful , soothing , healing space . Ok

12:56

, you can take this time to

12:58

just get quiet , to pray , to talk

13:00

to God , to meditate . You can use that

13:02

time to just sit

13:04

in silence and try to calm down

13:07

and find peace . You can use

13:09

this time to do some grounding exercises

13:11

. It's a time to journal , but

13:14

embrace silence and solitude whenever

13:16

you can . I think we underestimate

13:19

the value of even like five minutes of

13:21

just complete silence and being alone

13:23

. It can do wonders for your soul , wonders

13:25

for your emotional health , wonders for your mental health as

13:27

well . So I hope that that was helpful

13:29

as we are looking at silencing

13:32

our inner critic , to really understand

13:34

where it's coming from , understand

13:36

how to recognize what

13:38

those patterns are , and then you

13:41

know just the practical steps , like journaling

13:43

and renewing your mind and doing affirmations

13:46

as a way to help you overcome that

13:48

. Because if you want to

13:50

be emotionally strong , if you want to manage your

13:52

emotions well , it's going

13:54

to be really difficult if you are continuing

13:56

to engage with negative

13:58

self-talk . So please find

14:00

one thing from today's episode that you can

14:03

implement today . I would love to

14:05

hear about that . You want to email me , latoya

14:07

, at LatoyaEdwardsnet . I would love to hear from

14:09

you to see what tip you

14:11

decided to try out and

14:13

I would love to hear how it goes . I

14:17

hope you were blessed and encouraged by today's

14:19

episode . I would love to hear from you . The

14:21

best way to do that is to leave a five-star rating

14:24

and review on your podcast player , sharing

14:26

what you loved or found helpful about today's episode

14:28

. This helps other women find the show and

14:30

it's a huge blessing to me . Thank

14:33

you so much for joining me today .