How Childhood Messages Shape Your Identity & Inner Critic (Podcast Episode 2)

Welcome to Not Good Enough Stuff. I’m Mary Beth Fox, licensed professional counselor, and every week we’ll question the messages planted by family, society, culture, and life experiences that shaped your identity and became the voice in your head.

We’ll explore how you got where you are, why you learned to see yourself the way you do, and call on the messages that were never true in the first place. Because who you are and who you were shaped to be are not always the same. You will learn ways to begin returning to your true soul identity.

In the first episode, we talked about where our inner critic and our not good enough stuff come from, which is our families, culture, society, and just life experiences that shaped us.

But today, I want to focus on one of the biggest influences of all. And for me, I think probably might have even been the biggest influence, and that is family.

And we’re going to look at how the messages that we’ve received from our families all the way to little bitty, you know, young young young. And how those messages have impacted our identity, the way we see ourselves, our relationships, and pretty much everything about our lives.

Achievement and Worth

So, the first kind of category that I want to talk about with our inner critic that came from the messages we heard from family is achievement and worth.

So, think about how you determine your worth today. How do you determine the worth of other people? Is it based on what they’ve achieved? Their successes? Um how much money they’ve made? Their house? What they’ve done or what they’ve not done?

So, that can come from a message that many people hear from their families of you’re only valuable when you’re accomplishing something.

And you know, I have a little story about this and it has just played on my mind for the past 2 years.

So, we moved from Mississippi, my family and I, uh 2 years ago to Southern Oregon. And my little boy didn’t have anybody to invite to his birthday party cuz we had just moved here a couple days before that. And so, we made invitations and he invited a lot of people in the neighborhood.

And there was one couple who showed up and they were asking me what school my son was going to go to and I told them and I said I didn’t know a whole lot about this school.

And the response was, “Well, my children went to that school. So, obviously, it was a good school because they are successful. They One was a doctor and and one is an attorney. So, that just proves that that public school was good enough for my kids because they’re successful since they’re doctors and lawyers.”

And it just didn’t sit right with me.

And I don’t know why, but lately it’s really been kind of playing over and over in my mind. And I think about how we look at those achievements to determine if somebody’s worthy or not, if they are successful in life.

And I want to take that a step further because to me, what says achievement in life is how you feel about yourself.

I don’t care if you’re a doctor. I don’t care if you’re an attorney. I don’t care if you are some high-powered whatever.

Do you like yourself?

To me, that is how we should assess worth.

But think about your own family and growing up and what messages did you hear about what you needed to do to prove that you were worthy?

A big huge one is good enough is never enough. Did you hear that?

What about don’t make mistakes? What happened if you made a mistake? Were you shamed? Were you made to feel like you were never going to be good enough because of this mistake?

Did you feel like if you were not the best at something or were you told that if you were not the best that you failed?

You know, a lot of this in childhood is often tied to grades. If you didn’t get all A’s, well, you must not have tried hard enough.

There are just so many different ways that we are taught that our worth is tied to our achievements that our families said we’re good enough.

And a lot of times we also learn that success in the eyes of our family is also what makes you lovable.

Think about if you talk to other people and they’re talking about their children, like I was just saying. They lead with their achievements to try to prove how much they love their kid and how proud they are.

But you don’t hear them say whether or not they have peace and contentment in their lives. That’s That’s just something to kind of think about.

But just know, productivity does not determine your worth.

But, as you kind of sit and process how you feel about your worth now as an adult, what are some of those messages that you can think about that played and probably still play over and over in your mind from when you were a child, from your family?

What was said? What implicit or explicit messages were said? What was the result of those?

Well, I think we know that. That you’re not good enough.

Yeah.

Feelings

Another kind of category, I suppose you could say, of the inner critic from our family is related to feelings.

Don’t cry.

One of the big ones I know I heard and a lot of people heard. You better stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.

Hey, you need to toughen up. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Get it together.

One that I heard very often was, “You’re too sensitive.”

That one really, really kind of sets me on fire because I was not sensitive. What I was was emotionally aware of my feelings and also learned to be very emotionally aware of others’ feelings because I had to keep myself safe.

Some of the others are, “Don’t be angry.” That can be a big one.

A lot of people are taught that anger is bad. And so, what that turns into is holding it all in because I’m not supposed to be angry. I’m not supposed to tell anybody I’m angry.

So, I’m going to hold it in, hold it in, hold it in, hold it in.

And then, what happens when we become adults or even younger than that?

When we hold all of this in for so long, we become the angry person.

We become, like I was, the person with the red-headed temper, because I would explode on people because I had held it in for so long that one thing that was really minor would just set me over the edge and I’d be like, “Why did I even get mad about that?”

But holy hell did I rage and roar.

And it was like many, many years worth of anger that I had been taught was not acceptable.

Uh Another big one for me was, “You’re dramatic.”

I wasn’t dramatic. I was doing everything I could to try to get my emotional needs met. I was not dramatic.

Think about what you were taught from your family in terms of feelings. How have those been the voice of your inner critic?

That I’m sure you know has kind of become your voice that you think is true, which is not. It was never originally your voice.

Those voices just got so loud that they became what you thought was your voice. But I promise it was not.

Love and Relationships

Another category is love and relationships.

What did you learn from your family about love and relationships?

Could be, “Don’t trust people. People always leave. Love has to be earned.”

Another one could be, “If there is conflict or disagreement, well, the relationship is in trouble. It’s over. It’s doomed.”

That’s one of the things that I talk about with my son.

If my husband and I have a disagreement, we allow my son to hear the disagreement.

Now, we’re not screaming and yelling and throwing things and all of that, but I think that it is very important for children to learn that disagreements are okay, and that disagreements can be communicated in healthy ways because I know that when I heard my parents fighting, it was so scary for me.

And I learned that if anybody fights, I should be scared because it’s going to turn into a situation that is dangerous for all of us.

What did you learn about disagreements in relationships?

I know that there are a lot of people who grew up never seeing their parents have a disagreement at all. Well, guess what? And that is so unrealistic.

And what that can do is when somebody gets into a relationship and there is a disagreement, they think, well, this relationship is just terrible. This shouldn’t be happening.

And so, they can then decide, well, there’s something wrong with me. I disagreed, and you know, I shouldn’t have disagreed. I’m the problem.

Or it can turn into, well, they are just horrible to me. They disagreed with me, and we argued and all that. I can’t do this.

That that can be a very big one that affects a lot of people.

Another one is if somebody is upset, then it is your job to fix it.

I knew that one really, really, really well.

And throughout my childhood, I tried to do so many different things to make my parents happy. So they wouldn’t be upset. So they wouldn’t argue with each other. So they wouldn’t say mean things to me.

I would try to do so much to fix everybody’s problems and try to make them happy.

Well, guess what? It never worked.

Why? Because it wasn’t my job.

It’s never anybody’s job to fix somebody when they are upset. That is something that they have to process and communicate and work through.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t support them, but I promise you it is not your job to fix.

But guess what? Not only is it not your job to fix you also can’t fix it.

I want to say that again.

It is not your job to fix things when somebody else is upset, angry, sad, whatever you want to call it. It’s not your job.

And you actually can’t fix it for them. You may put a band-aid on it for them for a minute but you’re not fixing it.

I promise.

Free Guide Break

Before we continue, if today’s episode is resonating with you, I’ve created a free therapist written guide to help you understand where your not good enough beliefs came from and why they’ve stayed with you for so long.

You can download it free at the innerchildtherapist.com.

Now, let’s get back to today’s episode.

Identity

So another category is identity, which is a huge huge huge one that we get from our family.

The inner critic, rooted in our family, tells us who we are supposed to be and who we’re not supposed to be.

And those messages about how we are not good enough or how we should be this determines just about everything in our lives.

What we feel we’re good enough to do, the relationships that we think we are good enough for or not good enough for. It determines our self-image.

Because if you’re constantly hearing as a child from your family that you should be this, this, and this, but you know that you are not this, this, and this, then you hear, “There’s something wrong with me. I’m not good enough.”

And we all know those feelings of not good enough come from childhood, and they only grow and get bigger and bigger and bigger until we believe that they are the truth about us.

So, let’s look at a few more about identity.

Another big one that I grew up with was “Don’t embarrass the family. Don’t talk about what is going on in our home outside of this house.”

So, I learned that the things that were going on in our home were not okay, and that I was supposed to pretend like we had this perfect family.

And so, that created a lot of confusion for me.

And one of the big things that it created for a very long time was me being so scared to let anybody know the truth about my life or difficult experiences that I had been through, because I was taught that I should be ashamed of that.

And it made me live a very fake life.

So far from being authentic that the result of that was severe depression for many many years because I thought everything I was and had experienced and had taught myself that I was and heard from my family that I was or was supposed to be or was supposed to hide was not good enough.

What are the things that you heard from your family that helped shape your supposed identity?

Could be you’re the smart one.

Now, when a girl hears that, I know at least what is underneath that is you’re not pretty. No, you’re the smart one cuz heaven forbid somebody could be smart and beautiful.

Uh could be you’re the difficult one. I know I heard that one a lot.

Could be you’re the responsible one.

I know how much that can affect people. I have seen that with my clients and and people I know well.

And when they take on that identity of being the responsible one they have so much pressure on themselves and such extreme anxiety. And there is no room for making mistakes.

And when they do make a mistake, it is like the end of the world for them.

Why? Because you’re the responsible one. You’re not supposed to make mistakes.

One that is very very relevant for me.

And I’ve kind of reframed it for myself and I’m okay with it, but I am the black sheep of the family because I’m very different from all of them.

I have different beliefs. I have different views. I have different ways that I live my life. I have different ways that I use my voice.

I talk about the reality of our family and the trauma that we went through. I talk about my healing process. And we are not supposed to do that.

And when I have continued to do that because it is helpful for me and I know that it is helpful for so many people across the world who hear my work and read my work, I know that I’m going to continue doing that.

But as a result, I’ve received the label as the black sheep and that is considered bad.

I’m supposed to continue pretending, but I don’t.

Another one could be that you’re supposed to complete and achieve all of these big, huge, grand things, certain careers because that’s the career that was chosen for you.

But what happens if you go into that career because your family told you you’re supposed to and you hate it and so you don’t do well.

Well, guess what? Then you’re a failure. And you tell yourself you’re a failure.

But how about the fact that maybe that wasn’t the career for you. That wasn’t what you truly wanted to do.

Appearance

Another big one is appearance.

I know that that was one I heard a lot from my family of me being compared to my siblings and what I was supposed to look like and how I was supposed to dress and what my body was supposed to look like.

I’m the youngest of three.

And one of the things that I had playing in my mind over and over for a long time was, “Well, I had to buy new clothes for you. You couldn’t wear hand-me-downs because your brother and sister wore slims, and you couldn’t fit into those.”

And so, what I heard from that and that I struggled with for many years was I was fat.

Now, I was not fat. I was not fat by any means whatsoever.

But, that comment compared me and my body to my brother and sister.

That skinny was good, and me being just average size, and maybe even smaller than average, was not good enough.

Another one that we can hear is, “You would be beautiful if you would A B C D.”

There are just so many different messages that we get from family about our appearance, how you are supposed to dress, what is acceptable.

Good girls don’t dress like that.

Well, you know, respectable men wouldn’t wear that.

What are some of the things that you heard from your family that are still playing today as your inner critic about your appearance?

And how has that affected you?

And what changes have you made throughout your life based on that inner critic, those messages from your family?

Think about that.

Safety and Finding Your Voice

Another big one can be safety.

Did you hear from your family, “Don’t trust your instincts. You need to always be on guard. Don’t speak up.”

One I heard often was, “Don’t rock the boat. Keep the peace at all costs. You don’t have to tell everybody what you think.

That was a big one that I heard.

Well, if I do it in a kind way, what’s the problem with that?

I get to have a voice.

But for many years, I didn’t have a voice.

Well, the voice I had was meek and mild and was just the voice that I was taught by my family that I was supposed to have.

So, I hope that you are starting to look at how the inner critic in your mind, full of not good enough stuff, that has shaped your life and that you are hearing on a daily basis that is telling you how to feel, who to be, what to look like, and whether or not you’re worthy, whether or not you’re good enough, if the relationship that you’re in is worthy enough.

What are those messages and where did they come from?

Specifically, who do they come from in your family?

And then, once you can figure that out, ask yourself if those family members are truly people whom you believe are secure, authentic, and have a lot of self-worth.

If the answer is no, then my next question is, then why the hell are you listening to them?

Think about it. Why?

Well, because those are the voices that you heard for so many years, over and over and over, that they got so loud in your mind and became your inner critic that you believed them to be true.

You believed that that was your voice, but it was not.

Closing Reflection

So, as I wrap up, I really want you to think about those messages from your family that became your voice.

And again, ask if you truly believe the voices from your inner critic or if it was just what was learned.

And if the answer is no, then you get to start questioning that, which can lead you to figuring out what you truly believe.

So, as always, you are enough. You always have been, and you always will be.

And so, if you can’t say that to yourself today, then I’ll say it one more time for you.

You are enough. You always have been, and you always will be.

Follow and Subscribe

If this episode helped you see yourself differently, I’d love for you to follow my podcast and leave a review.

It helps more people discover the not good enough stuff framework and these conversations.

New episodes are released every Tuesday.

If you need reminders between episodes to keep questioning the messages that shaped you, follow me on social media at the inner child therapist.

You’ll also find my blog, newsletter, and free resources at the innerchildtherapist.com. All of the links are in the show notes.

Remember, you are not lost. Your true soul identity is still there.

And the voice in your head isn’t always yours.

Question it.

I’ll see you next Tuesday.