How to Control your Inner Critic – for Writers

Writers wanting to control your Inner Critic – I’ve got news for you…

Recognize your Inner Critic – then give her the boot!

As a writer, you must take back control of steering your ship of imagination and productivity.

This means saying ‘No” to the Inner Critic – who wants to “protect” you by shutting you down.

Make an incantation to that Inner Critic, saying:

“Without entering into to and fro – you must go!”

[bctt tweet=”“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot if difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” via=”no”]

It begins with YOU being that “someone who believes in you.”

Every time you sit down to write silence the critical voices in your head.

• Who do you think you are,
• You’re not good enough,
• Your story is not worth telling
• It’s all been said before

These are the kinds of doubts and fears that come from your hypercritical Father, your ninth-grade English teacher, or your own perfectionist Self. Voices from the past you have buried but not forgotten.

Inner Monsters

Inner Critic disguised as Inner Monsters

Julie’s full interview [30mins]

Julie Broad, Publisher at Book Launchers and bestselling author of Self-Publish and Succeed suggests in this podcast interview on my Write the Book Inside You Podcast that the best way to tame our Inner Monsters as she calls the Inner Critic is to cuddle up to the monsters. Accept them and shrink their impact by saying “come along for the ride.”

Above all Remember:

• It’s an ongoing process
• It begins with understanding your Inner Critic wants to protect you from hurt and harm
• Seek the Inner Critic’s roots in the past – parents, teachers, siblings...
• Believe the Inner Critic CAN be healed, helped, controlled, even permanently stopped from sabotaging you. All  it takes is the right coaching using energy psychology tools like EFT Tapping and Matrix Reimprinting.

Typical Qualities of the Inner Critic

Ever found yourself feeling like you haven’t got what it takes to be a writer or start or finish a project?

Make a check-list to alert you when you are overcome by negative feelings like Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Bad Self Talk – and can’t pinpoint exactly why.

Your Inner Critic is usually:

• Harsh, rude, mean
• Black and white – no room for grey.
• Tries to sound like the voice of REASON
• Says you “aren’t ready yet”
• Attacks first, shames second.

Recognize its goal is to keep you safe from possible harm, rejection, and even joy.

Recognize it wants to numb you out to stay safe in your comfort zone.

Recognize that its likely rooted in what trauma specialists call the lizard brain. 

Your lizard brain rightly wants to keep you safe within the norms of the “tribe” (your family, society) so they continue to accept, even love, you and don’t throw you out/abandon you to die…

Every single book I have written I did in the FACE OF my Inner Critic
One …word, page… at a time.
30+ years of journalistic training did not make me immune to my own fears and Inner Critic

MY TOP TIPS to Heal the Inner Critic

1. Process work with EFT-Matrix Reimprinting
2. Inner Child work – access my magical inner child – drawing, left-hand/right-hand dialogue, play dates
3. Regular exercise to shift the build-up of stuck energy
4. Putting up a sign like this above your computer:

JUST WRITE THE WORST CRAP EVER WRITTEN. BUT WRITE!

Get clear that CREATING and EDITING are two very different processes.

In the Write the Book Inside You program, 6 weeks to get your book out of your head and onto the page, I quote Lev Grossman:

“Write, write, write.

Writing is a craft not a gift. You have to practice.”

Do the first without pausing to analyze or edit.

Then when you have many pages of content – start the editing.

First prize…get someone professional to help you.

Practice self-compassion to quiet the Inner Critic.

Self-compassion is like a parachute that allows you to glide safely down into the parts of yourself you’re afraid to look at.

Self-compassion means saying, yes, I messed up, but this doesn’t make me a horrible person.

Rather this makes me a person who has strengths and weaknesses and room to improve.

Rituals

• Rituals quell anxiety for writers
• When a ritual becomes a habit, it’s one less thing for you to decide
• When a ritual makes you feel you are being guided or supported by something bigger than yourself – you step up to the plate.

Tips to combat Resistance from Stephen Pressfield, author of The War of Art and Turning Pro

• Show up every day
• Show up no matter what
• Stay on the job
• Be committed for the long haul
• Be a warrior
• Silence the Ego. See yourself as a channel for ideas “from a higher plane of reality.”
• Allow your Muse or Angel to bring creativity through you
• Allow for Grace

In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron – the St Joan of Arc for creatives –  puts it this way:

“As artists we co-operate and co-opt the power of Universal Intelligence (God/Higher Power) to come through us.”

Mirror Work

Try  Self Talk with Mirror Work. Tell yourself in front of a mirror you ARE a writer.  You can also write it 15 times as a ritual of AFFIRMATION in your journal (as Dilbert creator Scott recommends)

I LOVE YOU NAME – you are a writer.

I LOVE YOU NAME– I commit to making this life a joyful one for you

I LOVE YOU NAME– you deserve the best – you are worthy of love, success, money, and fun!

Photo by Chivalry Creative on Unsplash