Inner Critic & Ahimsa

I don’t know what’s going on inside your head, (nor will I claim to), but if it’s anything like mine-it houses a chattering inner critic. A voice that tells me all the ways I could be better. Or how much I could improve. Or reminds me of all the ways I’m not quite enough. I can hear that voice as I gaze in the mirror during yoga class…What is that? Your not pushing hard enough, this should look so much better by now, you slacker.

On one hand, the inner critic is great! It fuels us to achieve the excellent and ambitious. One the other hand that inner critic is a total A-hole. An unwelcome house guest. A confidence sucking vampire. A heartless drillmaster reminding us of our million imperfections.

When we excitedly set a goal or attempt to realize an ambition, and God forbid we fall short- or fall behind or fall over- our inner critic is the first one to chime in and beat us down further. Suddenly our goal has the opposite effect:we feel worse than we did before setting it.

Trying to hush or ignore our inner critic seems like smart advice-one way to be kinder to ourselves. The problem is we go about it the wrong way: “I just need to stop thinking this way. I just need to shut that voice up.” Sounds like inner critic speak. That sneaky jerk taking the helm once again.

The first tenet of yoga—the foundation on which our yoga practice rests—is ahimsa, which translates as non-harming or nonviolence. Ahimsa is the first of the yamas, the ethical guidelines laid out in Patanjali’s eightfold path of yoga.

The Sanskrit word ahimsa comes from the root word “hims,” which means to strike. As is common with many Sanskrit words, preceding the root word with the letter “a” turns it into its opposite. In yoga, ahimsa is synonymous with self-kindness, self-compassion, and self-care.

Many of us have learned to use anxiety or the threat of self-criticism as a powerful motivator to accomplish our goals. That nagging voice that says, “You’re not good enough. You need to do more of this. You need to do more of that,” although painful, actually has good intentions. We think that, if we criticize ourselves, we’ll be in control and able to force ourselves to be the person we want to be. This belief permeates every aspect of our lives. So it is not surprising that we bring that mindset when we step onto our yoga mats. And let’s face it, it’s exhausting to be on the whipping end of our inner critic’s lash.

When you’re self-critical, you treat yourself in ways you would never want to treat someone you love: beating yourself up for every imperfection, punishing yourself for any weakness, and discouraging yourself from going after what you really want. By contrast, self-compassion is defined as caring for ourselves as we would care for someone we truly love.

But when we judge our self-judging, that adds more fuel to the fire. When we resist our suffering, we suffer more. The more we try to get rid of the parts of ourselves that we don’t like, the more they intensify.

Instead, when self-judgment or self-criticism arise, we can make room for it. We don’t have to push it away or get rid of it—that would be an act of ahimsa. Making room for self-criticism is an act of self-kindness. We make space for the darker parts of our story rather than shutting them down. We can ask, “How is this trying to help me? How is it trying to keep me happy?” Instead of criticizing ourselves, we can simply acknowledge that we are looking for happiness in the wrong places.

When we criticize ourselves, we can become aware of the suffering in that experience. We can re-envision our fear, anger, self-recrimination, and self-judgment as suffering rather than as being bad or wrong or contemptible. The starting point is noticing when self-criticism is happening. Mindfulness can help us develop a refined ear for the self-critical voice. Even when it’s very subtle, we can still hear, Oh, my tone when I talked to myself was kind of harsh. It is important not to squash the critic but rather to honor and validate it for the work it is doing. We can say to the self-critic, Thank you for trying to help me. I think I may try another way of moving forward, by motivating myself with some kindness this time, but I appreciate what you are trying to do for me.

Yoga practice is sort of like a self-improvement project. It’s not like, if we practice for 20 years or 40 years, suddenly our self-critical side will go away. It might, but most likely it won’t. What changes with practice is that we learn to make room for it. When you put a teaspoon of salt in a glass of water, it changes the taste of the water. However, when you put the same amount of salt in a gallon of water, the water will hardly change taste at all. Our self-critical side is like the teaspoon of salt. What changes with practice is that we can surround it with greater kindness and awareness.

So, when your inner critic starts up when you’re holding a pose, can you be curious about it? Our mindfulness practice invites us to bring the qualities of openness, curiosity, interest, and kindness to our experience. We can go in with a sledgehammer, or we can bring a quality of kindness and even a sense of humor to our inner critic.

We can stop our practice and put a hand over our heart as a gesture of kindness; we can remind ourselves that it’s okay, we all have negative feelings, it’s part of the human experience. We can counteract the negative voices of self-criticism with loving-kindness. As we let our hearts quiver in a yoga pose, we can say to ourselves inwardly and silently, May I accept myself just as I am … May I open to this moment with ease and kindness.

Namaste-

Jessica

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