The Hidden Heckler in Your Head

It was Wednesday morning, and I was chained to my desk like some overworked monk in the monastery of unfinished tasks. Teresa and I had just run through a few marathon weeks, the kind that leave you feeling like someone wrung you out like a dish rag. We were both fried.

But Teresa is wise. She actually believes in rest. She’ll pour self-care into her day the way most people pour cream into their coffee. Me? I keep my head down and grind, convinced that if I just keep pushing, the universe will give me a sticker chart and finally stop telling me I’m behind.

So there I was, clicking away at my laptop, when Teresa poked her head in, radiant and casual, and announced that she and our daughter were heading out for a massage. Not the luxury kind with cucumber slices and spa music, but the practical kind—half massage, half physio—that helps her reset when her body is worn down. For Teresa, it’s like plugging her phone into a fast charger and topping up her battery in under two hours.

I smiled. Said, “That’s fantastic.” And I meant it. I wanted them to go, to recharge.

But then the voice showed up. You know the one. That uninvited squatter who lives in the attic of your brain and never pays rent. Mine muttered, “Hmm, you deserve a break sometimes, too. Perhaps if you were more efficient, if you didn’t waste so much time, you could go too. But no, you’re stuck here, playing catch-up again.”

And before I could stop myself, the voice took over my mouth. Out came the words, as if she were somehow keeping it from me: “I never get the chance to do things like that.”

The second I said it, I wanted to shove the words back in, like toothpaste into a tube. Her whole face did a U-turn—from carefree joy to that look that says, Really? Teresa’s voice was sharp: “Are you trying to guilt-trip me?”

And that was it. We were off. A fight not about massages at all, but about my pesky, relentless inner critic—the one that tells me I’m always behind, never getting enough done. The one that can’t just let my wife enjoy ninety blessed minutes of healing without dragging us both into the ditch.

And honestly, sometimes it’s not just one voice. It’s a chorus: the Perfectionist, the Shamer, the Drill Sergeant—all finding new ways to tell me I’m not enough.

Here’s the crazy-making part: I want Teresa to have every massage, every nap, every walk in the sun. And I actually have a tool that shuts my critic down—it works every single time.

But remembering to use it? That’s the trick. Because the critic never leaves; it just hides in the wings, waiting for the worst time to grab the mic. The good news is, whenever I do remember to use that tool and confront the critic with the truth of who I am, it is silenced, love takes the lead, and I get to be the person I actually want to be.

What struck me, in the aftermath of that morning, is how quickly our inner world becomes our outer world. I wasn’t fighting with Teresa. I was fighting with the voice in my own head. But because I gave it airtime, it leaked into our relationship.

This is the part most of us miss: the critic doesn’t stay inside. What you whisper to yourself in the quiet hours will eventually show up in how you speak to your spouse, your kids, and your colleagues. It shapes the tone in your emails, the look on your face, the defensiveness in your responses.

Psychologists Robert and Lisa Firestone call this the critical inner voice—those deeply ingrained narratives, often rooted in childhood experiences of shame or criticism, that keep replaying on loop. And as they’ve shown in decades of research, these voices don’t just attack our sense of self. They ripple outward, quietly sabotaging our most important relationships.

The Gottman Institute has spent four decades studying relationships. Out of that research came a process to help couples repair after a fight or regrettable event. Teresa and I learned this process 15 years ago, and it’s still one of our most valuable tools.

One of the key steps is simple but profound: identify your trigger. Not what your partner said or did, but what you were telling yourself about yourself in that moment.

Then ask yourself: When have I felt this before? Often, the answer doesn’t go back to last week or last year—it goes all the way back to childhood.

For over a decade, we’ve coached couples through this repair process. Again and again, I’ve noticed the same pattern: most triggers people name are echoes of their critical inner voice. It’s like the fight at the kitchen table is being scripted by an old voice from the past.

Our triggers aren’t random—they’re rooted.

John and Julie Gottman’s research shows that most conflict in relationships isn’t about the surface issue at all. It’s about “enduring vulnerabilities,” old emotional wounds that get touched in the present. A simple question or comment can hit a nerve that was formed years earlier, and suddenly the reaction feels outsized compared to the moment.

Richard Schwartz, through Internal Family Systems, explains why: those younger parts of us—the ones that first felt shame, fear, or not-enoughness—are still inside us. When a current event resembles an old wound, that part gets activated, and the critic or defender in us leaps forward to protect.

Robert and Lisa Firestone’s decades of work on the critical inner voice describe the same dynamic. The harsh things we say to ourselves are often internalized voices from childhood—parental criticism, social rejection, experiences of failure—that become embedded as if they were our own thoughts. In conflict, those voices don’t stay quiet. They script our triggers, turning neutral moments into battles.

This doesn’t just happen at home. The critic comes to work too. It shows up in how you react to feedback from a boss, how defensive you get in a team meeting. It colors how you parent, how you handle conflict with friends, and even how you see strangers.

That’s why Graham Parkes’ SXSW short film The Voice in Your Head is so compelling.

Warning: Explicit language. Here’s the truth: our inner critic doesn’t speak in Hallmark card phrases. It doesn’t say, “Sweetheart, you could try a little harder next time.” No. It’s brutal. It swears at us. It mocks us. It calls us worthless, lazy, unlovable. For some of us, it’s not just harsh—it’s downright abusive. And that’s exactly why this film matters. It doesn’t clean it up or make it sound polite. It shows the critic the way it actually talks inside our heads: raw, vulgar, offensive, and devastatingly familiar.

In the film, a man is haunted by his inner critic wherever he goes. The voice is sharp, witty, even funny at times—but its cruelty is constant. The film lands because we all recognize the truth: we are never alone with our inner critic. And if we don’t address it, we drag it into every room we enter.

The research is clear: inner critics don’t go away on their own. But they can be named, challenged, and even reshaped. A few simple, evidence-based practices can begin the shift:

The fight was never about the massage. It was about the voice in my head—the one that narrates every move like an overzealous sports announcer, always pointing out the mistakes, always finding new ways to tell me I’m not enough.

But when I turn down the volume and let truth call the plays, the whole game shifts. The critic may still yell from the cheap seats, but love finally gets the microphone.

Until next week,

Jonathan Penner | Co-Founder & Executive Director of LifeApp

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