Inner critic to inner wisdom: how to reorient your narrative

Published Nov 24, 2024, 2:00 PM

Women’s leadership expert and author Megan Dalla-Camina discusses the inner critic archetypes, how they play-out in everyday life and how you can rewrite your inner narrative. 

 

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Hey there, welcome to you Extra Healthy Ish. Yes, we're living the extra today. This, of course is the big sister podcast to Healthy Ish from Body and Soul. I'm the host of Felicity Harley. I'm joining today in the studio by Megan Dalla Kamena.

Now.

She is an expert in women's leadership, founder of the Women Rising Leadership Program. Actually, her new book is called Women Rising Too, and she has a very impressive list of academic credentials. And today we're delving into something she writes about extensively in her book, The Inner Critic. Oh yeah, we all have them. So she's going to help us work out which archetype where you fit, Who is your inner critic or perhaps you have more than one, or two or three, and how we can re orient our inner narrative. Meghan, thanks for joining us on Extra Healthy Is today. Thanks for having me, and I have to say thank you, congratulations and thank you for a great book that you've delivered to women kind.

Thank you. I hope it's really helpful for women everywhere and some men too. Yeah, well, yes, men, we have to bring them. Bring the men in now.

Before we kick off and talk all things in a critic. I have to ask you, how do you stay extra healthy ish?

I love that it's healthy ish because it feels like the pressure is off. And I have a master's degree in wellness, but it's so pressure. How do I stay? I do, I meditate, I do yoga, I walk on the beach. I'm pretty low key about it all though. So yeah, try and eat healthy ish, A bit of balance in the for the ish the ish. Oh, probably chocolate. It's not eighty percent chocolate, you know, the other the other kind, the proper stuff that's actually delicious, exactly a gin and tonic here or there. Okay, good, yeah, good, This is in wellness. That's impressive.

Now today we're talking about how to bitter understand our inner critic, but perhaps tell us a bit about you and your story. I feel like that might set the stage for the rest of us and your advice. I mean, you had a corporate career for two decades in dare I say, male dominated, well for male dominated promption industries, and now you're women's leadership advocate.

Yeah. And before that, I was an actress, so I had this Wow, crazy, what a career. Yeah, so you're in A critic would have crazed its head a lot, yes, and still does still does. I think the difference now is I know what to do. I know what it is, and I know what to do about it. But if I trace, you know, trace my journey, particularly my corporate journey eighteen years some of the world's largest organizations very much maldominated, and the impact that has on women's specifically and women's psyche, women's confidence, and how we show up and how that flares up this in a critic, and the stories that we tell about ourselves because we're in systems that were never designed with us in mind, or for us to succeed in we have to as women, really understand that and understand our stories for us to be healthy, no ish, but to be healthy on all levels of our being. So for me, that's been a massive part of my personal journey and still continues to this day. It's a shortened cycle now, but it's still there. It's an inherent part of who we are.

Can you give any examples, perhaps of your corporate time when that inner critic really fired up?

Yeah. I think about when I got my first general management role and I was thirty four, single mum to a four year old in a very one of the world's largest tech companies that I hadn't been in for very long, so I didn't understand anything about that company. And I was the youngest general manager. There was like one other woman on a twenty five person GM team, and just this inner critic voice of you know, smart enough to be here, you not good enough to be here. Everybody knows you don't belong here and that you shouldn't have got the job. And all of those stories went for the two years that I was in that role, and I completely burnt myself out because I didn't have the tools. Did you perform in the role? Did you still feel like I performed? I was a high functioning, high performer and nobody knew what was going on for me, and nobody knew like when I told my boss, my CEO, that I was done, I walked into his office one done, I said, I'm done. Count this for one more second. He had had no idea that there was anything wrong. And this is what we see with women, right, high functioning, high performing, I'm fine, everything's great, and we're crumbling in the background and we don't have the tools to recognize. Like I'm standing on a cliff here, and the decisions that I make next are going to decide do I step back or do I go over? That's the experience of so many women.

We'll be back after the shortbreak with more from Megan.

Before we get to the tools.

Actually, I just want to point and tell our listeners there's a wonderful line that you wrote in your book, and you call the inner critic, well, storytellers about inner world.

You call these thirteen types. Is that what you call them?

Yeah, archetypes talk to us about what these are exactly and how they kind of feed into that inner critic and then in turn shape our lives.

Yeah. So the archetypes, Yeah, they exactly exactly what you said. They are the stories of our inner world and they reflect the outer world. And I when I was writing this, I've been doing work around the inner critic with people for fifty years since I did my work and research. But I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to really try and get into the consciousness of women, which is what archetypes tap into. So that's why I came up with the thirteen so that women can read it and not just understand that they have an inner critic, but really start to understand where does that where does that in a critic voice come from? Where does that story come from? Where's the societal piece and that projection on me and my psyche as a woman, And then what do I do about that? What's the light side? Because all of the inner critic archetypes have a light side, the positive aspects, and they all of course have the shadow side like what serves us? What stops us? And then how do we manage it? Because the job is not to silence the inner critic. It's like having the goal that you're going to sit in meditation and all of your thoughts are going to vanish out of your brain. Like it's not a it's not a realistic goal, but we can tame it. See.

I think that's really profound because, I mean, having worked in women's mags for a very long time, I've written a lot of headlines silence.

You're in a critic? Yeah, but you're saying you can't and we shouldn't. Yeah, I mean are in a critic in a lot of ways. I mean it's our prime or primitive brain. It keeps us safe in a lot of ways as well. So you know, the way that I look at it is like, let's take the good and we can talk about a couple of them, and like let's take the light side and the way that this helps me. But let's be really cognizant of Okay, this is where I'm turning, This is where the stories are going to have an impact on me and my life, my psyche, my mental health. And then okay, let's do this. Let's just do these things.

And because often the critic still drives your success, and you know many of us still want that success. Let's actually let's talk about you've got thirteen, but let's talk about a few of the yes, more popular ones or dare I say the ones our listeners might yes to.

The perfectionist. Yeah.

Now I know this because whenever I put the term perfectionist in the title of this podcast, we get thousands of downloads.

Yes, it's and it's the first one, right, Like it's the first one I write about, not because it's the most important, but it is probably the most common. And the perfectionists, they all have a little tagline the perfectionists like one more time, I'm just going to do it one more time, And that constant drive that are inner critic tells us it's never going to be good enough, so you better keep going, and that if you fail, and if it's not perfect, you're a failure and you will fail. And it's that very fatalistic. So that we just keep driving and striving and driving and striving for it to be perfect. And I would imagine there's a lot of your listeners right now going, oh, that's me. Yeah, where's the good side of that? Yeah, So the good side is if you're a perfectionist, Like if you look at your work as an example, and your perfectionist in your work, you will produce incredibly high quality work. The shadow of that is there is a personal cost to that. Your boss will love you, you will always deliver, you will over deliver, and it'll be like, ah, we could just clone Felicity. How great would that be? But you're like, you know, you'd be like I was. The world is falling apart in the scenes at home, yes, example, yes, or you are on the verge of burnout, or you're having you know, real challenges with anxiety is something that comes up for perfectionist a lot because we don't know what to do with that, so we just keep going, what are some other ones that people relate to?

What are some of the big ones that you know when you when you work with people and you talk to thousands of women and they're like, oh my gosh, that's me or you can see in their faces with yes not yes, I am a person.

Yeah, So the people please aren't. And this is where we are really socialized and can do by patriarchy to as women, as young girls, to always put other people ahead of ourselves. We are we take care of people. We're looking after everybody else and not ourselves. And we are also we've also been conditioned to strive for harmony and to not ruffle feathers, to not just be nice, be nice, don't be too loud, make sure everyone's happy, and that is people pleasing behavior. And I would say that and the perfectionist like a ride up there with ones that women go, oh my gosh, that's me on both of those things. So the people please are definitely the comparer.

Oh yeah, And I mean that's probably just been amplifying the last five years.

With social media exactly. Absolutely, And it takes so much intentional, really intentional, conscious effort to number one, realize how often we are constantly comparing ourselves. How that amfies the stories that we're telling ourselves about ourselves, and how it impacts the choices that we're making in our lives, how we're showing up the choice and the actions that we're going to take. So yeah, the comparer is huge. I mean even you're talking about that.

Sometimes I get really mad at myself when I catch myself comparing.

And then you don't. You often don't appreciate that it does affect the choices you make and they're like, hey, yes, hang on, like backstep a bit, Yeah, I doing yes. And this is why really understanding the stories that are going on inside your mind is so important, because we think, oh, well, it's just a story. It's not just a story. It's a story that then informs every action that we take is preceded by a story that we're telling ourselves. Like you just sit with that for a minute, they'll blow your mind. So we have to really tune in and then well, what is the action that I want to take? Because you can also reverse engineer it. I want to take this action, What do I need to believe? What do I need to tell myself to enable me to go and take that action.

It's probably true, whereas you've been talking to yourself about something untrue. Yes, and yeah, re engineering it all it's tough.

Yeah, it is tough. Yeah, but it gets easier. Right.

So there's so much hope good. Just just let's share one more before we.

Get to the hope part. Yes, the overachiever yes, and the ideal mother would be the other two that I were the idea that I would call out a lot of mothers who listened to this podcast. I'm always juggling. I'm always juggling. So the ideal mother gets gets caught up between like I have to be the perfect mother at home and I have to be the perfect worker if you work outside the home as well as inside the home, and fits into the motherhood paradox that I write about in the first section of the book, where we expect women to work like they don't have children and to mother like they don't have jobs outside the home. So we get caught in this impossible paradox, and then we feed our mother guilt over and over and over again. And that's the narrative running in our heads because we just we feel like we're failing at everything. And then adding to that, we apologize to everyone, Yes, because we're not good enough. I'm not going to make it. Yes, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be there. Then we have the guilt I just can't yes, and the shoulds and the have to's and the masts. It is a really vicious cycle.

Okay, let's bring some joy and hope and positivity. Yes once we I mean, I think I love these thirteen archetypes because I think they really I mean, you might be one, you might be a few, you can resonate. They just kind of perhaps put a label to what you might be feeling, and then you feel seen and heard and that other women are struggling with.

Yeah, and it's not just you, right like, it's not just you, it's all of us, most of us, Yes, all of us. It is a better description.

So how do we go from the inner critic to as you described, finding that inner wisdom give us some tools that we can use.

Yes, so there's a really simple but somewhat may be challenging at the beginning, but that's okay because you know we can do hard things. We clunge all says, it's my favorite. Yes, return to my kids. Exactly, we can do. This is to number one, just start to be aware of the stories that you're telling. Just tune in like that's we can all do that. And for the women I work with and readers like I will recommend just have a little notebook with you or use that app on your phone, and as you hear a story coming up, you don't have to do anything but notice it, write it down, Notice it, write it down. Oh that's interesting. Oh I didn't know that was there. Right, Just do that and then after you've done that, do that for a couple of weeks, so no pressure, notice, write it down, and then you can go to step two. So pick one of the stories that you're telling and challenge that story and ask the question is that true? Is that story that I'm telling myself true or false? Or are there alternate stories truth that are going on, so that we're breaking that story up, breaking the cognitive dissonance. And then we get to step three, reframe the story. What is the story I need to tell? What's a more helpful story that's going to help me do the thing I want to do? That's it?

I mean that sounds incredibly simple, yes, and extremely empowering. Yes, that really we can. We can make change in a relatively small amount of time.

Yes, and pick one story. Exactly. You don't have to change your whole consciousness. No, right, so just pick one story. And I have literally had thousands of women say to me just that question, is that true? Change my life? And stick it on a post it note, like have it in have a remind.

And I think when you start, like, when you start questioning yourself, I'm big on questions. Yes, it does become a habit.

Yes, and you do feel it's clearer.

Actually, this happened to me the other I was going I probably divulging too much here, but I was going to a dinner and there was going to be some people there from.

A past career life, and I started.

Telling myself stories that I wasn't good enough because I didn't feel good enough when I worked at that word magazine. I will say magazine, And then I'm like, is that true?

No, it's not. And then suddenly I was okay. And so you can actually flip that thinking quite swiftly. Yes, it can. Absolutely, some things might need some deeper exploration, and that's okay too, Like we don't have to be afraid of that. But as you say, like you can. Literally I turned this around for myself in my first PhD class. I'm sitting We're on a zoom and there's fifteen incredibly smart scholars and they're all talking and asking questions, and I'm just sitting there going, I'm not smart enough. Listening your PhD in Leadership and Women's Spirituality. Yes, And I'm like, I'm not smart enough. I'm not smart enough. Just on loop on loop on loop. Because I've done this work for so long, I could very quickly go, well you are, you got in, you're here, say something because you get marked on participation like speak women And I did and it was fine, So you can you know as you did. You're a great example turn it around quite quickly.

Meghan, lovely to have you on the podcast. Thank you for empowering us today.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been great.

And if you want to read more about the archetypes, no exactly which one or which ones you feit under, I'm probably a few of those. You can grab Megan's book. It is called Women Rising. She was really inspiring, wasn't she. She also has a quiz you can take an inner critic quiz on her website. I will leave a link to that in this show notes. Anything else, head to Body and Soul, dou follows and socials. Grab our print edition which is out in your local Sunday payper If you do want to DM me with any feedback, I am at Felicity Harley across socials. Thanks again for listening and stay extra healthy is