Quiet your Inner Critic
(photo of my recent attempt at a mini watercolor )
Tell me if this sounds like you:
You poured your time, blood, sweat, and tears into a new creative project and now it’s done. But when you look at your new sweater or read your new story you’re not proud. Instead, you see all the flaws and you can’t imagine doing anything other than throwing it away.
If this sounds like you, you need to know you’re not the only one who feels deflated at the end of a creative project. That’s because a lot of us have a strong inner critic telling us how much our projects suck. The good news is there’s a way to get your inner critic to quiet down.
Your Inner Critic
Your inner critic comes on strong when you’ve put a lot of time and energy into a project. It’s like a fear-based boomerang reaction to the fact that you’ve been bold enough to make something. You had enough resilience and confidence to do the making, so fear tries to stop you from sharing it with anyone else or ever creating again by sending in your inner critic.
Your inner critic is made up of the voices of people who told you that your creativity wasn’t any good when you were younger. If you listen closely you may hear your middle school art teacher, or your disapproving uncle in the words that are running through your head. It also includes the messages you internalized from your home and school while you were growing up. Your mom’s fear and self-judgement. Your grandfather’s perfectionism. Your teacher’s belief that girls aren’t any good at woodworking. These unspoken things show up as the negative voices of your inner critic.
Remember, your inner critic is based in fear. The only thing fear wants you to do is stop being so awesome.
The good news is that you don’t have to listen to your inner critic.
Your Compassionate Witness
Instead, you could listen to the kind and compassionate voices you wish you’d heard as a child. Voices of praise and acceptance for your art probably aren’t as loud in your mind. If or when you heard them when you were younger you may not have believed them. But whether you heard or believed them or not, you can construct them now.
Alongside your inner critic, you also have a compassionate witness. The compassionate witness is based in love, not fear. So it offers kindness, not judgement. Where your inner critic sees imperfections, your compassionate witness sees the beauty, determination, and skill that went into your creation. While your inner critic puts you down, your compassionate witness celebrates your awesomeness.
The only reason that you don’t listen to your compassionate witness is that its a witness. It’s quiet, doesn’t yell and scream to get your attention. In fact, it sits back and loves you while your inner critic goes berserk.
Love is stronger than fear, so your compassionate witness doesn’t need to use force or persuasion to make you change. It loves you just as you are, and it loves the ways that you grow through your creative expressions.
Switch from critic to compassion
If your inner critic is coming on strong, try this:
Walk away from your creation
Let it rest and allow your inner critic to quiet down
Before you return to it, tap in to a place of inner quiet and love
When you pick it up again look with the eyes of the compassionate witness.
Notice how different it is to see your work this way.
It’s just what my friend needed to do when she came over for a watercolor lesson from my seven year old. She admitted she felt self conscious because she’d had bad experiences painting in the past and didn’t want to repeat them. But she was game to try because my son was ready to teach her.
At first she was happily surprised at how the painting was going. But as they went through the lesson she started to say that it didn’t look so good. When she finished she said she’d ruined it and I could tell she wasn’t super happy with the result.
I recommended she walk away from it and let it rest for a few minutes, which she did. After dinner she went back and picked it up with a smile. She looked for the positives in her piece and let go of the beginner “mistakes”. By the time she left she felt pretty good about her first attempt at watercolors.
Growing Compassion
When you’re right up close to your creation, it’s easy for your inner critic to get in the way. Letting your work rest for a while lets your inner critic move into the background and your compassionate witness move forward.
Seeing your creativity with eyes of compassion and love is taking a powerful step in the direction of loving your way through your life. It quiets the inner critic and empowers you see other areas of life through the eyes of your compassionate witness.
And when you can do that for yourself, you can do it for other people too. Now the people around you have a kind voice in their heads when they approach their own creativity. And that’s how we grow a more kind and compassionate world - it starts with you!