The inner critic is one of the parts of us that stayed behind in childhood to keep us safe, the fort-holderFort-holder. A protective part of the self that stayed behind to ‘man the fort’ when we were wounded: the inner critic, perfectionist, pusher, pleaser: the loyal soldier still fighting a war that ended long ago. Usually the part that sent an orphan away, so no deep healing holds without its consent; befriended, never extracted. Read the full answer, and it keeps working long after the danger has passed. Its relatives are the perfectionist, the pusher, the pleaser, the self-saboteur, the joker, the pacifier and the rebel, and like all fort-holder parts they are loyal, tired protectors who need to be listened to, thanked and helped to hand over to an Adult who is willing to take charge.
What is the Inner Critic? #
A part of us that took on a job in childhood and has not stopped doing it. In Therapeutic Shamanism, the part of us that stayed and coped when other parts of us were sent away is called the fort-holder. The fort-holder is made up of sub-parts such as the inner critic, the perfectionist, the pusher, the pleaser, the self-saboteur, the joker, the pacifier and the rebel.
So the inner critic is one of the fort-holder’s sub-parts. One of the common symptoms of soul-loss and power-lossPower-loss. Disconnection from nature, the web of life and our place in it: like being unplugged from the national grid. One of the two root causes of shamanic illness, healed by reconnection (not by soul retrieval), beginning with the Power Animal bond. Read the full answer is “Having a strong inner critic who puts you down and is always ‘on your back’.”1 See What are child, Orphan, fort-holder and protector parts?
Where does the Inner Critic come from? #
From learning, as children, what we had to be in order to be accepted. A child who is told often enough that they are unlovable for being angry, noisy or assertive takes that message inside: “we gradually learn to police ourselves.” A condition set by other people becomes a condition we set on ourselves, and “We then learn to repress that part of us and send it away.”2
The part that stays then has to manage. In childhood, “this is the part of us that learns to bite our lip or hold our tongue; to always be ready for a fight; to not show weakness; to not speak out”.3
Why does the Inner Critic keep going? #
Because it does not know that childhood is over. The fort-holder is like the soldiers found years after the Second World War, still loyally fighting on remote islands: “The fort-holder in us does not realise that the war of childhood is over. They are ever on guard like the loyal soldier, ever ready to step in and protect us”.4 Its methods may no longer serve us, but its intention is still protection.
That is why the critic can be so persistent. Fort-holder parts are often exhausted, but keep loyally soldiering on, trying to look after us in the only way they know how.
What other inner roles do we develop? #
The inner critic’s relatives in the fort-holder family: the perfectionist, the pusher, the pleaser, the self-saboteur, the joker, the pacifier and the rebel. The sources name these roles without describing each one in turn. Their names are a starting point for noticing which voices are running our lives.
Relationships have their roles too. As we grow up, “we adopt a relationship style. It may be to be the strong one, or the needy one, the listener, the sensible one, the joker, and so on.”5 These roles, too, were learnt, and they can be seen for what they are.
What forms can the Inner Critic take? #
The books do not list them. What they describe is a voice that “puts you down and is always ‘on your back'”,6 and they place it in a family of related fort-holder roles. Noticing which of these voices is speaking is the first step. Whatever form it takes, the critic was learnt as a way of protecting us. It is not the truth about who we are.
Is the Inner Critic bad? #
No. It is a protector that has gone on too long. After decades of working with fort-holder parts, Paul Francis has come to have the utmost respect and admiration for the fort-holder. They are there to protect us, and they are brilliant, powerful, inventive, clever and creative in doing so.7 What it needs is to be met and listened to.
What if my Inner Critic says I made the journey up? #
That particular doubt comes from the left brain rather than from the inner critic. “The left-brain can be a bully. Like all bullies, it wants to be in control. And like all bullies, it needs to be stood up to.” Its favourite trick is to say “‘you just made that up’, and says it in a pompous and confident way that implies that making things up has no use or validity. It is talking rubbish! It is true that you made it up, but there is no such thing as ‘just’ making things up.”8 Without imagination there would be no novels, no music and no art.
So the advice is to answer it, not obey it: “you need to politely but firmly tell it to shut up.” At first a large part of a journey may well be made up, “Maybe even ninety percent of it.” But when you research a journey afterwards, some of it turns out to be “astonishingly relevant and meaningful”.9 With practice, the worry fades. Journeying for other people, with their permission, also helps, because “you realise that you are not just ‘making this up’!”10 See Is shamanic journeying imagination, and how are journeys co-created?
How should we respond to the Inner Critic? #
By listening to it and thanking it, and by stepping up ourselves. With any fort-holder part, the task is to “greet and acknowledge them, listen compassionately and respectfully to their concerns, and see if their concerns can be addressed”.11 Meeting them, listening to them with kindness and thanking them can go a very long way in helping heal them.
Part of the work is someone else taking over its job: the fort-holder “stepping back and becoming the ‘body-guard’ of the adult person in charge, rather than them being the person in charge (as is the case for most people); kind of like the sergeant handing control over to a commanding officer, once (or, if!) a commanding officer actually turns up.”12 See What is the Adult and what does healthy inner leadership look like?
How does the Power Animal help heal self-criticism? #
By loving us in a way we have not learnt to love ourselves. Your Power AnimalPower Animal. The Oversoul of a wild species, met as a single Lower-World being and bonded with in a deep, committed, usually lifelong soul-bond of unconditional love. The practitioner’s first and foremost Guide: Panther, not “my panther”. Read the full answer “will show more love, acceptance, understanding and compassion to you than you show to yourself.” In that way, “It helps heal the self-criticism and lack of self-compassion that most people have deep inside.”13 Time spent with your Power Animal is time spent being accepted as you are. See How does Power Animal heal and support us?
What else helps soften the Inner Critic? #
Gratitude, including gratitude towards ourselves. A gratitude practice can include our own qualities and actions, because “Practising self-gratitude can be a powerful way of cultivating self-compassion and self-acceptance, and reining-in an out-of-control inner-critic.”14 Healing can also be asked for directly: becoming “less self-critical, less of a perfectionist” is amongst the kinds of help we might ask our GuidesGuides. The Lower-World and Upper-World beings a practitioner works with and learns from, of whom the Power Animal is the first and foremost. True Guides are ethical to their core; the shaman’s power comes from the depth of these bonds, not from the shaman. More about this for.15
