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Befriending The Snake In The Cave: An Inner Critic Worksheet

Befriending the snake in the cave: an inner critic worksheet | Annie Wright, LMFT | Berkeley, CA | www.anniewrightpsychotherapy.com

In almost 10 years of practicing therapy, I’ve never met someone who doesn’t have a negative inner critic.

It doesn’t matter if you come from a background of developmental trauma (i.e.: early childhood abuse, neglect, or trauma). 

You can come from the most loving, stable home in the world and still grow up and develop negative inner critics.  

Befriending the snake in the cave: an inner critic worksheet | Annie Wright, LMFT | Berkeley, CA | www.anniewrightpsychotherapy.com

Befriending The Snake In The Cave: An Inner Critic Worksheet

Sometimes these inner critic voices are easy to spot – it’s the voice in your head that chides you for your cottage cheese thighs when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror coming out of the shower – but sometimes, these inner critic voices are much more insidious and harder to spot. 

But again, we all have one, sometimes more, negative inner critic voices. 

The level of impact this voice has on us will vary.

Maybe our inner critic stops us from reaching out to the person we’re super attracted to on Coffee Meets Bagel.

Maybe our inner critic convinces us it’s not safe to change career paths.

Maybe our inner critic stops us from speaking out and setting a boundary with our stepmother at Thanksgiving. 

However and whenever it shows up, the common theme is that our negative inner critic holds us back in some way. 

So, given that all of us likely struggle with a negative inner critic and it’s impacting us at some level, I wanted to create a worksheet designed to help you get to know your inner critic, how and when it shows up for you, and the level of impact it has on your life. 

Part 2 of this post will, in a few weeks, then walk you through how to begin transforming this negative inner critic voice once you’ve identified it. 

And, if you’d like, leave me a message here below to let me know how this process was for you and what you learned from going through the exercises.

Warmly, Annie

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    • Annie says

      Hi Gabriele, I’m so pleased you’d like to access the worksheet! Please just enter your name and email above and you’ll be taken straight to it. Warmly, Annie

  1. Katie says

    I’ve been up almost all night, trying to work on a paper for school, but mostly because I screwed up an important relationship (not romantic) and so I never wanted to stop being busy, because if I stop the constant distractions, my inner critic just gets louder. Who knows, maybe your worksheet will help me be able to sleep tonight. I’m going to give it a try.

    • Annie says

      I really hope that the worksheet felt helpful to you, Katie, and that you managed to get some good sleep and that the morning felt easier and better to you. Hang in there, sweetie. I’m rooting for you!

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