Inner Critic

Everyone has an inner critic.  It’s that voice in your head that tells you what you’ve done wrong, how it’s wrong, how stupid you are to have done something wrong, and how you’ll never be able to do anything right.  Sound familiar?  I read a book recently titled Women Food and God by Geneen Roth, and she refers to that inner critic as The Voice.  In her book she says

“Everyone has The Voice.  It’s a developmental necessity.  You need to learn not to put your hands in fire, walk into oncoming traffic, stick electrical wires into water.  You need to learn that you probably won’t be welcomed into other people’s houses if you throw food on their walls or put snakes in their beds.  When external authority figures such as parents, teachers or family members communicate verbal and nonverbal instructions about physical and emotional survival, we coalesce those voices into one voice – The Voice – by a process called introjection (internalizing authority figures).

According to developmental psychologists, The Voice is fully operative in most of us by the time we are four years old, after which it functions as a moral compass, a deterrent to questionable behavior.  Instead of being afraid of the disapproval of our parents, we become afraid of the disapproval of The Voice.  Instead of being punished for daring to disagree with ou mothers or fathers, we adults punish ourselves for daring to believe that our lives could be different.  We become risk aversive.  Frightened of change.

The Voice steps in when we want to challenge the status quo.”

This happens to everyone in some way.  I find I notice it the most in my life with relation to music.  Practicing is necessarily a challenge to the status quo.  Practicing, at its best, forces us to be aware of what is wrong and then to change it.  Where The Voice, or the inner critic, comes in, is when things are not perfect and you feel like a loser because of it.  Rather than just recognizing an objective fact (that note was out of tune) and correcting it, it becomes a value judgment on you as a person (that note was out of tune, I never play in tune, everything’s out of tune, I’m terrible, why do I even bother?).

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to make The Voice go away.  The best thing to do is to take away The Voice’s gavel and give it a clip board – make the inner critic, The Voice, a scientist and not a judge.  Scientists observe results without making value judgements.  If we set up this experiment, this is the result.  If we set up the same variables, the results repeat.  If we have a specific goal in mind (playing a note in tune), we alter a variable to achieve a different result.  The Voice simply makes observations regarding the efficacy of the “experiment.”  If the variables did not produce the desired results, The Voice registers that fact and suggests altering a variable and repeating the experiment.  When the desired result is achieved, The Voice notes that fact and we repeat the same thing a few more times to make sure the results stay the same.

This change, making The Voice a scientific observer rather than a judge, has been one of the most important things I’ve done in the last year.  It makes practicing more efficient, predictable, and enjoyable.  I don’t come out of a practice session feeling destroyed by my perceived inability to improve.  This is not to say I never get frustrated.  I do.  It just happens less often, and, when it does happen, I no longer feel like a hopeless loser.