Join certified trauma professional Dr. Amy Hoyt and licensed therapist Leina Hoyt, MFT at https://www.mendingtrauma.com as they teach you how to recover from trauma and cPTSD. Trauma shows up in our everyday reactions and sensations and recovering requires a multi-prong approach that considers the mind, body and spirit. Dr. Amy and Leina will teach you the most emerging research and skills to empower you to overcome your past traumas. They address nervous system health, somatic therapy, trauma, cPTSD, EMDR, Neurofeedback, IFS (Internal Family Systems therapy), and many other modes of recovering from trauma. As mental health experts, sisters and trauma survivors, they teach you the tools that actually helped them recover, are backed by research and have helped thousands of their clients. Each episode is packed with clinically effective methods as well as scientific findings to guide you through your own trauma healing journey. Whether discussing cPTSD, PTSD, medical trauma, somatic therapy, nervous system regulation, EMDR or neurofeedback, Amy and Leina will help you recover from trauma so that you can reconnect to yourself and others.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (02:10)
Hi everyone, welcome back. Today's episode is about how to tame our inner critic after trauma. You know, trauma gives us so many gifts. Wink, wink. Yes. But one of the most prevalent gifts of trauma is that we develop this really hard
Leina (02:24)
The gift that keeps on giving.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (02:39)
harsh inner critic and let's talk about how that happens Leina
Leina (02:43)
Sure, the inner critic comes into being and it's very subconscious because when I've worked with people and I've made an observation about like an inner critic, they'll say to me, but I'm not mean to myself or I'm not hard on myself. And so then I have to explain that for most of us, the inner critic is very subconscious.
And there are these automatic thoughts about our performance and how we're showing up and what will happen if we're not perfect. But it's not often conscious. It takes work to take the unconscious into the conscious realm.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (03:25)
Mmm.
Leina (03:25)
And the inner critic is developed, was developed or comes into play after trauma because there is a part of you that truly thinks if you do everything right, nobody will ever hurt you again, abandon you, reject you. You'll never be alone. You'll always be okay. And it becomes a hypervigilance where that particular activating system in your mind is now attuned to any
even slight missteps or things that you might think of as mistakes or accidents or anything like that. And so the inner critic develops very rapidly and very strongly. And until we are aware what's happening for us, it's really hard to deal with.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (04:00)
Mm
So let me ask you a question, Leina. I have heard that if you are critical of other people, it's an indicator that you have a harsh inner critic. Is that accurate?
Leina (04:29)
I think so. I mean, practically speaking, I've seen that. so, but it's really fascinating because most people who are hypercritical of others will not recognize their own inner critic.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (04:44)
Okay. And you can also have an inner critic, even if you are not hypercritical of other people.
Leina (04:50)
Absolutely, that's how I grew up, like with this hyper inner critic, even though I was really non -judgmental and kind to people and that kind of thing. was, mean, you know that saying, you would never treat somebody the way you treat yourself in your own mind. That totally applied to me and it still does sometimes. It's still something that I'm working on.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (05:08)
Mm -hmm.
Sure, yeah, you can't develop these trauma responses and have them for 40 years and then all of a sudden do your work and they're gone. I mean, it is a process of undoing and it's a process.
Leina (05:30)
And it's worth doing. I mean, it's hard and painful, but if we don't do the work, it's hard and painful for longer.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (05:40)
Absolutely, absolutely. And the ultimate cost is it hurts our relationships. Even with others, even if you are the type that has a strong inner critic, but you are not critical of another person, it will hurt your relationship because it's hard to show up authentically if you are constantly trying to be perfect and do everything right to avoid...
Leina (05:47)
Absolutely.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (06:10)
And I shouldn't say everything right, but you know, I'm air in air quotes to avoid any sort of... Exactly, and it's a it's a wonderful goal to have good relationships and to show up as our best self So that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a hyper vigilance and So there's a difference between a growth mindset where we are attempting to grow into the best person we can be
Leina (06:13)
Yes. Any possible bad thing happening.
Right.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (06:39)
and prioritize healthy connections. That's one thing and we fully support that. The other part is a very harsh inner critic where we think we have to be perfect and we develop hyper vigilance where we are so over attuned to any misstep we make, where we're recounting every conversation we had, where we're rethinking all of our decisions. It is crippling.
Leina (07:03)
Yes.
Absolutely crippling. Yeah. And you can't show up as your authentic self because you can't be in your prefrontal cortex.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (07:17)
Yeah. I don't even know if I knew what my authentic self was when that this is how my life I was led. Like the per the thing running the show was my harsh inner critic slash perfectionism. And I don't, I thought I was, I was being as authentic as I knew how to be. So to me, authenticity meant being transparent about my background, you know, yeah, I'm in recovery or that's how I knew how to show up authentically.
Leina (07:23)
Yes.
Yes.
Right.
Right.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (07:47)
But what I have learned in trauma recovery is actually showing up authentically also requires a type of vulnerability.
Leina (07:56)
Absolutely, and that's really hard when you have a harsh inner critic. The harsh inner critic won't let you be vulnerable very often. Yes, yes.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (08:03)
Exactly. It feels like death
that type of vulnerability. Just to be clear, it does, you know, develop into this hypervigilance as we talked about, and a type of magical thinking where we actually think we can anticipate everything, anything challenging, yeah, and control the outcome. I remember about, let's see, it was when it was before I had Cooper, so...
Leina (08:24)
Yes.
And control outcome. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (08:38)
17 years ago, I had a therapist and I was talking to her and I said something like, well, I can get along with anyone. There was someone who was a little bit challenging and I said, well, I mean, I can get along with anyone. I've learned to get along with anyone. And she said, why is that a good thing? And I was like, what?
Leina (08:40)
Mm -hmm.
That's brilliant.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (09:08)
Yeah, that just blew my mind because what she was pointing out to me is that on some level, I had to contort myself into a different form in order to get quote unquote, get along with everyone. And so I was showing up differently for different people for whatever they needed in the relationship or the friendship. And that was that was a super pivotal
Leina (09:10)
Sure.
Yes.
Wow, that's brilliant.
Sure.
Yeah.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (09:37)
conversation in my life.
Leina (09:40)
Yes, that makes sense because it would totally switch your awareness around.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (09:44)
Mm -hmm. And so that hypervigilance of, and more to the point, the magical thinking of, I can anticipate what all of my friends need. I can be the perfect friend, even if I don't necessarily agree with what they're doing or saying, I can still show up and be supportive. So nothing bad will happen because my trigger, my fear is abandonment.
Leina (09:54)
Mm -hmm.
Absolutely, yeah. And so your inner critic was busy making sure that, trying to make sure that that didn't happen. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (10:13)
Mm hmm. Yeah, that no one ever left me again. Right. So again, this is understandable. And it's common because these are survival mechanisms. So this doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes out of childhood trauma, comes out of single event trauma, it comes out of trauma, and it's needed for us to survive. So it's completely understandable. However,
we no longer need this tool and in fact now it's getting in the way of our life and our relationships.
Leina (10:48)
Yes, that's true. When we have trauma in younger life, there's a part of us that kind of stays at that age. I don't mean that we're immature. I mean that there's a part of us that carries the fear and the burden, the shame, the guilt, the horror that is still at that age. So,
part of the work that we do in our program, the Whole Health Lab is internal family systems, which allows you to catch those parts of you, those young parts of you up to speed. Because they don't realize that you are an adult now. You have a car, you can drive away, you can make choices, you have some power and ability. And so
Dr. Amy Hoyt (11:23)
Mmm.
Leina (11:37)
those younger parts, that's the part that feels like death if somebody doesn't want to be your friend. Absolutely.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (11:43)
Yeah. Yeah. Cause six year old self is still in there completely, you know, sucking their thumb curled up in a ball from being bullied or yep, exactly. And so when Leina is talking about parts for those listeners who haven't been with us for a while, we're not talking about different personalities. We're actually...
Leina (11:49)
Correct.
And completely powerless. Yeah.
No.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (12:05)
It's internal family systems and part of the theory of internal family systems is that we have vulnerable parts of ourselves and protector parts of ourselves. So just to be super clear, but it's an extremely effective way of making the subconscious conscious, especially with the inner critic.
Leina (12:14)
Correct.
Yes. Yes. And one of the most powerful aspects of internal family systems or IFS is that it allows you to engage your empathy towards those younger parts of yourself that didn't get what they needed at the time of the trauma. And it just has such a powerful impact on people.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (12:50)
It does. The other tools that we love and we talk about them all the time and so again it's not I mean sometimes the simple things are really the most impactful and that is noticing without judgment. So if I'm having a really big reaction internally that's really interesting that I keep replaying that conversation at the party that's super interesting so I'm just noticing
Leina (13:20)
Yep.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (13:21)
that I keep ruminating about a conversation wondering if I made a misstep.
Leina (13:26)
Right. And that engages what we call in our program, benevolent curiosity, which is loving curiosity. And as soon as we go into judgment, we halt the gathering of information in our brain and it can keep us stuck. So judgment, whether it's of somebody else, a situation or myself, really halts any flow, if you want to talk about it that way.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (13:54)
Yeah, and it allows us to go into the observer mind which takes us out of the limbic system. Once we start observing, we are no longer in fight, flight, freeze.
Leina (14:02)
Yep.
Right? Because we're not acting as judge and jury.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (14:10)
Yes. Yes. So notice without judgment, engaging that loving, benevolent curiosity, connecting to the observer mind. Those are all simple, but, but, they, it, it powerful and it's a skill and you'll need to remind yourself over and over. It's I, you know, it's like,
Leina (14:26)
Powerful.
Yes, and you can develop them.
Yes.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (14:36)
taking a walk, we all know it's healthy for us every day to walk. It's simple, it's free, and sometimes because of those things, we discount the power in small, impactful, know, small things over time, but it's very impactful.
Leina (14:45)
Hahaha
Yeah, yep, well said.
Dr. Amy Hoyt (14:57)
So that is our two cents on how to tame the inner critic after trauma. As always, we're grateful that you're here. Thank you so much for joining us and we look forward to being with you next week.
Leina (15:00)
Hahaha
Have a great week.