Voices in My Head

• Author: Jeena Cho
• Pages: 28-29

Voices in My Head

Learning to quiet the inner critic and its impossible demands

By Jeena Cho

Who do you think you

are? Stop talking. You’re

making a fool of yourself.

You’re not really going

to wear that to cour t,

are you? You’re screwing

this up! You’re not good

enough. They should just take away your

bar license.

Do these thoughts sound fami liar?

Each of us has a crit ical inner voice—the

inner critic. The inner cr itic pushes us to

be perfect, to me et an impossible stan-

dard. Rarely doe s our performance match

the ideal perfect st andards demanded by

the inner critic.

When I refl ect back, so much of my life

has been governed by the inner cr itic. I

had to prove I was worthy of belongi ng

and love. I had to prove I wasn’t a failure.

Yet no matter how much I achieved, the

inner critic was never sati sfi ed. I didn’t

know how to pause, to savor, to appreci-

ate the small and big accomplishment s of

my life.

I remember having overwhelming an xi-

ety at my law school graduation ceremony

because I didn’t know for cert ain where

I’d work. “You’re such a loser. Graduating

from law school and without a job,” the

inner critic chided.

The voice of the inner critic is often not

based in fact or rea lity. Yet the voices can

be very compelling. In cogn itive behav-

ioral therapy, these thoughts are

known as thin king errors or

distorted thinking. Learning

about these common thought

patterns and working w ith

them has been hugely

helpful in reducing

stress, anx iety and

depression.

Here are

some of

the most common thinki ng errors,

adapted from a document from the

College of Charleston’s counseling

and substance abuse ser vices:

Catastrophizing: Ima gining the

worst-case scena rio and blowing

it out of proportion. For example,

thinking if you don’t land this cl i-

ent, you’ll never make par tner, and

then you’ll live an unhappy and d is-

satisfi ed life.

Jumping to conclusi ons: Making

a judgment without evidence to

verify the conclusion, such as t hink-

ing the opposing counsel is refus ing

to stipulate to an ex tension just to

be di cu lt.

Personalization: Attributing an

external event t o yourself without

causal relationship. For example,

your partner seems di stracted, and

you assume it’s because she is angr y

with you.

Overgeneralization:

Generalizing ba sed on a few

limited occur rences, such as

thinking you gave a terr ible pre-

sentation because of the few

negative feedback comments

while ignoring the dozens of

positive comments and praise.

Black-and-white thinking:

Categorizing thi ngs into one of

two extremes w ithout recogniz-

ing the possibilities of gray, such

as thinki ng you’re either a brillia nt

lawyer or a terrible one.

Labeling: Attaching a label to

yourself, such as when you feel

anxious before a hear ing and

then label yourself as “always

an xio us.”

Emotional reasoning:

Thinking becau se you feel a cer-

tain way, it must be true. “I feel

like the judge was upset wit h

me; therefore she must be angry

with me.”

“Should” statements: Motivat-

On

Well-

Being

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE JC LAW GROUP

28 || ABA JOURNAL MARCH 2018

“THE VOICE OF

THE INNER CRITIC

IS OFTEN NOT

BASED IN FACT

OR REALITY.

YET THE VOICES

CAN BE VERY

COMPELLING.”

— JEENA CHO

Practice