A self-paced, online course, to help you end the war within, and start flourishing.
This short course offers a practical, reusable map, to guide you step-by-step through a process of healing and transforming your inner critic.
~ It will help you understand what the inner critic is, why it’s there, and how to work with it, so you’re no longer getting in your own way.
~ It will support you to develop your own strategies and tools, to use again and again.
~ So you can become your own ally, and enjoy expressing more of your true self in your relationships, work and creations.
Inner critic work is one of THE most fundamental shadow aspects to engage with, in any process of healing or personal growth.
It comes up all the time, in everyday life situations and relationships.
And it crops up each step of the way, as we grow and evolve in different areas of our lives, and uncover new aspects of ourselves.
~ If I did not continue to work with my own inner critic, I would not be enjoying fulfilling relationships, creative expression, or doing this work that I love, as a psychotherapist, intuitive and embodiment coach, supporting women to express more of their true selves in the world!
What is the inner critic?
It’s that feeling inside, or voice in your head, that makes you feel small, bad, wrong or good enough.
It makes you doubt or second-guess yourself, and judges everything you do. And a lot of it operates unconsciously.
It’s the part of you that convinces you to ignore your real needs, and scoffs at your desires.
It’s full of shoulds / shouldn’ts, and it dictates whether or not you’re worthy or loveable enough, based on certain conditions.
It’s driven by fear, and can sabotage your attempts to grow, or make positive changes in your life.
It’s NOT the real you!
It feels like who you are, but it’s actually just one aspect of how your personality develops, that often takes over unconsciously, so it feels like your main identity.
It’s made up of many other people’s voices, and especially those who impacted most on you growing up, including: your parents, siblings, extended family, teachers, carers, your culture and society around you.
It can cause repetitive hurts and frustrations in your important relationships, and keep you stuck in painful habits or behaviours that don’t serve you well.
It can generate a lot of shame, pain, and make you say or do things that don’t feel like the real you.
We ALL have one
The inner critic has many different faces, conscious and unconscious.
Whether it’s a loud, mean voice inside, or more subtle ways that you censor or adapt yourself, every single one of us has an inner critic.
It can be a background narrative as you go about your day, or it can flare up in particular situations.
It can also show up as a sinking, uneasy feeling of being somehow wrong, unworthy, unlovable… that’s also woven into your emotions, body sensations and nervous system.
Everyone’s inner critic has a particular tone or feeling. Some of these common examples may resonate…
“You’re too emotional… too sensitive… too weird… too much… You talked way too much, you should apologise… You’re not being very spiritual / embodied / enlightened…
You haven’t done enough yet to deserve (x/y/z)… Your work is mediocre, there’s nothing special about it… You should be excelling at this, you’ve done it for years… You should be further ahead by now…
You should be more patient… You’re being a pushover… You’re a bad teacher / mother / partner… You’re an idiot for saying that… Others do this better than me… I don’t have an original contribution to make.
That’s too risky, there’s no point… You won’t be taken seriously… You don’t know enough about this to have an opinion on it….
You can’t say that to them or they will be angry and disappointed.
Don’t ask for that or you’ll be rejected, or ridiculed.
Don’t say / do that, or people will think you’re (crazy / arrogant / pretentious / weird / stupid / pathetic…) You’re such a bad feminist for doing that… Don’t wear that or you’ll look too (fat / tall / sexy / prudish…)
You’re too intense for others, take it down a notch… You’re too introspective, you should be more confident and outgoing…
Why do you always complicate things? You’re not as talented or experienced as them… I don’t belong here, these people are better than me… Don’t make a show of yourself… You’re too needy… Too independent… You’re so lazy… You’re a workaholic… Why are you not more self-reliant?… Why can’t you be more evolved and less reactive around your family members?
I should really have my life sorted by now… How can I still be making the same mistakes?… I should know better… Don’t bother doing that, it will just be mortifying… People will realse I’m a total imposter… Others have better qualifications than me… I’m full of crap and not really walking the walk… I’m too much of a dreamer and need to get myself together…
…It can be relentless, and exhausting. Always assessing or analysing… It never gives you a break, or lets you be human.
It may also show up not as a berating voice, like in the above examples, but operating silently inside you as an unconscious feeling, that prevents you from going for new opportunities, being more visible or impactful in your work, or asking for your real needs and desires to be met in your key relationships.
The underlying beliefs behind the inner critic’s appearances can be summarised as:
I’m not lovable or worthy, as I am… There’s something wrong with me… I need to change myself… If I don’t fix what’s wrong with me I’ll never receive love or be happy… My needs and desires are not worthy of being met.
Where it comes from
This inner critic gets formed mostly in childhood, to help protect us from rejection, ridicule, shame or abandonment.
It’s a natural part of how our personality develops, to negotiate between our primal instincts, and the need to adapt to the outside world, while ensuring we remain accepted within the tribe.
We are hardwired as humans to conform to the expectations of our caregivers and culture.
We literally need others to survive, and so we will do anything it takes to keep them happy, and taking care of our core needs for food, physical contact and affection.
… And so, we take on the voices, judgments, and expectations of those around us, embedded deep into our unconscious.
More on this, in the modules…
How it can hold you back
Later on in life, the inner critic can keep you painfully stuck, living life according to this ‘shell’ personality, that you had to create for others.
It’s like a part of you that has hardened, frozen in time, like a solidified personality structure. To the point where it almost feels like the real you… But it’s not.
When left to its own devices, the inner critic can control every aspect of your life, leaving you:
- Doubting yourself, second-guessing your actions, choices, decisions
- Feeling low self-worth, or negatively comparing yourself to others
- Sabotaging yourself when you’re about to do something new or important
- Feeling fear or anxiety about aspects of life that others seem to handle well
- Feeling like you’re always experiencing the same frustrations.
- Experiencing the same hurts or frustrations in your relationships
- Finding yourself caught in the same negative, exhausting thought loops
- Behaving in reactive ways, and feeling like you’re not in control
- Missing out on opportunities to grow, or enjoy new experiences in life
- Feeling held back from expressing your full potential in your work, or your true creativity
- Constantly worrying about negative consequences or reactions from others
- Feeling at war within yourself, rather than your own champion or ally
And it shows up extra loudly at times of growth and transition in your life. When you’re getting closer to your heart’s desires, and it feels vulnerable…
I think this is a brilliant resource, it’s been so helpful already and I’m only halfway through.
It’s so powerful, and I’m so thankful.
I found your humour, and how relatable you were in talking about this topic really helpful and reassuring. I could listen to you all day long, all the knowledge you share, and your voice is lovely!
Living free from the grips of the inner critic
There is so much more to you, beyond the confines of this tight, hard shell of protection
Once you start understand more about the inner critic, and what it’s been trying to do for you, it becomes easier to release from its grips. You get to heal and integrate the olds wounds and fears, and start fulffilling your true potential. Working wth your inner critic creates space to:
- Build a healthy relationship with your thoughts, emotions and body
- Heal your relationship with all parts of yourself, to become your own ally
- Follow your own wisdom and guidance more consistently
- Catch your patterns and habits in action, and shift your responses
- Develop healthier boundaries, and more fulfilling relationships with others
- Enjoy expressing your creativity, passion and gifts
- Approach your life and work with more ease, flexibility and pleasure
- Live a more meaningful, satisfying and joyful life
- Feel a positive ripple effect among your friends, family, work relationships, and beyond.
Releasing layers of the inner critic is like coming back to life; a feeling of being more at home in yourself, and belonging in this world.
This course is for women who…
~ Are ready to create lives that honour their genuine needs and desires.
~ Want to say and do what they really need in their key relationships, and feel good about it.
~ Are interested in personal development, and are looking for a clear roadmap to help them gain self-awareness and make practical changes in their lives
~ Want to have greater self-confidence and self-belief, and reconnect with their own inner wisdom and guidance.
~ Want to have a more empowered, loving and supportive relationship with themselves, and stop the endless cycle of self-judgment and self-fixing.
~ Want to move beyond superficial ‘mindset’ work, and engage in a more in-depth, holistic process, that will yield real and lasting results.
~ Want to include the spiritual or energy dimensions in their inner journey of healing and growth.
~ Are tired of being held back by self-doubt, and are longing to express their creativity, passion and gifts.
What’s included?
A practical, reusable map, guiding you through a clear, comprehensive process of healing and integrating your inner critic aspects.
Simple yet powerful steps, that can support you on your journey of inner alchemy and transformation.
A combination of tools and practices from: psychotherapy, mindfulness, feminine wisdom and embodiment teachings, and energy work.
~ video guidance (50 mins)
~ 2x information PDFs
~ self-inquiry worksheet
~ guided healing meditation
~ suggestions for release and integration ritual.
That’s the fun part, where you get to play with magic!
Wishing you so much joy and fulfilment, on this journey to recovering your true self, whatever form that takes for you.
As you release the shadow layers to uncover the gold within, so the world gets to see more of your light.
Delphine x
What people are saying about this course:
I just listened to the video and went through the first module, and have found the last hour or so incredibly rewarding.- A lot of aha moments.
It’s just such a gift to my soul, especially at this time of the year, to take the time to tune in and do this.
I haven’t engaged with online courses like this for a while, and this just feels really right, really thoughtful. I’m really excited that this is out there for people.
I’m going to share it with lots of people, because I think everyone should do this!
I’m tuning in to myself and becoming more aware, releasing old patterns.
Doing this ongoing inner work, with supports like this, is helping me to remember to choose joy, and get a bigger perspective. I’m practicing so much with my family, and I can already see the knock-on effect of it with them.
It’s very accessible the way you’ve broken it down step by step. There’s a lightness to your approach to this topic, and your lovely calm voice. The presentation style is top notch.
The two pdfs with the 10 points on what the inner critic is, and the 10 strategies, are helpful to have to hand while watching the video a second time. It all really landed with me.
At the moment your work, Delphine, is making me feel strong, and aligned, and like I’m living the kind of life I want to live, when I surround myself with the people and tools like this, that support me on this journey.
Your content, your tone, the format of it all is empowering, informative, and really accessible.
It’s profoundly liberating. There’s such a richness and depth to the content, and it all flows together.
Your strategies were really helpful. Like staying in the present, where I am a respected and competent worker, not a child who’s being admonished in front of people. And I can actually give opinions and advice, and even if they’re not acted on, I won’t be shouted at the way I was back then.
I’m doing a lot of inner work at the moment, even though I’m not in therapy any more, and I think I get disappointed at the potential for my toxic inner critic to keep raising her head. But this idea that we’re continually reconciling ourselves with this part of us – I found that really helpful.
Your allyship to us, making it clear we ALL continue to work on our inner critics, is really helpful and reassuring. It allows us all to be human, and I found the concept of being an ally to myself very powerful.
It’s so powerful when you catch your own patterns in action, and make the link between ways you were shamed or judged as a child, and how that shows up then as an adult, or how you expect it to show up in different situations, when that’s not the case any more.
It’s like coming home.
I love that it slowed me down straight away, and reminded me that this is a journey, an ongoing process. And that doing this work can be something to look forward to.
This is brilliant timing for me, like a gift from heaven that it landed this week. I had the toughest meetings in work, and all of your stuff is actually so relevant.
Because a lot of is really the wounded inner child, feeling shame, and people working their shit out on you and with you in spaces at work, and it’s so helpful to understand what’s really going on.
Myself and my two friends went through the first module together, and we all felt so resourced by it. Resourced in our hearts.
Your approach feels like you’re an ally in the journey; you know the struggle and are living it as well, so it’s not like a typical teaching approach, though you are imparting wisdom. We were all really impressed by this.
I’m just so excited about this being out in the world! This is going to be so helpful, empowering, reassuring, life-affirming, challenging – constructively challenging! – for so many people I know.
Thank you for being the best excuse to sit with myself this Sunday.
There were a couple of really profoundly moving moments for me, ones that really stayed with me. The idea that the inner critic will always be there, and that we’re constantly on a journey of reconciling ourselves to it, was very powerful for me.
I found it helpful to think of examples from childhood, of making mistakes and being shamed by teachers in front of others, or being given out to by parents or grandparents.
And then to join the dots between those experiences and examples from present-day professional life, where the old shame or feeling not good enough comes up again in meetings, or stops you from sharing opinions and ideas.
The content touched a nerve for me, and I found it very poignant when I thought about my role as the older sibling. I saw how I behaved in different ways, to try and make sure my siblings were equipped for all the danger in the world.
I wish I could change some of the actions and behaviours. I did better when I knew better. And with this resource, I feel I can forgive this part of me, I understand what she was trying to do, to protect us all. There’s more forgiveness work to do there…
I found it really helpful to journal while watching the video. At first I was a bit daunted that it was 50 minutes, but it’s a testament to you and your delivery that I was hanging on every word and didn’t need to pause it or switch it off!
The inner critic is something that we all have. It’s come up in so many conversations for me lately, with different people, and I can think of so many people in my life who could benefit.