Hello there.

Welcome to June — the first month of winter here on the Sunshine Coast, and one of those seasons that suits a more inward kind of work. The days are shorter, the pace softer, the quality of reflection a little deeper than it is in the bright, outward-facing months. There’s something right about choosing this time of year to look at something that operates mostly in the interior.

This month we’re exploring healing the inner critic. Not to wage war on it. Not to replace it with forced affirmations. But to actually hear it clearly — possibly for the first time — and understand where it came from and what it’s been doing.

 

This week’s focus: hearing it, and tracing it back

Most of us have an inner critic that operates so constantly, in such a familiar voice, that it’s become almost indistinguishable from our own thinking. It’s just… there. Commenting, assessing, delivering its verdict on what we’ve done, what we’ve failed to do, what we’ve revealed about ourselves to the world.

And for most people, it’s been there so long it feels like the truth.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand through years of this work: the inner critic is not the truth. It’s a learned response. And like all learned responses, it has a history — a specific set of experiences that shaped it, a particular environment in which it developed, a function it was originally serving.

Understanding that history doesn’t mean letting the critic run unchecked. It means changing the relationship — from automatic agreement to genuine, curious engagement. And that shift is the one that actually creates movement.

The inner critic assembled itself over years. From feedback received when you were still working out who you were and what was safe. From watching what happened when people made mistakes — or stood out, or needed things, or asked for too much. From the particular tone in which certain things were said, or the particular silence that followed certain conversations.

Nobody sat down and deliberately installed it. But it formed anyway — from real experiences, in response to real consequences, shaped by real environments. Which is exactly why it can’t be reasoned away or affirmation’d into silence. It didn’t arrive through reasoning. It arrived through experience. And it tends to only shift through experience too — with patience, with genuine attention, and with something more honest than contempt.

 

A client’s experience — Mia’s story

Mia had what she described as a relentlessly perfectionistic inner voice. Nothing was quite right. Nothing was quite enough. She’d complete something significant and the voice would have already catalogued the flaws before she’d had a chance to register what she’d achieved.

She came to me frustrated with herself for not being able to just stop it. She’d tried positive affirmations. She’d tried talking back to it. She’d tried simply ignoring it, which worked until it didn’t.

When we started exploring where the voice came from — what it was trained on, what it was responding to — a different picture emerged. She’d grown up in an environment where getting things right was the primary form of safety available. Praise was rare; criticism was immediate and specific. The perfectionism wasn’t a flaw she’d developed. It was a survival strategy she’d perfected.

Once she could see that clearly — that the voice had been keeping her safe in a particular environment, in the best way it knew how — something in her posture toward it shifted. It wasn’t contemptible. It wasn’t wrong about her. It was just old. Still running a programm that the current situation no longer required.

That shift in understanding was the first real opening.

 

This week’s challenge: hearing it and tracing it

Over the coming days, I’d like to invite you to do something that sounds simple and turns out to be surprisingly interesting: actually listen to your inner critic, rather than trying to manage it.

Pay attention to what it says specifically — not the general hum of self-doubt, but the actual lines it delivers. You’re not ready. You always do this. What made you think that was a good idea. Write one of them down, exactly as it tends to sound.

Notice the tone. Is it impatient? Withering? Quietly disappointed? Does it sound like anyone you knew? Not to assign blame — just to notice where the voice might have picked up its particular quality.

Ask, with genuine curiosity rather than judgment: what was this voice protecting me from when it first developed? Was it protecting you from failure by predicting it first? From rejection by finding the flaw before someone else did? From the danger of being seen fully?

Notice with gentle interest how the critic has woven itself into your sense of what’s true about you. Which of its lines do you believe almost unquestioningly? That awareness — just noticing what you’ve been treating as fact — is already something.

Write one sentence about what you’ve found. Something real and specific. That’s all that’s needed for now.

 

Seasonal wisdom — the first month of winter

There’s something about June on the Sunshine Coast that suits this work. It’s a genuine winter — not severe, but real. Cooler mornings, shorter days, a quality of stillness that isn’t available in the warmer months. The world slows slightly and turns inward.

Working with the inner critic asks for exactly that quality: a willingness to be still, to be honest, to look at something that usually gets drowned out by busyness and noise. This is the season for it. The outer world is doing it too — drawing inward, settling, attending to what’s underneath.

There’s no rush here. This kind of work doesn’t respond well to urgency. It asks for the winter quality of patience, of willing to be present with something uncomfortable without immediately trying to resolve it.

 

Join the Journey

You’re warmly invited to follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn throughout June as we explore the inner critic — where it came from, what it’s been protecting, and what becomes available when it’s met with something other than automatic agreement or resistance.

Until next week — listen to the voice with curiosity, not contempt. There’s more there than a verdict.

With warmth,
Gemma-Lee Harvey

 

About the Author:

Gemma-Lee Harvey is a Holistic Counsellor and Lifestyle Coach based on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. With a diverse background spanning psychology, business, counselling, and coaching, she creates a nurturing space for exploring one’s full potential. Her gentle yet practical approach kindles the transformative spirit within, guiding individuals through life’s challenges as they rise through empowerment.

 

Contact:

🌐 www.phynixbydesign.com.au
☎ 07 5493 6742
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Opening hearts & facilitating transformations since 2017

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