#203: How to Soften Your Inner Critic and Forgive Yourself for the Past
If you’ve ever felt like you’re your own harshest critic, you’re not alone. Most of us carry an inner voice that points out our flaws, reminds us of past mistakes, and convinces us we’re not good enough. And while that voice can feel punishing, here’s the surprising truth: your inner critic isn’t trying to hurt you—it’s trying to protect you.
The problem isn’t that this part of you exists. The problem is that it often uses shame and self-blame as tools for protection, and those rarely lead to the kind of growth and healing we’re hoping for. So rather than trying to silence or banish your inner critic, what if you learned to soften it, to understand what it’s really trying to do, and to extend compassion—even to this critical part of yourself?
That’s what we’re exploring today: how to develop a healthier relationship with your inner critic, bring more self-compassion into the mix, and move toward true self-forgiveness.
The Protective Role of the Inner Critic
It might sound counterintuitive, but your inner critic is actually trying to keep you safe.
That voice that says, “You need to do better,” or “Don’t be too needy, or people will leave”? It’s often rooted in fear—fear of rejection, fear of repeating painful mistakes, fear of losing connection.
Seen through this lens, self-criticism is a misguided attempt at protection. By keeping you “in line,” your inner critic believes it’s preventing you from getting hurt.
When we can recognize this protective intent, it changes the conversation. Instead of being at war with ourselves, we can turn toward this part of us with curiosity and even gratitude: “I see you’re trying to keep me safe. Thank you for caring.”
That simple shift softens the edges of self-criticism, making space for compassion instead of more blame.
Self-Compassion Is Not Letting Yourself Off the Hook
One of the biggest fears people have about practicing self-compassion is that it means lowering standards or avoiding responsibility.
But self-compassion is not the same as avoidance. It doesn’t mean ignoring mistakes or pretending everything you’ve done was fine. Rather, it’s about acknowledging the humanity behind your choices.
Every action—even those you regret—came from a place of trying to meet a need, avoid pain, or navigate fear. When you recognize this, you can hold yourself accountable from a place of compassion, instead of shame.
And here’s the key: shame does not lead to meaningful change. In fact, it tends to keep us stuck in old patterns, spiraling into more fear-driven or self-sabotaging behaviors. Compassion, on the other hand, creates the safety and clarity needed to reflect, take responsibility, and genuinely do things differently next time.
The Path to Self-Forgiveness
Forgiveness is often the missing piece when we’re stuck in self-criticism. We replay our mistakes, beat ourselves up, and carry the heavy residue of regret—without ever reaching the point of release.
True self-forgiveness requires two things:
Reflection and accountability – Honestly acknowledging where we’ve misstepped, without collapsing into shame.
A commitment to doing better – Deciding how we want to respond differently in the future, and putting supports in place to help us follow through.
It’s a lot like repairing a relationship with someone else. A simple “I’m sorry” rarely feels complete unless it’s paired with accountability and a clear commitment to change. The same is true within our inner relationship.
When we reflect deeply, learn the lessons, and then make a clear promise to ourselves about how we’ll act differently, we can finally release the weight of the past and move forward lighter.
Closing the Loop
The journey from self-criticism to self-forgiveness isn’t about silencing your inner critic or excusing your mistakes. It’s about shifting the way you relate to yourself:
Seeing the protective role of your inner critic
Extending compassion instead of punishment
Taking responsibility without spiraling into shame
And finally, forgiving yourself so you can move forward with clarity and confidence
When you practice this, you no longer carry the same burdens of self-blame. You create space to show up in your life and relationships with more openness, intention, and self-trust.
Because the truth is: you can’t punish yourself into growth. But you can love yourself into change.
If this resonates, you might enjoy my free training on How to Heal Anxious Attachment and Finally Feel Secure in Life and Love, where I dive deeper into how self-criticism and shame spirals keep us stuck—and how to break free.
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship coach, Stephanie Rigg.
[00:00:23]:
And I'm really glad you're here. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking about how to be less self critical or how to befriend your inner critic. Now, I think this is something that so many of us struggle with, no matter where we sit on the attachment spectrum. Frankly, I think self criticism is a burden that many of us are very well acquainted with carrying through our lives. And, you know, in thinking about today's episode and how to frame it, I was reflecting that so much of the time, the language we hear around self criticism and our inner critic is like how to silence your inner critic. And I very deliberately steered clear of that framing because as with anxiety and the way I teach about that, I would never say like how to get rid of anxiety or how to eliminate your anxiety, because I don't think that anxiety is the problem.
[00:01:26]:
I actually don't think that your inner critic is a part of you that you need to silence or dominate or erase or destroy or get rid of. Really, I see the inner critic as a part of you that is playing a role that is protective in some way. And that might sound a little funny, as with a lot of our protective parts that engage in behaviours that we might label wrong or bad or inconvenient or unwelcome, ultimately there's some reason, if you are moving through life, moving through the world with this voice in your head that is constantly being hard on you, being judgmental, telling you that you're not good enough, telling you you need to do better, pointing out your flaws, all of those things, blaming you for everything that goes wrong. There's a reason for that. And as we'll talk about today, a big part of shifting that internal environment is actually turning towards our critical parts and seeking to understand their purpose and what they're trying to protect us from, rather than turning our back on them or trying hit the mute button or overpower or overrule them. So that's what we're going to be talking about today, what it means to develop a different kind of relationship with your inner critic, how to forgive yourself, how to be more self compassionate and how shifting that relationship can actually be much more facilitative of change than the approach where we self Flagellate, punish ourselves, blame ourselves. Because oftentimes we can have the story that we need to do all of those things in order to make changes when I find that the opposite is true. Before we get into today's episode, just a quick reminder.
[00:03:11]:
If you are in or around London and you would like to come along to my upcoming event on 13th September, I'm only going to be in town for a couple of days and I'm so looking forward to gathering with an intimate group of like minded folks to share about all things secure relationships and most importantly, how to build a secure relationship with yourself. So if you are interested in coming along, I would so love to see you there. You can purchase tickets via the link in the show notes or by heading straight to my website. Okay, so let's talk about self criticism and the inner critic and what it takes to really shift our internal environment into a more self compassionate one. So as I alluded to in the introduction, self criticism is not just a bad thing that we need to get rid of. I think that kind of mindset is wildly unhelpful because it fails to acknowledge that all of our parts, even the ones that we would rather not be there, are serving some sort of purpose. And for a lot of us, self criticism is serving this role. If we were to sit down, you know, pull up a chair and sit down opposite the part of us that is highly self critical, our inner critic, and sort of project them outwards and sit down and have a conversation with them and say, like, what are you trying to do here? When you are constantly in my ear telling me all of the ways that I've messed up, or I'm not good enough, or people don't like me, or I'm not attractive enough, or I need to change these things about myself, or you know, people always leave me, like all of the things, all of those little voices that can just be playing on repeat these really harsh, punitive, unkind messages, you know, what would be the purpose of that? And being genuinely curious around, like what is this part of me trying to achieve by being so self critical all of the time? And a lot of the time if we dig a little deeper, of course it will be personal to each individual.
[00:05:04]:
But a lot of the time the inner critic is operating from this belief that if I don't keep you in line, something bad's gonna happen. So if I'm constantly telling you to do better, I am carrying this belief that people won't love us unless we're perfect, for example, or If I'm always trying to point out to you where you've messed up, I'm trying to keep you accountable, to not make those mistakes again, because maybe those mistakes led us to a lot of pain and suffering in the past. So if I'm telling you not to be too needy or that you're too sensitive and that you've just got to suck it up and not let someone know that you're upset and really kind of being quite harsh in that respect, maybe that's coming from a deep fear that if you take up too much space, someone's going to leave you. And so when we start to dig a little and scratch the surface, we can see that there is always some sort of protective intent behind even the most hardcore inner critic. You can always find your way to some thread of needing to prove yourself, needing to compensate for a perceived inadequacy, needing to be perfect in order to be lovable, trying desperately to prevent disconnection, trying to avoid a repetition of a past mistake or a past pain. And when we can see that, we can start to empathise and recognise that actually our inner critic is doing a really important job, and that is to try and keep us safe. And it's only when we turn towards that and we can actually recognise and even voice gratitude to that part of us and say, like, I see what you're trying to do. I see how you're trying to keep me safe.
[00:06:43]:
I know how much you care about me and care about this, whatever this is, whether it's your job or your relationships or whatever else. Right away we start to feel this softening, right? Because we stop being at war with ourselves. We stop being in this constant state of wrongness and resistance, making ourselves the bad guy. And we're experiencing this internal dialogue of shame and blame. And then in response to that, we're making ourselves wrong. So we're adding more shame and blame to a system that's already carrying a heavy weight and a heavy burden. So when we can actually lift that weight off our shoulders and instead go, okay, I'm all ears, I want to understand this part of me and really approach that part of ourselves with genuine curiosity and a desire to befriend and support, you will notice that it almost straightaway shifts the internal environment. So extending that olive branch of self compassion, both towards ourselves more broadly in terms of the things we struggle with, but specifically to our inner critic and any other parts of us that we find hard to accept is a really, really important first step.
[00:07:53]:
Now, what can be a Little tricky there. And something that I know a lot of people have resistance to is what I alluded to earlier around, like I need to keep myself accountable, to do better, to do differently. And just being nice to myself and being kind to myself isn't that tantamount to letting myself off the hook, right? So our inner critic can be, you know, pretty firm and can grip pretty tightly to this sense of I need to keep us in line and just being nice and being all warm and fuzz. There can be parts of us that have a lot of resistance to that and that's totally valid and we want to recognise and acknowledge that. And the reassurance that I want to offer, if you are sitting there and having that resistance of like, yeah, I'm not just going to let myself off the hook here because maybe I've made real mistakes or maybe I have acted out of integrity or there are things that I'm really deeply ashamed of or that I really feel a lot of regret and remorse about. What I'd offer to you is that it's actually only in being self compassionate. So in recognising the humanity underneath whatever we did or whatever we've struggled with, recognising that we're always all doing our best and that whatever you might have done that you're so hard on yourself about, there's always some sort of reason, right? Like you were trying to get a need met or you were trying to avoid pain, or you were acting from fear. There's always something really valid that sits underneath whatever it is that we do.
[00:09:21]:
Even if the thing that we do is not something that we're super proud of, it's only in bringing self compassion to that that we can start to actively, meaningfully engage with and learn the lessons of. Whatever the thing is that we've experienced, whatever we're trying to shift away from. If we adopt a shaming and blaming approach, I promise you there's no meaningful growth that comes from that because it's just as I said, leads to more collapsing, more contraction, more shame and blame and we spiral downwards. That means that we have lower self esteem, lower self worth, and from that place we're much more likely to engage in further fear driven, scarcity driven, you know, dysregulated behaviours because our system is under so much stress. So really, in order to engage meaningfully with regret, with past mistakes, in order to actually forgive ourselves and take responsibility and do something differently, we have to have a level of self compassion. Criticism and punishment is not the way to go. I Mean, we know this now in parenting, we know this in like the world of discipline, that that's a very old school approach to try and overpower and intimidate and criticise and punish someone into behaviour change, that is just not the most effective way to elicit behaviour change. It just tends to be a very high stress, fear driven system.
[00:10:47]:
And that's not the way we want to be approaching our in a relationship. So really in bringing more self compassion where we are not condoning behaviour, we are not letting ourselves off the hook, we're not saying like, okay, now it's totally fine. Everything that I might have done, all the mistakes I might have made, that is really not my approach at all. I'm so big on self responsibility and honest reflection and engagement with owning our staff. But we can only do that when we've actually taken some of the charge out and shame just doesn't allow us to do that. So offering that by way of reassurance to any parts of you that might be resistant to the idea of self compassion, the idea of approaching ourselves with a gentler, more curious way of relating rather than one that is intensely self critical as a way to kind of spur on change or growth. Now last but not least, I want to talk a little about self forgiveness because again, I think that this is kind of the way that we complete the cycle. Because when we're just stuck in the self critical phase, we tend not to go deep enough to actually get to the place of forgiving ourselves.
[00:11:54]:
So we might just feel the shame about the thing that we've done or what we lack or whatever other judgments we're making, but we don't get to those deeper layers of reflecting and learning the lesson, as I just said, and then forgiving ourselves. So in my mind, self forgiveness is really only something that we can do when we've created some accountability and there's enough trust there that we can say like, I am not going to do this again. Here's what I'm going to do differently next time. Like in a relationship, any relationship, an apology where someone just says I'm sorry, it doesn't really land on a deep level. We want to see someone engage with the mistakes they might have made, the hurt they might have caused, and to show some recognition and acknowledgement of what they're going to do differently next time, what the commitment is, so that we then trust in that apology and we can, you know, feel a sense of resolution and repair. The same is true for our own inner relationship. And again, this is not possible when we're just in this really heavy state of self criticism and shame and blame. So it's only when we can, you know, detach a little from that, soften a little, really reflect deeply on where we've misstepped along the way, the things that we regret, the things that we might feel ashamed of, the choices that we've made, the ways that we've conducted ourselves, you know, engaging with that and going, yeah, that wasn't in alignment with who or how I want to be.
[00:13:24]:
That wasn't me being my best self. Maybe that did not reflect my values. Maybe I was being very reactive from a place of fear. And it's not about trying to then frantically unravel or undo all of that and go back and apologise to people and explain yourself and do all of the things. It's just about being able to hold it within yourself and see it within yourself and go, okay, knowing what I now know, having the clarity and the self awareness that I now possess, what would I do differently next time? And what safeguards might I put in place in order to support myself to choose this new way over the old way that might be my habituated response in those conditions of stress or fear or overwhelm. So that is what really allows you to feel this sense of completeness and resolution around self forgiveness and the mistakes that you've made in the past so that you can really make peace with the past and feel like you don't have all of these open loops there, all of these things that you're still holding a lot of heaviness and residue around. Because I think for a lot of us we do that, we just turn our backs on the things we regret or we obsess over them, but from a place of rumination rather than true engagement and reflection. So I hope that that has given you a different way of relating to self criticism, to self blame, to self responsibility, to self compassion.
[00:14:45]:
These are all absolutely crucial in nurturing and fostering a really positive relationship with ourselves that allows us to then go out into the world carrying fewer burdens from a more open hearted place, a place that does allow us to be more deliberate and intentional about show up. Because we've owned our stuff, we've gotten clear and we've got a plan on how we're going to do things differently next time. And you know, we're really ready to commit to ourselves and honour ourselves in that way rather than just doing the old thing out of habit or out of reactivity or out of shame because we're in that spiral that can so easily happen when we're inhabiting a very punitive inner environment. So I hope that that's been helpful. If what I've shared in this episode resonates with you, consider checking out my free training on how to heal anxious attachment and finally feel secure in life and love. I talk about the shame spirals that we can get into when we have negative beliefs about ourselves. Like there's something wrong with me, I'm broken and that can fuel certain behaviours that are coming from a place of fear that in turn add to the shame and the self blame and the sense of brokenness and so we can get stuck in these really negative downward spirals in terms of our inner relationship and self image. So I talk about that in quite a lot of detail in the training, amongst many other things.
[00:16:09]:
So if what we've chatted about today has resonated with you, definitely consider checking out my free training on how to heal anxious attachment and finally feel secure in life and love. Okay guys, going to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks guys.
[00:16:27]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things things, attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
self criticism, inner critic, self compassion, attachment, relationships, self blame, shame, self forgiveness, self reflection, personal growth, behaviour change, self responsibility, accountability, self awareness, overcoming insecurity, secure relationships, anxious attachment, perfectionism, self worth, self esteem, emotional regulation, practical tools, self acceptance, self improvement, fear, rumination, regret, relationship with self, healthy relationships, vulnerability, self discovery