How listening to your harshest voice can lead to surprising clarity
There’s a voice in my head that has a lot to say. It’s quick. Sharp. Judgmental. It tells me I said too much. Or too little. That I’m behind. That I should’ve known better. That everyone else is doing just fine and I’m the only one fumbling through the dark.
That voice used to run the show. And most of the time, I didn’t even realise it was there. It just sounded like truth. Like logic. Like the responsible thing to listen to. But now I know better. That voice isn’t the truth. It’s fear. It’s old stories. It’s protection dressed up as criticism.
The voice that wants to keep you safe
The inner critic usually shows up when we’re on the edge of something. A change. A risk. A stretch. And it starts talking because it’s scared. Not because it hates us, but because it wants to keep us from getting hurt. That voice is trying to protect something vulnerable inside us, but the way it goes about it? Not always kind.
Once I started hearing it differently, I stopped fighting with it. I stopped trying to shut it up. And instead, I started getting curious. “What are you trying to protect? What are you afraid will happen if I try this?”
It’s wild how much softer that voice gets when you stop treating it like an enemy.
You can’t heal what you won’t hear
Ignoring your inner critic doesn’t make it disappear. It just gets quieter and sneakier. It starts showing up in procrastination. In people pleasing. In self-sabotage. The things you don’t say. The risks you don’t take. The ways you keep yourself small.
But when you listen really listen something shifts. You start to understand what that voice is made of. Old fears. Childhood patterns. Things that once made sense but don’t anymore. And when you bring awareness to it, it loses its grip. You get to choose how much power it has.
Letting the critic speak without letting it lead
There’s a difference between letting your critic have a voice and letting it drive the car. I let mine speak now. I hear it out. I say, “Thanks for your concern,” and then I check in with the wiser parts of me. The grounded parts. The parts that remember who I am and what I care about.
Because that inner critic doesn’t get the final word anymore. But it does get a seat. And oddly enough, when I give it space, it gets less aggressive. Like it just needed to be heard so it could calm down.
Being honest about how we speak to ourselves
One of the biggest shifts I’ve had is learning to notice how I speak to myself when no one else is around. Would I ever speak to a friend that way? Would I let anyone else talk to me like that? And if not, why is it okay when it comes from inside my own head?
You can’t always silence the critic. But you can learn to speak back. Gently. Honestly. Not with fake positivity but with grounded truth. “I made a mistake and I’m still worthy.” “I feel scared and I’m still moving forward.”
That’s how we shift the story. Not by pretending the critic doesn’t exist, but by making space for something kinder to exist alongside it.