Title: Our Inner Critic - Sticks and Stones
 

It seems to be a condition of life that there is always someone who is willing, even eager, to criticize us, to find fault with what we do, to confidently predict that disaster will be the result of our actions, to be eternally poised above our heads like a dark cloud, ready to dampen our enthusiasm and to say "I told you so."

Like many people, I had two general--and opposite--responses to such criticisms. Sometimes I decided that such critics were absolutely wrong. They were afraid to do anything original or creative; they dreaded taking risks so much that it frightened them to see anyone else plunging into the unknown. There was no reason why I should allow their neuroses and insecurities to affect me. If I from time to time found myself brooding over their criticism it was only because I still had a little work to do in the area of self-acceptance. I was working on that self-esteem muscle, and it was getting pretty powerful. One day I might use it to flatten my critics.

My alternate approach was to decide that my critics were absolutely right. I would immediately agree with any and all negative judgments. Those people, truly my friends and guide, were speaking with the voice of reason and common sense. I was the fool, sailing, rudderless, into the storm. I internalized their criticisms, making them bigger and more terrible than they were, using them to paint the self-portrait of a fault-ridden and relatively worthless individual. I sometimes became paralyzed; my creativity and ability to act ground to a standstill.

Through the Looking Glass

It's all too true that there are plenty of people out there whose own creativity and originality are blocked. Having lost the courage to act on their initiative, they are threatened when someone else acts out their own repressed fantasies of accomplishment. It's a mistake to allow ourselves to become paralyzed by their opinions. That, however, doesn't mean that we should ignore their presence in our lives.

If we review our lives we discover that these critics have always been with us. They may be the mother or father who told us that the important thing was to have a steady job, the teachers who pronounced us talentless, the people who warn us that a belief in the benevolence of the universe is criminally irresponsible.

We have all experienced an abundance of critics in our lives. My own lesson about the appearance of such unwelcome visitors is that they usually show up at times when I'm in high-risk phases of my life. If I'm worried about money people tell me how bad the economy is. When I contemplate significant changes I hear about people who gave up perfectly comfortable and secure lives for uncertain and ultimately ruinous futures. When I first started to talk about building a website a few people looked at me as I had told them that I was resettling on Mars.

That these criticisms and warnings perfectly mirrored my own unvoiced or unacknowledged doubts was no coincidence. Our thoughts have a magnetic energy, and the thoughts we don't allow into consciousness will make an extra effort to be heard, drawing to us the external voices of the Inner Critic we would rather ignore.

Opening Our Inner Ears

 The Inner Critic comes into being when we stop listening to ourselves because we don't like what we're hearing. When we're working towards feeling positive about our lives it's all too easy to try to paper over our negative feelings with affirmations and other cheerful sentiments. The difficulty with doing this is that negative beliefs are just as much our creations as positive ones. Just as a certain, while having preferences for certain offspring, loves all of her/his children, problems though some of them may be, so we love our idea-children as our creations. When we try to punish the badly-behaved ones by ignoring them they clamor all the more loudly for our attention.

I have therefore adopted the practice of letting my inner critic speak. A typical conversation from my past went like this:

Me: I'd like to learn how to paint in watercolor.

Inner Critic: You? Remember your first day in kindergarten when you did finger-painting and you got most of the paint on your clothes? Do you really have nothing better to do with your money than to waste it on paper and paint? And brushes? Brushes are expensive. Besides, that's a really frivolous idea. Who told you life was supposed to be fun? You have more important things to do. You have a business to run, classes to give, people to counsel. How can you be so selfish as to consider doing something which is strictly for your own entertainment (since you know you'll never get anywhere with it)? Play now, pay later.

I now have a wealth of material with which to work. In tracing their origins I may remember the time I tried to paint a wastebasket with watercolors, and grade-school paintings which gave abstract art a bad name. I may also recall stories about hard-working ancestors who labored from dawn to dusk, sacrificing leisure, health, and lives in order to support their families.

From Inner Critic to Inner Counselor

If you decide to engage in your own dialogue with the Inner Critic, when you discover your own memories allow yourself to experience the emotions which accompany them. Then formulate the beliefs which created these experiences. Some examples from my own dialogue might include, "Artistic expression is a luxury I can't afford," "I'll only humiliate myself," and "If I don't work hard I'll be punished."

Then formulate the affirmations you want. Mine might be, "I have the talent to paint" or "If I enjoy it who cares about talent?" I have worked with the belief that life is hard work by consciously scheduling play time into my life (and by consciously dealing with whatever resistance comes up to experiencing play).

I've discovered that the more I allow my Inner Critic to speak and am open to hearing it the more the character of its communications change. As I got into the habit of dialogues with it I began to hear it say, "Remember that easel you were going to get? When are you going to order it? How about tomorrow?"

As I continue to converse with my Inner Critic its storehouse of opinions and complaints gradually empties out. No longer ignored or suppressed, it becomes the Inner Companion, Inner Counselor, my best friend who will always tell me the truth I'm now ready to hear.