MY\u00a0WEEKLY BLOG<\/p>\n
STOP
NAGGING ME<\/p>\n
I talk\u00a0a lot about the inner critic \u2013 that brutal self demeaning voice that loiters in\u00a0your mind \u2013 nagging, irritating and trying to convince you that you aren\u2019t enough for yourself or anyone else. It\u2019s loyal. It\u2019s always around. As I sat\u00a0down this morning to choose a topic for my blog, my inner critic was having a spirited\u00a0one-way conversation in my head. \u201cWhy keep writing this junk?\u201d he scolded. \u201cYou\u2019ve\u00a0vomited a ton of blogs, a finite number of people read them, so it doesn’t matter\u00a0what you have to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt\u00a0dread as I resigned myself to the fact that I had found my topic: The Inner\u00a0Critic Revisited. And revisited. And revisited. It\u2019s all the rage these days to\u00a0revisit popular TV shows and movies in prequels or sequels: Dexter, our beloved\u00a0serial killer. Cinderella, yet another version. The Many Saints of Newark, the\u00a0prequel to The Sopranos, one of the most widely watched TV series. The Friends\u00a0Reunion. So why not revisit the Inner Critic, the bully that never shuts up or\u00a0goes away. It tricks you. It hides in the shadows and just when you think\u00a0you’re home free, tooling along, it jumps out in your mind and scares the\u00a0living daylights and the creativity out of you. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Stop\u00a0nagging me, I tell him. He doesn\u2019t listen.<\/p>\n
Your\u00a0mind can be a splendid ally, a motivator and a supreme puzzle solver. But it\u2019s\u00a0not necessarily your friend. I stopped outside an ice cream shop one day and\u00a0watched a server making a brownie sundae with hot fudge and whipped cream. I\u00a0wanted one.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo\u00a0ahead,\u201d my inner voice encouraged. \u201cHave that sundae. It\u2019ll be delicious. Life\u00a0is hard. What harm can one sundae do? You only live once.\u201d<\/p>\n
I debated the pros and cons. Remember the cartoons with an
angel on your right shoulder and a devil on your left, arguing with each other?\u00a0Guess who won? I walked inside and ordered the dessert, it was delicious, but\u00a0when I was halfway through, the critical voice began chiding me. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t\u00a0have eaten that. It\u2019s unhealthy and it\u2019s fattening. You better throw the rest\u00a0of it away. You made a big mistake. Now you’re screwed.\u201d I lost my appetite.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0you find yourself unconsciously aligned with a shaming voice inside, try taking\u00a0a step back, get curious, and watch what\u2019s going on. Like an annoying neighbor\u00a0or a loud family member, instead of trying to shoo them away, you have an\u00a0opportunity to spot the ruse and transform yourself from a victim to an\u00a0impartial observer. That\u2019s a solid step on the path to self-acceptance.<\/p>\n
We all\u00a0have different ways of dealing with the inner critic. Some people try to make\u00a0nice, others attack him with an elbow to the stomach and still others try to\u00a0reason with him. A friend of mine makes a place for him at the far end of the\u00a0table and another banishes him to the back yard. However you choose to tame him,
you need to make it clear that you won\u2019t be changing your behavior, no matter\u00a0how much he (or she) torments you.<\/p>\n
My inner critic always has something contrary\u00a0to say.<\/p>\n
While I\u2019m doing a writing session, he says,
\u201cYour writing is crap. Stop doing it and clean the house.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
If I skip a session, he says, \u201cYou aren\u2019t very\u00a0serious about writing, are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
If I work too much, he tells me I\u2019m a\u00a0workaholic.<\/p>\n
If I take a day off to pamper myself, he says,\u00a0\u201cStop being lazy. You\u2019re not being productive and you\u2019re going to become a bag\u00a0lady.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the\u00a0face of such constant criticism, it’s easy to see yourself as defective or\u00a0broken and think that you\u2019ve always been this way. But the truth is, no matter\u00a0how cunning, loud, persistent, and punishing the critic is, he\u2019s not as\u00a0powerful as you are. You serve at the pleasure of yourself, not that of your\u00a0inner critic and believing his rants is a bad habit. If you make a commitment\u00a0to treat yourself with respect and ignore the nattering voice in your head, it\u00a0will become a distant whisper in the background of your creative expression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MY\u00a0WEEKLY BLOG STOPNAGGING ME I talk\u00a0a lot about the inner critic \u2013 that brutal self demeaning voice that loiters in\u00a0your mind \u2013 nagging, irritating and trying to convince you that you aren\u2019t enough for yourself or anyone else. It\u2019s loyal. It\u2019s always around. As I sat\u00a0down this morning to choose a topic for my blog, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}