Fired: My Inner Critic

by | Oct 1, 2015 | Uncategorized

Most of us have heard the voice in our head.

Not the one that tells us how successful we will be, or how beautiful our creations are, but the other one.

The one that tells us, “Don’t bother painting, nobody will see” or “nobody likes what you write”, or “that blog is much better than yours”. Some days it is easy to ignore it, or turn it down so it becomes like static whispering.
On other days, for me, on the days, I am about to put a deep amount of passion into my project, the voice gets louder and louder. It is more persistent. There is no “shushing” it. If I let it, that voice will keep me from creating.
That’s when I decided to FIRE THE VOICE! (for me, it is an old bald man, wearing a sweater vest and glasses)
Here is the dismissal poem I gave to my inner critic:

Firing My Inner Critic

“I’m letting you go.
I’m saying good-bye to your harsh tones and your sandpaper words
that scrape away
the soft parts of my heart.
I’m turning away,
Leaving you standing with your arms crossed and
frown lines on your face
and tapping your foot.
Its not working for me
to have you shred my skin away and
expose the broken bones beneath
while
you hide under the bed
inside your glass house.
I’m letting you go.
I’m saying good-bye
before I pick up stones and
you and I are the same.”

He packed up his briefcase, rather reluctantly, walked out the door.
He does pop in from time to time, unwelcome and uninvited, and I send him back on his way.
Somedays, though, I beckon him. I ask him to come sit with me while I edit. He guides me then, ever so kindly. The inner critic can do things that I cannot do. He tosses out my precious lines when they aren’t quite right; he moves paragraphs, and kills of characters for the sake of the story. These are his strengths.
He has been fired from permanent employment. Now, he is just a brief consultant.

Ten Minute Tuesday: Know Your Monsters

Ten Minute Tuesday: Know Your Monsters

by | Sep 29, 2015 | Ten Minute Tuesday

I have written previously about how to stop your Creativity sucking monsters.They can sneaky, distracting little creatures that keep us from doing our choice of creative work. For myself, it doesn’t seem to matter if I am writing or doing photography or making pendants, I seem to run into the same monsters time and time again.
For today’s ten minute exercise, I want you to play with paints, pens, pom poms…whatever creative or artsy materials inspire you. I want you to make a Creativity Sucking Monster Poster. Get to know them. Learn their habits. What do they look like? Sound like? Get to know them intimately. That way when they come knocking on your creative brain, then you will recognize them and be ready to defeat the ones right in front of you. Just remember, sometimes they create a full coordinated attack, and as soon as one is down, another is up. Just keep reminding them where they belong. As with all things, monsters have their place, and sometimes we may even sweet talk them out to play when we need them but for todays task, Just recognize them.

Here is how I did mine in three steps. Getting to know them revealed that some did not look like I suspected. My nemesis of “are you sure it’s good enough” monster, looks sweet and innocent, and sounds all sing song, but really the message she is sending is very negative. It reminds me that sometimes what comes out looking like a “voice of reason” may really be a monster trying to sabotage my creative efforts.

monsters 1

I began by using a mix of watercolor paints and stamp pads, my fingers and one monster was created with a paintbrush.

monsters 2

Then I added googly eyes and cut up pom poms to make hair.

monster 3

The orange and blue one or the “twins” of cleaning and children. The little pink one is my nemesis, “Good Enough”.  The big red one of avoidance, black of no sleep, blue for the little boy, and the orange of having fun with friends and procrastination.

What do your monsters look like? I would love to see. Share on my Facebook page.

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