Inner Critic vs. Fierce Love

Source: Julia Caesar / Unsplash

The other day I sat across a coaching client who was talking about what she really wanted for her life but felt frustrated and unable to achieve it without constantly pushing herself.

“I’m tired” she said. “But I also don’t want to give up on my goals.”

Most of us can relate to this feeling. We have heartfelt desires, we put in a ton of effort, and yet we don’t seem to make much headway.

We either start, expect perfection from ourselves, and drive ourselves like a hard task master until we invariably fall short.

Or we start, get knocked off when life happens as it always will, and fall into that deep pit of self-victimization and blame.

Either way, the only way out is to start all over again, right from square one.

I know this well, having spent decades on square one waiting for my life to begin. Waiting to actually start moving in the direction of my goals. And realizing that having great aspirations or intentions isn’t enough.

What we also need is an inner cheerleader to take us along on the journey. One who sounds far less like the inner critic we know all too well, and far more like a dedicated coach who reminds us of our dreams and potential when we start losing trust in life or in ourselves. Or when motivation ebbs so it can flow again.

Overtime, I found a name for this inner cheerleader: fierce love. It was inspired by Dr. Kristen Neff’s concept of fierce compassion. But I prefer the word love because it represents fire in the belly, a kind of dedication to possibility that a mother has for her child’s potential.

Of course, not all of us grew up with mothers who believed in our abilities and were champions for our potential. But most of us have known mothers, grandmothers, or mother figures, real or fictional who were. We may even have had a pet or a stuffed animal whose very presence could get us out of a slump and reconnect us to our most vibrant, wise, and courageous self.

Who was, or is it for you? Who represents the "unconditional positive regard" that the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers described as the key condition for self-actualization? Who values your feelings, experiences, and dreams as worthy of their attention and championing?

It may be one person or thing, or a mix of many. It could even be a place. Whatever it is, create that presence in your mind. Give it a face, a name, a voice. Give it a touch and a tone, maybe a color. And give it the qualities you need of an inner cheerleader, so that when you bring it to mind, it shifts your perception of yourself. So that you see yourself like the cat who looks in the mirror and sees a lioness.

That’s what fierce love does—it brings out the lioness in you. You can go after what you want with grit because you’re not doubting or assessing yourself every step of the way. And when you fail—which is the rite of passage of every worthwhile goal—you can handle yourself with grace because shame and blame isn’t riding on your coattails.

Best of all, fierce love knows how to silence the drama of the inner critic just like a mother knows how to calm a toddler in a tantrum. Without her presence, your inner critic will work overtime: “I can’t believe I’m saying all this to myself, what’s wrong with me?!” “I always knew things will never go my way, I’m just unlucky / broken / a failure.”

Fierce love is the classic one-two punch that eventually knocks us off square one as well.

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