How to gently hush your inner asshole
“Who do you think you are?”
“Nobody’s gonna buy that.”
“You’ll just fail like you did the last ten times.”
Any of these monologues seem familiar to you? This voice that lives in all our heads is what Jen Pastiloff, author of On Being Human, calls your inner asshole. It’s the voice of our harshest critic (surprise! It’s us. We are our own harshest critics.), the words that surely other people are thinking about us. It’s the seventh-grade Mean Girl calling out your attempts at greatness and smashing them back down to mediocrity or failure.
That chick is a bitch, amirite?
Well, actually, that chick is here because she loves you.
Hear me out.
When we set a goal and fail, it hurts. Especially if it’s a highly public goal. Think middle school talent show, a fundraiser that nets only $6, canceled trips, stage flops, fumbled presentations, forgotten appointments. If your skin is crawling right now, or you have that familiar sinking sensation in your stomach, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
As a woman in business, you’ve probably been advised at one point or another to Dream Big and to talk about your goals to other people. Multi-level marketing companies use this technique. While there’s a lot of credence to voicing your goals explicitly and speaking them aloud for accountability, these MLMs are banking on shame as a powerful motivator. If you fail, you feel shame, and we will do a great deal, even things that are waaaay out of alignment with our personal values and inner compasses, to avoid feeling shame.
Brene Brown is a shame researcher and one of my favorite authors and speakers. She has made a career out of thinking, learning, writing, and talking about shame and its profound impact—acknowledged or not—on our actions and our lives. She describes shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.”
Yikes. No wonder we avoid it at all costs.
So if our inner asshole is here to help us avoid shame, that means she’s here to protect us.
She is taking all of those past experiences and what she’s learned from them is that taking risks is scary, will probably fail, and will result in shame, and nobody wants that. She is the classic overprotective mother, hovering over us and keeping us safe, but at the expense of new experiences and quite possibly brilliant success. She only knows one way to do that: keep tight control. She keeps you from taking risks—especially big, public ones—by keeping tight control over your experiences. She knows you’re not happy where you are, but her motto is: it could always be worse!
We all know a fearful control freak. The woman in your life who only focuses on the negative possibilities, who dwells on things gone wrong, who sees danger around every corner (oh, hi there, Past Me). She can be exasperating, but in a pinch, she’s the one you want on your side because she’s thought of every possibility and has prepared for it. That’s what your inner asshole is doing for you, and that’s really valuable. She’s got Scotch tape and extra tampons in her purse, she knows where the nearest emergency room is, and she will definitely tell you if you’ve got toilet paper on your shoe.
You may have gotten the advice that you need to confront and demand silence from your inner asshole, but that’s not what you would do to your friend who’s trying to protect you, so why should you do that to a part of yourself?
How do you calm and quiet that control freak?
You do it with gentleness, compassion, and gratitude.
Oh, sure. Super easy advice to follow when you’re the one freaking out and hearing the popular girl from high school in your head who is giving you that head-to-toe scathing look and then rolling her eyes. (Can you tell I was not popular in middle and high school?) Like so many other things that are rewarding, it’s difficult at first and then gets easier with practice.
Here are a few steps that I find helpful in easing my inner asshole’s fears and kindly, gently, compassionately getting her to shut the fuck up.
A note about this process: Reframing this self-talk requires a great deal of vulnerability and willingness to sit with discomfort. If you’re already working with a mental health professional and it feels safer, please work through this at least once with your provider. If you’re nervous about this process, you can buddy up with a trusted friend or associate, but make sure it’s someone who will keep your confidence and support you without judgment.
Step 1: Listen to her.
Take some time in silence, set the tone and intention for your time, and really listen--not just to what she’s saying but why she’s saying it. Don’t do this exercise at 3 am in your bed or ten minutes before your next meeting with a potential client. Set aside an hour when you don’t have anything else pressing on you. Make sure you’re fed and hydrated. Hunger and dehydration are lying bitches and will tell you everything is hopeless, so don’t invite them to this party.
Prep your materials. I recommend handwriting over typing for this exercise. The movement of your hand combined with introspection is magical, and writing by hand forces us to slow down and consider more carefully what we’re writing. So gather your pen or pencil and paper. It doesn’t need to be fancy or perfect, just functional. You’ll also need smaller pieces of paper or Post-it notes.
Carve out a quiet space and make sure it’s tidy. That doesn’t mean you should go on an ADHD-fueled cleaning spree of productive procrastination. It just means clear clutter from your line of sight. Go outside if you can.
Take some big, deep, grounding breaths. If all of this is sounding woo-woo to you, just lean into that weirdness for a minute. If it’s helpful, know that science backs mindful breathing as a proven stress-reliever and journaling as a method to promote reflection and problem-solving. Close your eyes and imagine all your stressors encapsulated in little bubbles floating away. Reassure them that you’ll get back to them so they don’t feel the need to pester you right now.
Think about the goal you’re afraid you won’t achieve. This is a tricky step because we don’t want to get bogged down in the thoughts of your inner asshole, and she is very persuasive. It can be helpful at this point to set a timer. Start with three minutes.
Write down the goal first, then all the negative thoughts that come up. Write each one on a separate line and leave space underneath them.
You may find they come to you as “I” statements: I’m no good with money, or I’ve never done brain surgery before. They may be “you” statements: Who the hell do you think you are? And they may just look like a bullet list of grievances. Don’t censor or format your thoughts, just let them flow from your brain to your pen and out onto the paper.
When your timer rings, finish your sentence and STOP. Put your pen down. Trust me; your inner asshole will have more to say than you can answer in one sitting.
Read through all the statements without judgment. Just read them and sit there. It’s harder than it sounds. Feel the feels and don’t argue with them, and don’t give in to the temptation to jump right in with action.
Step 2: Reframing
Now that you’re sitting with all of that ick that came out of your head, it can feel overwhelming, and that’s okay. We’ll get there, but you have to trust the process.
Reread each statement one at a time, and then restate it in a positive way. Think about how you would encourage a friend or gently refute negative self-talk for them and use that as a guide. For instance, a statement like:
I’ll never be able to juggle this new business on top of all my responsibilities
Could become:
I ask for and get help when I need it so that I can focus on starting my business.
Or something like:
Who are you to offer up this kind of advice? It’s not like you’re an expert or anything.
Becomes:
My experience and training make me an expert in the field and people look to me for advice and help.
Continue this process until you have refuted every single one of those statements. You don’t have to believe the reframe; you just have to do it. Your inner asshole has had decades of practice keeping you safe and she’s not about to give up that job easily. If you’re struggling with this step, find a very safe, trusted friend who can help you without judgment.
It’s magical to watch your inner criticisms turn into affirmations.
When you’re done, try further integrating this reframing by reading the criticisms silently and the affirmations aloud. Use your partner for this if you’ve got one!
Step 3: Gentle reassurance
When you’ve reread all your affirmations aloud, go back and give those inner asshole thoughts one more read-through. Read them as though your dear friend were having doubts and feeling uncertain and they came to you for reassurance.
Now I want you to do something that might feel weird (if it doesn’t then we are probably already friends). I want you to take another big, deep breath, close your eyes, and put your hand on your heart. Say these words to your inner asshole:
Thank you.
Thank you for keeping me safe all these years.
Thank you for safeguarding my confidence and my heart.
Thank you for protecting me.
You gotta really mean it, so breathe through or push past or just ignore any discomfort and thank the guard of your heart for her work. Then, after another big, deep breath, hand on heart still, say this.
I got this.
You can visualize whatever you want to help in this step. Imagine wrapping your arms around your younger self, or standing with your hand on her heart. Reassure her that you’re grateful, but you got this, she doesn’t need to carry this burden anymore.
Then send her on her way.
You’re not done, of course, because she’ll be back. But whenever she shows up, you can repeat this process:
Listen, reframe, reassure, and send her on her way.
Step 4: Keep it going
You can repeat this process every single day, multiple times, whenever you need to, but your inner asshole is going to need a LOT of reassurance to give up this job, so let’s add another tool to our kit: Thank you notes.
No, really, I mean it.
Pick the criticism that resonated most deeply with you—the one that you really, truly believe. Hold it in your mind, along with your reframe. Write all or parts of the thank-you message above on five pieces of paper:
Thank you.
Thank you for keeping me safe all these years.
Thank you for safeguarding my confidence and my heart.
Thank you for protecting me.
Stick two of them where you’ll see them often: on your bedside table or bathroom mirror or on your computer monitor. Take the other three and tuck them in various places: a coat pocket, inside a journal, under your pillow, in your car. When you come across them, take a moment to hold that sentiment in your heart. Thank your inner asshole for all her work. Then tell her, once again: I got this, and send her gently on her way.
This process isn’t an easy one, nor is it a one-time deal. You’ve got to practice radical self-love. Building confidence is like building muscle; you gotta work out to stay fit. Consider this process your workout, and you’ll be strong as hell in no time. Best of all, this is a process you can model and teach to your friends, your family, and your children, if you got ’em.
I’m sending you all the gratitude in the world to share with your inner asshole. And don’t worry; you really are right when you tell her: I got this.
