Anxiety is often spoken about as a problem to be fixed, medicated, or mindset-hacked away. Yet in the therapy room and in my own life, anxiety has shown up as something more complex: a protective part, a messenger from deeper hurt, and sometimes a sign that something stranger is moving through the nervous system. In this article, I share my journey with gremlins, inner critics, parts-work and “critters”, and how creativity and compassion help us move from fighting ourselves to befriending what lives inside.
This is written for anyone who feels hijacked by anxiety or critical voices and is curious about a gentler, more creative way of relating to them.
Discover how self-talk acts as magic spells on your nervous system. Reframe struggles, soothe inner critics, and embrace self-compassion this Christmas.
I draw on my breath and the overflowing love that constantly pumps through my heart – healing me, loving me unconditionally, giving me energy in surprising ways.
Words are magic spells.
Julia Fry (2022)
The Power of Self talk
What we say to ourselves matters.
When I keep talking about struggling (as I’ve caught myself doing lately), I inevitably struggle more. But when I reframe what feels like a ‘struggle’ as a challenge – and remember I have endless inner resources of love, imagination and intuition – it suddenly becomes easier to meet what life brings.
The question is, how do we remember this shift in perception when looking through eyes that judge constantly?
Sometimes I forget, and it takes a comment from a friend to wake me up. Often, that awakening unfolds slowly – over days rather than in minutes. Astrologically, my Moon in Scorpio makes me naturally moody. That moodiness carried extra shame because, as a child, it was often met with eye rolls and sharp remarks rather than understanding. It’s no wonder the moods darkened under judgement. Most parents, of course, can’t offer unconditional love all the time – it’s too much to ask of humans who also carry their own wounds.
When the inner critics dominate, we might feel small, frozen, or restless, or hyper critical of others (I describe these various inner saboteurs in my book, SHINE). When we speak from self-acceptance – the sage within – we feel expansive, curious, playful, creative, and light.
There was a time I suddenly realised that my inner critic wasn’t me. I was shocked – I had believed I was the torrent of nastiness it spewed. So I tried an idea I’d once rolled my eyes at: every time my inner critic started in, I added, “And that’s okay”.
That tiny phrase softened our relationship. It made space for compassion and began the long healing work of connecting with my Self – my inner Sage, Soul, or whatever name you prefer for that loving, intuitive, creative part of being.
Julia Fry (2025)
The Season of Activation
What we say to ourselves during stressful times matters most. Take Christmas, for instance. It’s portrayed as a time of family connection and joy – but for many, it reactivates old wounds. The same people who helped shape our inner saboteurs may be the ones we face across the table.
When those ancient patterns arise, we might withdraw, become snarky, or busy ourselves endlessly instead of asking for real connection, which can feel so vulnerable.
At such times, inner words can heal or harm. Harsh self-talk adds pain. Gentle, compassionate language can soothe us back into presence. This is just as true if you’re spending the holidays alone and feeling lonely.
Casting Healing Spells
Words are spells.
So here are a few blessings from my heart to yours:
I wish you love.
I wish you fun.
I wish you creativity.
I wish you laughter.
I wish you wonder-full initiations that help you grow into your authentic self.
Thank you for reading.
If you’d like to explore your relationship with your inner landscape with empathic support, I offer a free 20 to 30 min initial chat.
I am so very grateful to Julia Cameron, writer of The Artist’s Way. In that book she taught me to give space to the inner critic by writing down what it says and then turn each phrase around.
My Heart Sings (2020) Collage, colour pencils 20 x 14 cm Julia Fry
I have many inner critics and I’m grateful to all of them for protecting me in the ways they knew how, even though those ways are no longer useful. It’s amazing to me when I become aware of one of them. Their patterns are so automatic and it’s easy to believe the bullshit they spout.
Their job is to protect hurt parts of me and I see these parts as wounded inner children. They bubble up to the surface when they’re ready to be seen and loved, and to finally process what had to be frozen way back when. When this happens, they bring feelings that feel really fucking hard to hold. Then the critic piles on with shame and all the usual crap it heaps on top.
I had this happen for me recently. It can feel like losing grasp on reality – all the feelings of panic and ‘badness’ coming in waves, not related to any event in the current moment.
The next day, I gave space to the feelings in my journal. A torrent of beliefs I’d made up about myself as a child poured out. Thanks to the many times I’ve gone through The Artist’s Way process, I turned them around.
Here are some of them:
No one actually likes or loves us because that’s impossible
A lot of people love us very much.
We’re too ugly and big and noisy and imperfect
We’re beautiful and just the right size, always. It’s okay that sometimes we’re noisy, we’re also quiet too. We’re perfect just as we are. We’re not like your sister, thank goodness; she’s her wonderful self. We’re us. And that is perfect.
I’m not important any more
I’m as important as anyone is.
I’m under the radar
I’m seen with love by people who see me.
I’m excess baggage
I have the right amount of baggage and I am beautiful baggage. If I am excess then the plane isn’t right for me.
I’m ugly
I’m beautiful.
I’m unwanted
I’m so wanted by by so many people and Gaia and guides. So many reasons for wanting me, not least because of the unique expression of love that I am. You’d want me because of my flavour of loving and shining my light. All of us together make a beautiful sight.
I’m useless
I’m useful, without trying to be, through the ways of being that flow through me.
Obviously, there are reasons why this kicked off now: I’ve just started rebirthing breathwork with an incredibly loving practitioner, my partner is deeply loving, I hold my clients with loving, exquisite attention, which also affects my nervous system, I’m putting myself out there in the socials, writing and sharing my offerings. Then there’s the recent traumatic brush with the medical model with the advent of my ADHD assessment. Also, Christmas – but that’s for another post, perhaps.
For me, turning those inner‑critic phrases around feels like creative alchemy — and you might find your own version of that magic.
If you’d like somewhere to explore your inner landscape in your own way, I’d love to hold a space for that. What we do together unfolds from what you bring. I offer a free 20–30 minute initial chat if you’d like to see how it feels.
How we talk to ourselves has a direct relationship to how we feel and what we do. This has been documented in psychological research (see references below) and there is a correlation between self criticism and feeling crap. You can see for yourself how true this is by paying attention to your inner voice. If your inner voice is hard to notice at first in daily life, you could pick an activity that you’d like to be able to do well, but haven’t clocked up the hours yet to be able to do well in it. It could be drawing or painting or parkour, for example.
