Hi, Kaitlin. Another self-criticiser here! Lol. I don’t know if you’ve tried imagining that you’re speaking to your inner child when that critical voice comes up in your head. It seems this comes from childhood for you as it does for so many others, so there’s still a bunch of memories that belong to your child self. Imagine you’re speaking to her. Would you be so critical of a little girl? I’m sure you’d want to nurture and protect her, make her feel safe. But that is who you’re speaking to when your critical inner voice switches on – that little girl who got so used to being criticised that she took over the job from her mother and started doing it herself.

As for who you are – the fact that you’re worried about being a good person shows that you have a strong inner moral compass. You’re not going to turn into a horrible person just because you stop being critical of yourself. You’ll eventually – once you manage to quieten the inner critic – become a happier, more confident version of the lovely person you are now. I have a couple of suggestions just of things that have helped me – Faster EFT (you’ll find loads of youtube videos on this for free), and Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho Cybernetics, which helps to improve self image, and identify false beliefs that are damaging your self image at the moment. I hope they resonate with you as much as they did for me.

Much luck!