I noticed it first during my therapy sessions when my therapist kept asking me to repeat what I had just said about myself.
"What would you say if a friend told you they were struggling with this?" she asked.
I would say: of course you are. This is hard. You're doing your best. Be gentle with yourself.
What I actually said to myself: what is wrong with you. Why can't you manage something this basic. Other people handle this without making it a whole thing.
The gap between those two voices is enormous. And I had been living inside the second one for so long that I didn't recognise it as cruelty. It just felt like realism.
Changing it has not been straightforward. You can't just decide to talk to yourself differently and have it stick. But noticing the voice — catching it, naming it, choosing not to just accept it as truth — that has been the beginning of something.
If you have a harsh inner critic, I want to ask you: would you say what you say to yourself to anyone you loved? And if not — what would it mean to extend yourself that same protection?