Facing the Shadow: The Inner Critic

Your inner critic isn't just who you are as your personality, it's a survival strategy. It's something that started outside of you and worked it's way in. It was born from chaos in some strange yet intelligent attempt to protect you from an unsafe world.

The little girl had tried so hard today—kept her voice quiet in school, but after a hard day of learning she wanted to come home to play—not do homework. She didn't mean to give her mother a hard time about it. It just seemed like there was no time for play. The mother crossed her arms, her voice cold and clipped.

"You always make everything harder than it needs to be. No wonder I’m exhausted. Why can’t you just be a good girl and do what you’re supposed to?"

The little girl lowered her eyes, swallowing the lump in her throat. A quiet voice inside her began to whisper: If I have to be “better” to be loved, then maybe I’m not lovable as I am.

Off to bed to start the day again. The little girl sat on the edge of her bed, clutching her stuffed rabbit, eyes flicking toward the door, waiting. But when her mother walked past her room, eyes distant, shoulders heavy with something unspoken, she didn’t stop. No smile, no goodnight, no warmth. The silence felt like a verdict: You’re too much. You’re not enough. Something about you makes her tired. And so, deep inside, a small voice began to form—a whisper at first, but one that would grow stronger with time: If only you were better, maybe she would love you more.

How it all began?

As children blaming our parents felt dangerous. We are born with an innate assumption that our caretakers who love us would never hurt us emotionally, physically, or mentally. While for most of them there is no -intent- to ever do this, but with unrecognized mental disorders or their own internal wounding, it happens. I'm sure if we looked at the Mother's perspective above~ she simply had a hard day at work, trying to survive, and just needed something to be easy for her to lighten the burden.

Because we feel unsafe to blame our parents we turn that blame inward. Self-blame to keep us as the "good girl" and good boy" enough to stay safe. As children we idealize our parents to survive. If we blamed them it would threaten the bond we depend on. If your needs weren't met, you didn't blame your guardians, you blamed yourself. Your inner critic is a shadow of someone else's voice.

Your inner critic is your silenced anger! And if you have trauma from predatory people then it just compounds this silenced anger. The more anger you have pent up the bigger the shadow.

Examples of unmet needs:

Emotional Neglect Disguised as "Good Parenting"

• If you expressed sadness and you were told to "toughen up" or "stop being dramatic"

• "You always get upset over nothing" or "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!"

• "Do you know how lucky you have it?" or "Other kids have it worse!"

• "You're too old to be acting this way" and "Crying wont solve anything"

• Getting the silent treatment when you did something wrong

Growing Up in an Unpredictable Environment

• You never knew what mood they where gonna be in

• Parents were emotionally inconsistent—one day warm and loving, the next cold or explosive.

• Shame or fear based environments~ most commonly seen in strict religious homes

• You begin to think: "If I just behave perfectly, they won’t get mad."

• Never allowed to have opinions or felt like you had to keep the peace or everything would fall apart.

Parents Who Were "Victims" of Their Own Lives

• "I had to take care of my mom/dad instead of them taking care of me."

• Parents were emotionally fragile, always struggling, or constantly venting about their own suffering.

• "I work so hard, and you can’t even do this one thing for me." or "You’re the only one who understands me."

• "You have no idea what real suffering is."

I'm sure you read these and for some of you just got triggered. That's what we are here for. That feeling you just now had as you read those unmet needs.

Why This Is So Hard to Recognize

Children need to believe their parents love them unconditionally—even when they don’t. Questioning a parent’s behavior as harmful can feel like questioning reality itself. So instead of seeing the dysfunction, they:

• Blame themselves ("I must be too emotional, too needy, too much.")

• Minimize their pain ("It wasn’t that bad. Other people had it worse.")

• Defend the parent ("They did their best. They were just stressed.")

But healing begins when you realize:🚨 Just because your parents didn’t mean to harm you doesn’t mean they didn’t.

Here is the crazy part that took me a long time of working on and facing the inner critic that was within me.

Every time you attack yourself, it's the inner critic trying to control emotions you weren't allowed to feel. It thrives in your shadows- not because it's right, but because it's unchallenged.

Healing starts when you face the bully. For me I can see the spiritual manifestations of shadows. The bigger any shadow is the scary it looks. The closet thing I can tell you that this particular shadow looks like is "The Nun" from the horror movies but it's a man (because this is a masculine wounding) instead of a female. It is frightening!

This takes time and often when I work with clients on this; the first steps is to:

Meet this shadow

Face it often enough that you begin to get less and less afraid of it (this can take years)

Then begin to face it by going back to emotionally charged moments where people where projecting this energy onto you. This may be a parent, family member, neighbor, predator, anyone that caused you to suppress your anger repeatedly or in extreme circumstance that was very emotionally charged.

What's even more interesting is when you have the courage to go into this shadow, meaning for some during a meditative journey actually go inside of this spiritual shadow; you meet the wounded child beneath it.

This is why Divine Feminine Reiki and connecting to your Divine Feminine is crucial to your healing.

This wounded part of you needs compassion. It doesn't need judgement (it's used to that), it needs love, safety, and a voice. To pull out this wounded child so you can begin to address it.

Here we go again pinning our problems on our parents

Healing isn't about shoving all our problems on someone else. It's about seeing (The Divine Feminine) things as they are. We can get so caught up in that idealization because reality can be so painful to look at sometimes. I thing that I hear clients say during these healing sessions is, "Yes I see my inner child crying but other kids had it worse than me. My parents had it hard." This completely gaslites your inner child's reality as they experienced it and blocks the process of regaining self-trust. One of the most profound healing statements you can say to your inner child is, "I believe you." Sorta like AA~ the first step to healing is admitting you have a problem. Even if the problem you have is with how you were treated during times of need. We have the authority and sovereignty within us to forgive, heal, and continue to have relationships with difficult people. In a world of black and white we forget that we and others can be two things simultaneously. A parent can be hurtful or even abusive with their words at times while also stepping up and comforting you in other moments. Inner child healing is about going back, supporting, and showing up for the part of you that you have to abandon in order to survive. At some point during the inner child healing journey you have to take responsibility and say to yourself, "Yes because of what I experienced I now deal with these issues, and I decide how I want to move forward."

Shadow work Journal Prompts to help heal the wounded child inside the Inner Critic

1. Write down the most common self-critical thoughts you have (e.g., "I’m not good enough," "I always mess up," "No one cares what I think."). Now think back as to who's voice does this sound like?

2. If you could go back in time, how would you comfort your younger self?

3. As a child, were you allowed to express your needs and emotions freely? Or were you made to feel selfish for having them? Write a new affirmation that allows you to honor your needs 

4. What is the one thing you secretly believe about yourself that makes you feel like you’re not enough? (Examples: “I’m not lovable,” “I have to earn my worth,” “I’m only valuable if I’m productive,” “I’m never doing enough.”)

Just remember that it's always advised that while Reiki and shadow work can really aid in your healing journey. Especially if your Reiki healer is trauma informed. These healing modalities combined with therapy can address all parts of this aspect.

Be patient with yourself

Stay compassionate with yourself

Celebrate your wins along the way

Seek help when you need it~ because we all need help from time to time.