Tales of the Inner Critic
Have you ever found yourself struggling to balance your personal life with work obligations? Have you ever set boundaries for yourself only to find yourself breaking them due to anxiety and self-doubt? In this episode, I’ll be exploring how Freud’s theory of personality, specifically the superego, can impact our lives and how we can manage our gremlin, aka our inner critic.
Get comfortable and listen in as I break down Freud’s theory of personality and look at the id, superego, and ego, and how these three components interact and impact our behaviour. I’ll also hone in on the superego and offer tips on how to identify and track yours and uncover situations where your superego is most likely to show up in your life, and discuss the importance of having a learning mindset and building awareness of your superego!
And as with everything I share on the podcast, this is what I believe based on what I’ve read and researched. But please don’t take my word for it. Keep what sticks, discard the rest and for goodness sakes, go out and test drive it!
What You’ll Learn In Today’s Episode:
The three parts of our psyche.
How these three parts interact to form our personality and behaviours.
How to manage the superego to manage our inner critic.
How learning to manage the superego can lead a more enjoyable life.
Prompts for superego spotting mindfulness activity:
Notice how audible it is, Does it yell? Whisper? Is the voice familiar?
Notice its particular brand of harshness. Does it shame you? Criticize you? Berate you?
Notice what it focuses its attention on. Not “doing it right” Your intelligence, Appearance, Level of success?
Notice how it might work on you in silent ways.
Notice how you relate to it. Do you cower in response? Feel tight in your body? Feel angry or anxious?
More Superego spotting questions shared in this episode:
How much trouble do you have saying no?
How much effort do you put into avoiding conflict?
How much do you feel like an imposter?
How much do you try to fit in?
Who’s voice am I hearing?
What does this remind me of from my past?
What is familiar about this?
What were things like for me growing up at home, school, with friends? What are similarities that I am experiencing now?
What Was Mentioned:
Taming Your Gremlin (Revised Edition): A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way by Rick Carson
Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense by Anna Freud
Breaking the Chains: Finding Relief from a Harsh Superego by Ben Ringler
How leaders can manage their own inner critic by Meredith Somers
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“In the eyes of the superego, we can’t win for trying.” – Christina Sestan
“The id is full-on impulsive, bouncing around like a pinball. If the id could speak, and in many ways, it does, just not consciously or intelligibly, it would probably say something like (and I imagine this in all caps) I WANT IT NOW!” – Christina Sestan
“If the id had a bumper sticker, it would read ‘if it feels good, do it.’ Trust me when I tell you – you don’t want the id on the invite list to your next dinner party.” – Christina Sestan
“In essence, the ego has three bosses, and, it turns out, three types of anxiety to go along with that.” – Christina Sestan
“What you can’t see, you can’t change.” – Christina Sestan
“Time-out is not just for kids anymore.” – Christina Sestan
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