Why You Control And How To Let Go Of It w/ Joanna Kleinman EP 94

[00:00:00] shanenn-bryant: Welcome to another episode of Top Self. I'm your host, Shanenn Bryant. I have with me today, Joanna Kleinman. Joanna, you have a book, and a podcast called “Dethroning Your Inner Critic”, and that's what we're talking about today. Welcome.

[00:00:15] joanna-kleinman: Thank you for having me. I'm excited for this conversation.

[00:00:18] shanenn-bryant: Oh, yeah, so good. Inner Critic. I think we all have some version, right, of an inner critic?

[00:00:27] joanna-kleinman: Every single human. There are a lot of people that say they don't have one, but they do. Yeah.

[00:00:37] shanenn-bryant: Can we talk about maybe where this inner critic comes from first? Because, of course, the idea, I'm sure, is like, well, how do we not have this inner critic? Because we know that that brings us down, but how does that How does that develop in us? Why do we have it? 

[00:00:56] joanna-kleinman: So, the way that I define inner critic is not just the voice of you're not enough and you're not okay. And there, and maybe there's something wrong with you or you're unworthy of love. It is also the voice of this is who you need to be so that you can make sure that you are loved, valued, seen, heard, right? All that, right. All those basic human needs. Okay. So, it's, it's, it's sort of the flip side of the, the same coin, so we could say, you know, part of the inner critic makes us feel, let's say, unworthy, not good enough. But the other part of our inner critic says, I have to make sure. I can't disappoint anybody.

[00:01:51] joanna-kleinman: I have to make sure everybody always thinks that I'm a good person or, you know, what, whatever it is. And so, where this comes from and the reason why we all have it is because it starts when we are. no older than five years old. 

[00:02:10] joanna-kleinman: I'll kind of give the short version of why this is. So, we're really up until 10. We're really trying to figure out how we belong, how we matter, how we're loved. And so, we don't even recognize that this is something that we're figuring out. But if you think about. You know, a child, let's say from the age of three or four to 10 years old. We don't have the awareness to know our parents have their own issues, right? They have their own marital issues, and they have financial issues. And they, right. So, when they are. with us, and, and it could be, it could come from a teacher, it could come from a caregiver, but when something happens in our young life, it could be traumatic.

[00:03:05] joanna-kleinman: It could not be traumatic. Okay? It's the first moment where we feel in some way, I'm not okay. We get embarrassed, we get ashamed, we feel guilty, we feel like we disappointed somebody. We feel like we upset somebody to a child. That feels overwhelming. And this is where the seeds of the inner critic first get formed, because what the inner critic really is, is an attempt to protect us from that core pain by trying to figure out how do we control ourselves? How do we control how other people think of us? How do we control our life such that we never experience that pain again? Which of course is impossible.

[00:04:03] shanenn-bryant: Joanna, you talk about that and being an early childhood, I can remember very vividly my, my son. He was probably six or seven and the video games where you dance, you know, and it, it lights up and you kind of move and you go along with the TV, and he was dancing in front of the entire family. You know, we were all like, Oh my gosh, that's so great.  You're doing so good. He didn't have a care in the world about doing it. And then I remember. Just even that following year, coming back to that game, and he was like, no, no, no, like, no way I'm doing it in front of people. And it just broke my heart in that moment because I thought, I wonder, like, you know, and trying to ask, like, what happened in that year that made him now criticize or be embarrassed of him doing that.

[00:04:54] joanna-kleinman: Yes. And you know, Shanenn, that's the thing. What happened is life happened. And when, when I talk to people and I start talking about this starts in early childhood, right? Every parent, every mother panics like, okay, wait, wait. Okay. So, how do I make sure that my child doesn't have an inner critic and the, and you can't because it's not now as, as mothers. 

The most powerful thing we can do is to do our own inner work. That's really the heart of how we not, not just, you know, we, how we are good mothers, how we. feel good in our life, how we experience ourselves and our, and our life in the, in the best possible way is that we have to do our inner work, right? But every human being is going to have an inner critic because it's not just necessarily the circumstances themselves. It's the way we think about the circumstances. And that's not just when we're children, that's always.

[00:06:10] shanenn-bryant: Hmm. Well, I want to go back to, in the beginning you said, which I thought was really important, you said, you were kind of talking about both sides of it, like, oh, I have to, um, you know, kind of what I'm thinking about myself, but then almost saying it's because there's this image or these guidelines that we think we have to follow to fit into for certain things? Like, oh, if I'm going to be a leader, I have to look like this or sound like this or have this much education or whatever those circumstances are. Where do those, where do those guidelines come from? what is it that makes us go, I have to fit into this box.

[00:06:45] joanna-kleinman: Absolutely. So, we live in a culture that for generations upon generations has basically handed us This concept, this idea of who we're supposed to be. What does the successful woman look like? What does she sound like? What does she act like? What are the, you know, financially, what makes a woman successful? Right.

[00:07:13] joanna-kleinman: Who do we need to be as mothers? who do our kids need to be? So that we can feel successful as mothers. So, there's layers upon layers upon layers of these ideal images, these ideal versions. Of whom we're supposed to be as mothers, as daughters, as sisters, as spouses, as leaders, as business owners.

[00:07:40] joanna-kleinman: I mean, you fill in the blank, right? So, we, we have these ideal versions. And of course, social media has just blown these ideal images up. So, we have these ideal images. And then in our minds, again, unconsciously and automatically, we're conditioned to compare ourselves to these ideal versions. So, no matter what we're doing, no matter how good life is, no matter how everything's fine, we're always waiting for the next shoe to drop.

[00:08:15] joanna-kleinman: We're always waiting to, in some way, be not enough.

[00:08:22] shanenn-bryant: Right.

[00:08:24] joanna-kleinman: And so, this is how we, it's like we get into this, uh, habit of worry, habit of control. You know what, many, many years ago, I've been doing, you know, I've been, I've been working on myself literally since I've been nine years old, and I'll never stop. But it was only maybe a few short years ago that I recognized controlling because, you know, I would have had this thought, you know, oh, I'm laid back. You know, but not right.

[00:09:02] joanna-kleinman: Perfectionism too. Like I don't, you know, I, I don't, my house isn't perfect. Things aren't perfect, but it is this ideal version, whatever it is for me, whatever it is for you, whatever it is for any of you listening, right? It's your own iteration of your ideal version. And that's what leads you to all the fear and all the control and all of the attempts. Control what other people say and to control how life unfolds,

[00:09:33] shanenn-bryant: What a different way to look at control because when, you know, we think of control, we do think like, oh, well, my house has to be perfect and everything is in its place and, and that type of thing. We podcast, deal with people. that are trying to control their environment because to keep themselves from not feeling insecure, to keep their partners away from people that they may fear, right?

[00:09:57] shanenn-bryant: But then there is that other piece of control of I'm controlling how I'm Trying to fit myself into certain situations that I believe, or I'm conditioned to think, is the right way.

[00:10:14] joanna-kleinman: Yes. So, if we look at this conditioned response for control, whether it is that we're trying to control somebody else. Or we're trying to control a circumstance or we're trying to control ourselves. 

Essentially what, what's going on unconsciously is we're saying, I need, I need for this person to value me, to love me. I need for this circumstance to Make me feel smart, successful. I need for my, you know, what, fill in the blank, whatever it is. It's it. And so, when we, when we start talking about need, what we're doing is. We're saying the external circumstance needs to make me….. feel fill in the blank,

[00:11:13] joanna-kleinman: whole, complete, valued, loved. That's where we're trying to control the uncontrollable. 

[00:11:22] shanenn-bryant: Yeah, I talk about, you know, we can't ever guarantee if our partner's going to be unfaithful to us, or even if we're going to be with our partner, you know, long term or all the way through. And It's not even about like trying to figure that out because I think we're always trying to like, oh Let me figure out if this is if they're doing this or they're tricking me or doing specific things but then it kind of gets into well actually if I value myself and I know that I can get through it It's more about why are those thoughts driving your life versus If you have it in within you, right, then we're not, we're not as concerned.

[00:12:10] joanna-kleinman: So, because we're so conditioned to get those feelings from other people, we might even find ourselves staying in relationships. That are unhealthy Because essentially what we're doing, it's almost like we're addicted to that person, that person becomes our drug of choice. If we can get that person to pay attention to us, to love us, to make us feel the way that we want to feel that's a dopamine hit literally to our brain like we're taking a drug. And so, we'll stay in, you know, I'm not getting the dopamine hit, right? I'm getting more anxious. I'm getting, I'm getting more pissed off, right? I'm going to keep holding on to that.

[00:13:09] joanna-kleinman: I'm going to keep trying to control. I'm going to keep getting jealous. I'm going to keep getting angry. I'm going to keep expecting this person to behave differently. And guess what happens? That if you're in a relationship where every once in a while, you get a partner that kind of, you're, you're like a starving dog, right?

[00:13:33] joanna-kleinman: You're starving for feeling valued and loved and important and mattering. And every once in a while, you get that bone thrown at you and you're like, oh, thank you. Thank you.

[00:13:43] shanenn-bryant: Yeah, sucking it up, right? Like eating, I'm eating this up.

[00:13:48] joanna-kleinman: It perpetuates the addiction, and we can be too terrified to let go of the relationships. Whether these are romantic relationships, these could be business relationships, these could be friendships, but to let go of that relationship and to your point, start finding how we meet those needs rather than trying to get all of those unmet needs. from everybody else and not from ourselves.

[00:14:24] shanenn-bryant: Right, right. And I think people get confused when they hear that you can self-source and you can get your needs met for you instead of the external validation, instead of going outside. And then they think. Oh, well then what's the use of having a partner? You know, I thought that that's where I'm supposed to get it from.

[00:14:42] shanenn-bryant: I think that people go into relationships with that expectation that that person, I'm dating this person so that they make me feel good. They make me feel loved. They make me feel worthy.

[00:14:54] joanna-kleinman: Yes. You know as you're talking, I'm thinking about that Jerry Maguire quote, you know, you complete me,

[00:15:02] shanenn-bryant: yeah. 

[00:15:04] joanna-kleinman: The most toxic codependent quote, right? That, right. It was, it was a rom com, so everybody ate it up. But the truth is. That's the basis of an incredibly unhealthy relationship when you're looking for that person to complete you. 

What is really a beautiful partnership is when two people come into the relationship doing their own inner work that has them feel whole and complete first. So that they're not relying and depending on each other to fill certain voids.

[00:15:48] shanenn-bryant: Yeah. I remember going into the relationship with my husband and having the idea or the expectation that he's never going to hurt me or disappoint me. Like I had that expectation that, oh, he loves me and we're, we've committed to each other so he's never going to hurt me or disappoint me. Oh my gosh.

[00:16:13] shanenn-bryant: I think the best lesson I ever learned is... yes, he is.

[00:16:16] joanna-kleinman: Yes.

[00:16:17] shanenn-bryant: He for sure is going to do that.

[00:16:19] joanna-kleinman: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, and that's, that's such a, that's such a great, um, example, right? Because there, there was that addiction. I need for him to never do these things so that I don't feel the ways that, uh, make me incredibly uncomfortable. But here's the thing about that discomfort, right? Like what you're saying, like, I can't be hurt.

[00:16:46] joanna-kleinman: You know, that goes all the way back to our childhood. So, what, again, if we're, if we're looking at a, at a 7-year-old child who feels hurt, right? Who feels criticized, who feels judged? We're now grown women. So, if we can actually start to look at those. old unconscious narratives, those old unconscious stories that we, that were dragging with us like dead weight because, you know, at seven years old, somebody said something or did something that made us feel hurt.

[00:17:28] joanna-kleinman: And now we're like, I can't be hurt. When we start to rewrite those narratives, we start to recognize, you know, what I actually can handle. Those emotions actually can be okay loving with my whole heart. And if somebody acts a certain way where they, you know, they step on my heart, that's about them. It's not about me. I don't need to keep trying to prevent that shoe from dropping, like make sure they don't hurt me if they do hurt me. And it's an irreparable hurt. It's not about me, it's about them.

[00:18:12] shanenn-bryant: Mm hmm. Yeah, I was just thinking about that sort of, like, mind shift of if they hurt, like, I don't need to carry or control that or try to prevent it.

[00:18:27] joanna-kleinman: Yes.

[00:18:28] shanenn-bryant: If I feel strong enough that You know what, okay, if they do, then that gives me, information for one

[00:18:37] joanna-kleinman_1_08-28-2024_160703: For sure.

[00:18:38] shanenn-bryant: but also, um, I can handle it. So, then I don't feel, I think what you're saying is then you aren't feeling like I have to do all of these things to control and prevent them from doing something in that way.

[00:18:52] joanna-kleinman: That's right. It gives you freedom to just be.

[00:18:58] shanenn-bryant: Yeah.

[00:18:59] joanna-kleinman: Be you. And so many women are trying to figure out who do I need to be to make sure I'm loved, or I'm not hurt, or I'm not left, or I'm not rejected. Think about how much emotional, mental, physical, psychological, spiritual stress that is to try to figure out who you need to be instead of just being at peace with yourself and then just being

[00:19:32] shanenn-bryant: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:19:33] joanna-kleinman_1_08-28-2024_160703: out in the world. It's a very different life when you can just be.

[00:19:39] shanenn-bryant: Yeah. It reminds me of. a previous relationship where they had, there was somebody else who was interested in them and they kept contacting them and coming, you know, stopping by. And there was a time where they said, look, I'm in a relationship, you know, with me. And I remember thinking, oh, somebody finally picked me over like that temptation.

[00:20:05] shanenn-bryant: They finally picked me. And then what I later realized was like, no, they just did the right thing.

[00:20:10] shanenn-bryant: You know what I mean? They just did the right thing. It wasn't. Had they made the other decision, it didn't mean anything about me. Either way, it was like, that was just the right thing to do as a human.

[00:20:23] joanna-kleinman: And that's a healthy human. 

[00:20:27] joanna-kleinman: And so, when we do the inner work, we stop attaching ourselves to unhealthy humans. who haven't done their inner work and expecting them to show up doing the right thing, being able to be a partner, being able to love the way we deserve to be loved.

It's almost like we have to do the inner work to raise our, our experience of what, what feels right to us, right.

[00:21:07] joanna-kleinman: they, don't realize that that's not in alignment 

[00:21:20] shanenn-bryant: Right. Yeah. And kind of coming from that scarcity mindset, like, oh, is everybody like this? Or I, this is what I deserve? Or it doesn't get any better than this? Yeah. So, what would you say to someone if they're really struggling with this and trying to put themselves in a box or having just even the negative narrative about themselves and they know that that one thing or the main thing that you would tell that person to do?

[00:21:48] joanna-kleinman: Yeah. So, what I would say is that who you really are, really, your authentic self is actually separate from your automatic mind. And because your automatic mind has been conditioned since you were a little girl, you have this, right, you've been listening to this automatic mind that by the way speaks to you. I'm not exaggerating when I say this 50, 000 times a day. So, 95 percent of our life is governed by this automatic unconscious mind that was programmed when we were children. So instead of trying to yourself have different thoughts, instead of trying to quiet that inner critic. Okay, here's the thing.

[00:22:46] joanna-kleinman: That voice that keeps telling you you're not enough. You're unworthy. You don't deserve love. Life isn't going to work out for you.

[00:22:57] shanenn-bryant: Yeah. 

[00:22:58] joanna-kleinman: The game changer is when you recognize I can actually witness this voice, and she is my inner critic self. I actually have people in my Mastering Your Mind program give that other self a name. That's separate from that. And when you really start to Intimately know what she says, why she says it, who triggers her to say these things, what's she really protecting me from, when did she first start, why is she continuing to do and say the things that she's saying that have me experiencing these same emotions and taking these same actions. 

Now, we can put her right here on the palm of our hand and we can say, oh, I see you actually don't need to continue to take guidance from you. So, every time she shows up and we know that it's her, we can, in that moment, unhook ourselves from her and tune ourselves into very different thoughts and beliefs that have us tuning into different emotions that have us making different choices and taking different actions. It is those actions that are literally going to change the trajectory of our lives.

[00:24:26] joanna-kleinman: But we've got to stop thinking that the key is get rid of these thoughts. They're going to happen.

[00:24:34] shanenn-bryant: Well, I like the question that you said, what's she protecting me from?

[00:24:38] joanna-kleinman: Yes.

[00:24:38] shanenn-bryant: Because that also then gives some, some kindness there, right? Because we tend to hate that part about ourselves, which is just another thing that we're criticizing of like, ugh, I hate when I get this way, I hate when I feel insecure, I hate when I mess up, whatever it is.

[00:24:56] joanna-kleinman: Yes, right. So is where self-compassion comes in. Because what you start to see is that as human beings, we're so much more alike than we are different. We have these, it's like we've got human machinery, okay? Like we're dishwashers, right? You push the button, and the dishwasher machinery goes like, I'm a whirlpool, right?

[00:25:26] joanna-kleinman: You're a GE, but it is, but we'd kind of do the same thing, you know?

[00:25:30] shanenn-bryant: Yeah.

[00:25:30] joanna-kleinman: So, when you start to really get curious, not, not judgmental, but curious, Is this belief really true? How long have I had this belief? What, what evidence have I gathered that makes this belief true? right? Is there other evidence in my life that disproves this belief?

[00:25:54] joanna-kleinman: When you start getting curious and getting conscious and doing that inner work, now you no longer need for that part of you to go away or to shut up or to quiet and the more that you keep recognizing her when she speaks and then tuning into a different part. You build a, it's a muscle. It's a muscle that gets strengthened with that conscious practice of seeing your automatic self, unhooking from her and consciously and deliberately tuning into something different.

[00:26:35] shanenn-bryant: Yeah. So good. Because I think a lot of people, to your point, spend so much time trying to quiet the thoughts that they're having or, you know, trying to quiet that or combat it and then that's why they feel like nothing's changing. Mm

[00:26:52] joanna-kleinman: Yeah. And, and, you know, you, you asked about the protection, right? So, the protection happens Because what your inner critic is really trying to do is make sure that you don't experience that initial core pain, right? So, she'll keep saying, you know, you've got, you've got to make sure that, you know, this person always loves you.

[00:27:28] joanna-kleinman: Why? Because if this person chooses to leave you, well, your inner critic is going to make it mean that this person is leaving you because you're not as good as other women because you are not as worthy of being loved. That's a story. That is your inner critic's story. that she formed a long time ago and you've been dragging that story with you and that forms a filter through which you see everything, that forms our reality to the right. We get to be this age, and we have these beliefs that we hold as facts, as truths. And they're not.

[00:28:28] joanna-kleinman: We've just proven this story. And here's, here's the problem. If we believe this as a fact, we're going to take actions that are in alignment with that story. And guess what that does? It just perpetuates the story.

[00:28:48] shanenn-bryant: Right. Yeah. It gives us more proof. More evidence. Right? 

[00:28:52] joanna-kleinman: That's exactly. So, I mean, and this is the way we do one thing is the way we do everything. So, we're doing this in our intimate relationships. We're doing this in our parenting. We're doing this in our careers. We're doing this in our extended families. We're doing this with ourselves. We're doing this with our friends.

[00:29:14] shanenn-bryant: Yeah.

[00:29:15] joanna-kleinman: Shows up everywhere. Yes.

[00:29:20] shanenn-bryant: Thank you, Joanna. You, podcast as well soon. Tell us about your podcast. What's the name so people can go subscribe to your podcast? Yeah.

[00:29:30] joanna-kleinman: My podcast is called dethroning your inner critic. it is an exploration of a methodology that I created called the mind method, which is basically a method that has you distinguishing the difference between your inner critic self and your authentic self. And I'm really excited to get into a lot of the.

[00:29:53] joanna-kleinman: You know, just the women that you work with and the jealousy that they,

[00:29:59] joanna-kleinman: uh, that they experience. Because I think that, um, you know, this is, this is really important to understand that even though it's showing up as jealousy. There are so many other, layers of this that affects so many different parts of life.

[00:30:16] shanenn-bryant: Mm hmm.

[00:30:17] joanna-kleinman: I feel like we could talk about this for hours.

[00:30:19] shanenn-bryant: Oh, I know. Yeah, and I mean, when you're feeling that way, when you're, when you have this critic, like you said, it's showing up everywhere. It's at work too. You're going to beat yourself up over something at work, or you're going to feel like, oh, to get this promotion, I have to look like this, talk like this, behave this specific way.

[00:30:38] shanenn-bryant: So, yeah, it's not even just in the romantic relationships.

[00:30:42] joanna-kleinman: Absolutely not. I need my coworkers to see me as this way. I need my boss to see me as this way. I need for other people to always make sure that they think that I'm good enough, right? So, I can't make a mistake, and I can't fail. And you know, it, it gives us no room. To really live a life of freedom and peace and joy and full self-expression because we're so hyper focused on trying to control all of those other people and all of those other circumstances.

[00:31:14] shanenn-bryant: Absolutely. Well, Joanna Kleinman, thank you so much for being on Top Self. This was an amazing conversation. I appreciate it.

[00:31:23] joanna-kleinman: Yeah, Thanks so much for having me.

[00:31:25] shanenn-bryant: Thank you.

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