Nothing Kills Creativity Faster the Criticism: Enter the Inner Critic

Imagine your conscious mind is tuned in to a radio station run by a single disc jockey, your Inner Critic, and you have no way to turn down the volume much less turn it off.

In fact, you’ve grown so used to the constant talk from the Inner Critic you hardly notice he’s ordering you about, commenting, passing judgment and evaluating just about everything you do or say; this is all so subtle and insidious that you don’t separate out the Inner Critic from other parts of you.

The Inner Critic has become you—it seems as if the only time you can escape his badgering is when you sleep. There is a reason for this.
When you sleep, your conscious mind shuts down. The dream state or intuitive right side of the brain, takes over.

The Inner Critic avoids the dream state like the plague. He can’t get a foothold where there is no apparent logic, where things appear as images, feelings, sounds and colors.

It should not be surprising, then, that your best stories, characters and plots, come from this place of dreams, where little is known and anything is possible. The problem is how to wrest control of the radio station from the Inner Critic so that you can give your Inner Writer some air time.

Answer the following questions quickly, without thinking.

What is the color of your Inner Critic?

How big is your Inner Critic?

What is the texture?

Is your Inner Critic masculine, feminine or both?

What does the voice of the Inner Critic sound like?

Make a list of the things your Inner Critic says to you. Don’t worry if you repeat. Come back and add to this list as you become more aware of the Inner Critic.

Next: Find a symbol of your Inner Critic.
Symbols are powerful doorways into the unconscious. We remember them, often quite viscerally. This is why I have, for many years, been asking my students to find an image of the Inner Critic. They have come up with everything from a picture of a boss to a vial of sulfuric acid. The image of my Inner Critic is a fierce looking puppet. I like to turn it inside out, which makes it look like a harmless alien!

You can also have more than one image of your Inner Critic. On a retreat I once held on the beach, I asked the women to bring something that represented their Inner Critic. After showing them around and letting the Inner Critics cut loose with their miserable jabber, we buried them in the sand!

I had brought a photograph of my mother as my inner critic....
 

Sound harsh? Not at all. Parents and parental figures are usually part of the formation of the Inner Critic. My mother also happened to be a very critical woman. The photo I brought was one in which she was a young mother. I buried it in the sand. When the retreat we over, some of us decided to leave our images buried. It was hard at the time, but I left the photo of my mother. I can remember, to this day, exactly which picture it was and where I buried it.

The decision turned out to be quite freeing and led to my being able to quiet some of the most vicious aspects of my inner critic.  hen you find a photo or image of your Inner Critic, you can do at least two things with it.

1. Before you sit down to write, take the image of your Inner Critic and bury it, perhaps under dirty laundry! Or in a closet.  And here's a tip. Don't leave your Inner Critic hidden. You will forget about it. Best to leave it where you can see it and whenever you are going to write, hide it and in no uncertain terms tell it that it is not welcome when you are writing!

2. Take a photo of your Inner Critic and post it here.  In a recent Making Your Own Inner Wisdom Cards, one of the participants made the card above of her Inner Critic.