Turning Your Inner Critic Into An Ally

Got a voice in your head?

A nagging, critical, belittling voice?

Or maybe it's a sensation of tension, at times crushing a part of your body?

This part of your psyche that criticizes us and saps our energy is called the superego, the judge within, or the inner critic.

Left to its own device, the inner critic is one of the biggest obstacles to joy, fulfillment and success because a superego on automatic pilot triggers a lot of unnecessary fear and shame. It's deeply disempowering.

The inner critic is a structure present in everyone's psyche and it's there to stay. No one is immune to it, although some people have a more intense inner critic than others.

Ironically, the inner critic's original purpose is to protect us. It indeed has good intentions! It wants to prevent us from making mistakes so that we do not feel ashamed, it wants to stick to familiar experiences so that we do not feel afraid, and it wants us to behave in specific ways so that we are respected and liked by others.

The inner critic's negative impact comes not from its intention, but from its way of fulfilling its intention. The inner critic was patterned into our nervous system by our genetics, life in the womb, caregivers, family and culture of origin and experiences during our early development, when we were incapable of making wise decisions on our own. At that time, it made sense to have a primitive system on automatic pilot to prevent us from hurting ourselves when we were exposed to physically or emotionally dangerous scenarios.

Over time, as we develop into autonomous adults, the primitive inner critic’s shaming and fear-inducing automatic reactions become misguided and/or overkill. In the name of “protection”, the inner judge prevents our adult selves from fulfillment and self-realization by keeping us small and powerless. It does not feel good, but we don't know what to do when we are attacked by a part of our own mind.

So what to do?

SInce the superego is a natural part of ourselves and not going anywhere, the best way to deal with the inner critic is to first accept its existence and seek to understand it better. Rather than trying to shut the voice up by yelling back at it or by numbing ourselves from it by engaging in various unhealthy behaviors, it's more effective to be curious about that part of our psyche, start a dialogue with it and discover if we can team up and develop a healthy collaboration with it.

After all, even if it does not feel like it when we are under a vicious attack, at its roots the inner critic is on our side, so it will cooperate better if it is fully acknowledged and accepted. Compassion always work better than silencing or retaliation.

Eventually, our inner work leads to upgrading our primitive inner critic to the role of a wise ally able to fulfill a more sophisticated function than nagging, criticizing or crushing. Disempowerment turns into a reclaiming of our personal power.

Got Boundaries?

Boundaries allow us to have a healthy relationship:

• With ourselves
• With others

What are boundaries?

Boundaries are physical and non-physical limits that individualize our being. Our physical boundaries define what is “me” and what we allow others to do to us physically. Our other boundaries (emotional, spiritual, etc.) define our inner world and how we allow others to treat us.

The cells of a large organism need individuality in order to fulfill their specific cellular functions but they also need individuality to cooperate well with all the other cells of the organism. No communication and cooperation between specialized cells is possible without… individualized cells.

Similarly, all human beings need individuality to manifest their special talents and life purpose and to collaborate well with all other human beings, both in their personal and professional lives.

Boundaries are semi-permeable limits

Healthy boundaries in human beings are like cell membranes: the semi-permeable membrane of a cell allows the carefully monitored passage of molecules in and out of the cell, as well as the exchange of molecules between cells.

Boundaries must not be confused with defenses. Boundaries allow us to welcome the healthy in while leaving the unhealthy out. Defenses leave everything out, the healthy and the unhealthy.

How boundaries are created

Ideally, we learn to set up boundaries by mirroring our caregivers. When our parents and other caregivers have healthy boundaries with us as well as others, we naturally and unconsciously set up healthy boundaries.

Ideally, we are well nurtured in childhood – physically and emotionally - and do not experience any adverse circumstances negatively affecting our young and still maturing boundaries.

Ideally, the social environment around us also support and respect our boundaries.

Well, who has an “ideal” childhood? It’s of course impossible to go through childhood – even a pretty good one – without facing some non-ideal scenarios. Each child goes through the process of separation from the caregiver, and most children will experience some form of small or more serious trauma that will affect their sense of self and therefore their boundaries.

Boundary violations jeopardize relationships

I realized that most if not all of the issues I have faced in my relationships have been boundary issues, either when I have allowed someone to violate my boundaries without reclaiming my power afterwards or – gasp! - when I have violated someone’s boundaries without realizing it and/or without attempting to repair my mistake afterwards.

Unrepaired boundary violations affect trust and respect and there can’t be happy and healthy relationships without 100% trust and respect.

It’s ok to make mistakes… if we strive to correct them

Creating, enforcing, and respecting boundaries is not perfect science. We’re going to make occasional mistakes and the path to healthier relationships is learning to recognize these errors, correct them and do better over time.

The key to improve our inner work around boundaries is healing our past traumas - both serious traumas and small traumas. It's impossible to have healthy boundaries when we still actively suffer from trauma because trauma affects our sense of self and our sense of wholeness. It's hard to have a good sense of our own boundaries when we don't have a clear and healthy sense of our own self.

Boundaries and communication

Communication is the tool that allows us to create and enforce our boundaries with others; it’s also the tool that allows us to make amends and correct mistakes when we are the one who failed to respect someone’s boundary.

When we have healed from our own boundary issues, we can communicate more clearly how we want to be treated. We also become more sensitive to others' boundary messages, both verbal and non verbal.

“Good fences make good neighbors”

“Good boundaries make good relationships”

The Art of Speaking

In a conversation, the most important element is being willing and able to listen deeply to the other person. Listening helps us understand the other’s perspective and allows us to resist the temptation of making assumptions. Listening gives us a chance to be of service with our words, when the time to speak up is ripe.

Artful speaking is indeed an act of service.

Good questions to ask ourselves when we want to speak up are:

• Am I about to speak from reactivity or from presence?
• What would my words bring to the table in this specific moment?
• Am I about to speak words that are necessary, true and compassionate?

Just like good listening, good speaking comes with the cultivation of presence. When we are present, we are more skillful at speaking when it’s useful and we are better able to have difficult conversations, when a sensitive equilibrium of truth and compassion must be found.

With instant messaging and social media replacing progressively more real-life conversations, we have much less opportunities to hone our listening and speaking skills. However these crucial “people skills” are crucial to personal and professional success and fulfillment.

When leaders don’t listen or speak well, they fail to inspire their teams and employees to greatness.

When intimate partners or friends don’t listen or speak well, they fail to nurture their intellectual and emotional connection.

The 21st century requires of us to develop ourselves into the great communicators that we are meant to be.

The Art of Listening

We all know excellent listeners. They are our family members, friends and coworkers whose gentle and thoughtful presence make it easy for us to open up and share everything, including what triggers our feelings of vulnerability.

What these wonderful people in our life do naturally - being present, being open, being non-judgmental, being allowing, being patient, is something that everyone can learn to do. Or, rather than "learning", simply starting by observing what prevents us from truly listening.

When we listen to respond (or react) rather than to deeply understand another human being, it's usually because one of these aspects of our personality gets in the way of our natural presence:

• Distraction: instead of being fully engaged in the present moment, we're living the thoughts and emotions of what we experienced in the past - or we're already anticipating what might come next.
• Opinion: instead of being open and waiting for more information to arise, we're already forming an opinion and unconsciously getting attached to it.
• Assessment: we're filtering what we hear as right/wrong, like/don't like, etc. rather than letting what we hear to simply be.
• Intrusion: out of genuine desire to help and/or also sometimes out of pride, we're jumping in and giving advice - even when it's not asked for or when the timing is off.
• Impatience: we're taking control of the pace of the conversation by rushing the person talking to us, by interrupting, fidgeting or giving our input too soon.

At the root of all of these is our inability to be present; to be completely, fully engaged in the present moment.

Good listeners are usually more skilled at simply being with another person, without any agenda on how things should be and go.

When we make time and allow ourselves to plunge deeply into the present moment, we naturally become better at listening because all the other qualities already present in our being can emerge and blossom: openness, non-judgement, allowing, patience.

There is no sweeter gift than offering good listening in our personal relationships, and there is no more effective way to build mutually satisfying professional relationships than taking time to listen and understand well the person with whom we are trying to collaborate.

Exploring The Enneagram Instinctual Subtypes

While the core of the Enneagram is the detailed description of the nine basic types, the system adds a bit more nuance (and complexity!) by taking the three human survival instincts (also called subtypes) into consideration.

The three instinctual subtypes are very old survival strategies patterned into our nervous system to survive in the world.

• Self-preservation: it’s the drive to take care of one's personal needs for shelter, food, security, etc.
• One-on-one (also unfortunately called "sexual"): it’s the drive to form one-on-one relationships; friendships and intimate relationships.
• Social: it’s the drive to develop a sense of belonging within a larger group, tribe or community.

Just like for our basic Enneagram type, as individuals we tend to unconsciously favor one of these strategies for survival, at the detriment of the two remaining ones.

Because there are three instincts, we can find six different stackings of preference, where the first instinct is our “favorite one” - the one we over-use, the second instinct is the one we use “just right”, and the third instinct is the one that is under-developed and that we therefore "ignore" or under-use.

Here are the six possible stackings that we can have:

• self-preserving / one-on-one / social
• self-preserving / social / one-on-one
• one-on-one / self-preserving / social
• one-on-one / social / self-preserving
• social / self-preserving / one-on-one
• social / one-on-one / self-preserving

These patterns of survival strategies exert enormous influence on our behavior and on the way we engage with others, in personal relationships as well as professional ones.

For example, because self-preserving individuals focus on taking care of their owns needs, they prioritize their comfort and their own way of doing things, and they unconsciously expect the same from others. They bring independence and self-sufficiency to the table.

On the other hand, one-on-one people's survival strategy favors alliances between two people, an "us against the world" kind of mindset. They unconsciously seek others to form one-on-one relationships with them, for both productivity and intimacy. They bring intensity and intimacy to the table.

Finally, social people's focus is on being part of tribes and communities. They enjoy being part of larger groups and working together towards a common goal. They bring a sense of unity and cooperation to the table.

In terms of personal development, each instinct is of course good and useful. However, because of the unconscious drive to over-use our preferred survival strategy, we are at risk of missing the mark in our relationships and decision-making process because of our "addiction" to a certain instinct. The second/middle instinct in our stacking is actually the healthiest and most balanced, which makes it a good one to rely on more often. Finally, because we tend to ignore our least developed instinct, it becomes a blind spot and gets in the way of our development and relationships.

In professional relationships, teams made of a variety of people are the most effective because they naturally leverage the power of each instinct. Teams benefit from all types of people: self preserving, one-on-one and social. However, it can be difficult for people operating from very different instinctual drives to understand one another and work in harmony together. For example, a self-preserving individual might be overly attached to their own way of thinking, and reluctant to defer to a consensus decision that would work well for the whole team.

In personal relationships, two partners with very different stackings of survival instincts are at risk of misunderstanding one another and not feeling loved the way they need it most. For example, a one-on-one person might have a hard time understanding the need for solitude of a self-preserving partner, or the need of a social partner to spend a lot of time within their favorite community. They might believe that their partner don't love them if they need to spend so much time engaged in their own projects or with their tribes.

Understanding our drives gives us the ability to understand ourselves and others better, which in turn helps us harmonize our relationships, both personal and professional.

It also allows us to rebalance our instincts: by grounding ourselves in our middle/most healthy survival strategy, we can release our addiction to our favorite/compulsive drive. And if we can commit to developing our weakest instinct, we could unleash the power of adding a new way of interacting with the world in our developmental toolbox. It's quite extraordinary!

Understanding Yourself And Others With The Enneagram

The Enneagram is a map of nine interconnected personality types that has been described and taught as a method for self-understanding and self-development.

According to The Enneagram Institute, the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. Although it is common to find a little of yourself in all nine types, one of them is your basic personality type.

Each person emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. We are indeed born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment.

Contrary to other models of human personality, the Enneagram explains that we're much more than our personality type (who we think we are). The Enneagram does not put us in a box; it describes the box in which we find ourselves stuck and most importantly, it gives us a path to break free.

The contribution that authors Riso and Hudson made to this fantastic psycho-spiritual development model is their description of nine Levels of Development. As described by the Enneagram Institute, there is an internal structure within each personality type. That structure is the continuum of behaviors, attitudes, defenses, and motivations formed by the nine Levels of Development making up the personality type itself. The Levels account for differences between people of the same type as well as how people change both for better or worse. There are three unhealthy levels where serious mental illnesses develop, three average levels where most people operate, and three healthy levels of progressively higher levels of functioning, well-being and freedom.

Whereas the pattern of personality (the "Enneagram type") that we develop in early childhood is necessary for survival, it ends up metaphorically reducing our field of view from 360 degrees to 40 degrees (operating from one type rather than nine). Our personality pattern turns us into automatic pilots compulsively responding to what's going on inside and outside of ourselves in the same old patterned ways. Obviously such limited ways of functioning condemns us to running into issues, especially relationship issues because relationships don't flourish on automatic pilot.

Over time, working with the guidance of the Enneagram allows us to free ourselves from our patterns and manifest the deepest quality of our type. Additionally, developing the qualities of the eight other types gives us additional tools us to shift from automatic piloting to manual piloting and enjoy a greater range of movement to journey through life.

This results in the possibility of experiencing and responding to what happens in the moment with freedom, spaciousness, and authenticity. It means that we are more present and resourceful, that we understand ourselves and others with greater depth, that we can take good care of ourselves, and that we can build happy, healthy and fulfilling relationships, both in our private and professional lives.

The Foundation Of Mindfulness

Mindfulness consists in a conscious direction of our awareness on the present moment, while acknowledging the thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations that arise in the background without engaging in them.

Over the last few years, scientific studies have demonstrated the benefits of a regular mindfulness practice:

• Physiological: mindfulness strengthens our immune system and decreases the sensation of pain.
• Emotional: mindfulness reduces depression and anxiety, and increases wellbeing and contentment.
• Developmental: mindfulness increases our ability to be open to others and to new experiences.
• Relational: mindfulness improves our ability to have healthy relationships with others.
• Spiritual: mindfulness leads to the investigation of the nature of consciousness.

All of these benefits are possible because mindfulness practices positively alter the structure of the brain.

As reported in this Scientific American article, "after an eight-week course of mindfulness practice, the brain’s 'fight or flight' center, the amygdala, appears to shrink. This primal region of the brain, associated with fear and emotion, is involved in the initiation of the body’s response to stress. As the amygdala shrinks, the pre-frontal cortex – associated with higher order brain functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making – becomes thicker. The 'functional connectivity' between these regions – i.e. how often they are activated together – also changes. The connection between the amygdala and the rest of the brain gets weaker, while the connections between areas associated with attention and concentration get stronger. (...) In other words, our more primal responses to stress seem to be superseded by more thoughtful ones."

Mindfulness practice is indeed now widely recognized as a great method to deal with stress and pain. Beside its grounding and calming effect, the most remarkable outcome of a regular practice is the progressive development of the ability to choose to respond rather than react when triggered by an internal or external event.

When our nervous system gets activated by physical pain, a difficult emotion, another person's comment or action, any kind of event really, our inner automatic pilot reacts instinctively, and this automatic reaction is based on years of strengthening the same old neural pathways established by our genetics, early life experiences and personality patterns.

When we develop our mindfulness through regular practice, we become able to notice the activation of our nervous system - eventually before it is even a formed thought - and we develop the ability to use the tiny gap of time that takes place between arousal and reaction to make a choice in how to purposefully and authentically respond to the stimulus we are experiencing.

This ability to choose how to respond to an internal or external stimulus is true freedom, and our response chosen by integrating all of what is happening in the moment is true authenticity.

Because it's this inner freedom and authenticity that leads to personal fulfillment and happy and healthy relationships, developing our mindfulness through regular practice is not a luxury; it's a necessity if we care about our wellbeing and our personal and professional relationships.

Welcome to Foundations!

Foundations Coaching & Training has made its mission to inspire organizations to invest in their people and their relationships. We offer custom group coaching and training to build trust, hone great communication skills and boost the personal and professional development of all members of the organization.

The main asset of any organization is indeed its people and the quality of their relationships.

Happy and healthy professional relationships depend on the following factors:

• Quality of development of each member of the organization
• Trust between members, especially between employee and manager/supervisor/leader
• Commitment to a common vision, mission and purpose
• Quality of communication between members of the organization
• Investment of the organization in the personal and professional development of its members

When the members of an organization trust one another, share a commitment to a common purpose and know at a deep level that their leaders have their back, they thrive.

Investing in people and their relationships is key to a happy, healthy and successful organization, whether it is a corporation, an academic workplace, a volunteer group, or a spiritual community.

Contact us to discuss how Foundations can support your organization!