Is the Critic Really Positive?
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Rick writes: “Why is it that we are assured that the Critic is always positive, once we go deeply enough? If we are remembering actual words from a parent, there isn’t anything to assures us that parent really did want the best for us, no matter how deeply we probe or how we frame it. So where does the ‘switch’ happen?”
Dear Rick
Thanks for giving me a chance to clarify. It isn’t that whatever the Critic is SAYS is positive. Of course the Critic (or as I would prefer to call it “an inner criticizing process”) may be saying nasty things that it learned from your parents. Those things it says are not positive, and the experience of hearing them is not pleasant.
What we (Barbara McGavin and I) are saying is that the part of you which is criticizing you right now has a positive intent for you… as all parts of you do. But that positive intent is not being expressed very successfully at the moment, and we are certainly NOT saying that you ought to like or appreciate being criticized.
In saying that that part has a positive intent, we are inviting a process to happen, and as that process unfolds it will become more and more clear that the part of you which is criticizing you (or more accurately, something in you) is doing so because it is worried. It is worried about something that it is afraid will happen if you keep doing or if you don’t do whatever it is nagging you about.
There’s a big difference in feeling between criticism and worry– but there’s not much difference between a criticizing part and a worried part. In fact the very first thing I would ask any criticizing part is, What might you be worried about?
I would NOT ask it, right off the bat, what its positive intent for me is. It’s unlikely to be in a mood to tell me, nor I in a mood to hear it. That will come later.
If we start by inviting what it’s worried about, however, we’ll be on a path that will eventually lead to contacting its protective, positive intent… and by that time, it won’t sound like a Critic any more.
Predictions of Doom and Other Parental Voices
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Criticizing voices often make statements like:
“You’ll never be able to do this right.” or
“You’re going to fail.”
These statements sound harsh and mean, like predictions of doom. How could they be friendly?
But in the syntax and grammar of criticizing, we need to hear these statements as if the words “I’m worried that–” were “understood.” Like this:
“[I’m worried that] you’ll never be able to do this right.”
“[I’m worried that] you’re going to fail.”
It’s like a scene where a child is about to run out of the house without a jacket, and the parent calls after her, “Stop! You’ll catch your death of cold!” Is the parent really predicting the death of the child? Isn’t the parent really saying, “[I’m worried that] you’ll catch your death of cold.” ?
Try it yourself, with those harsh sounding statements, either from your inner critics or your outer ones, like remembered parental voices. See if it doesn’t almost always make an illuminating shift if you put the words [I’m worried that] if front of the critical statement.
You can also try this on your criticisms of others. What are you worried will happen? You might learn a lot about yourself from who and how you criticize.