About this episode

This episode explores the inner critic faced by runners and high-achieving women, offering mindfulness techniques to soften self-judgment and promote self-compassion.

Welcome to another installment of Mindfulness Moments on the Mindful Marathon Podcast. In this episode, we’re exploring something many runners and high-achieving women know well which is the inner critic. That voice that tells us we should be doing more, we’re falling behind, we’re not doing enough, or that rest must be earned. For many women physicians and professionals, self-criticism and hypervigilance were reinforced for years in training and in work environments where the avoidance of failure felt necessary for success. While those patterns may have helped us achieve, they can also leave us exhausted, anxious, and disconnected from ourselves. This episode is an invitation to pause. Together, we explore common patterns of self-critical thinking in runners and high-achievers, why the inner critic develops in the first place, how mindfulness can help us observe thoughts without immediately believing them, and a guided meditation designed to help you soften self-judgment and reconnect with self-compassion. This practice can be used on an easy run or walk, during moments of stress, or before bed when your mind feels especially busy. The goal is not to eliminate difficult thoughts…

People in this episode

Host: Michelle Quirk

Guest: Coach Michelle Quirk

Topics covered

• mindfulness
• inner critic
• self-compassion
• self-criticism
• running
• high-achieving women

Keywords

• mindfulness
• inner critic
• self-compassion
• running
• self-criticism
• meditation
• high-achievers

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Mindful Marathon

More episodes of Mindful Marathon Podcast

• Ep 90: Heat, Humidity, & Expectations - A Smarter Way to Train, with Dr. Michelle Quirk of Mindful Marathon · June 1, 2026 · 20 min
• Ep 88: Healing the Athlete Within - A Conversation About Anorexia, Running, and Recovery, with Dr. Jillian Rigert & Dr. Michelle Quirk · May 18, 2026 · 30 min
• Ep 87: Friendship, Character Stops, & My Favorite 10-Miler Yet - runDisney Springtime Surprise 2026 Recap, with Coach Michelle Quirk of Mindful Marathon · May 11, 2026 · 24 min

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