How I overcame my inner critic this morning

I just busted myself in a familiar pattern – avoiding my creative impulse.

I got up early, couldn’t go back to sleep, and “Charley,” my cat, was walking all over me – a sign from the Universe to wake up and write.

I walked downstairs, fed Charley, started typing on my laptop.

Ten minutes in, I felt frustrated, aka my inner critic had shown up.

Hence, I stopped typing my thoughts and started searching other people’s quotes online (a distraction tactic). It’s much easier to read other people’s creative musings then come up with my own, and face my inner critic head on.

I quickly got lost in the rabbit hole of one website leading to another. Then, the thought popped into my head to check my bank account. Well shit, I better get my statement to my accountant this instant. (Another tactic to avoid writing.) My accountant obviously needs my bank statement at 5:47am in the morning.

Truth is, it’s easier to send a straightforward email with numbers than it is to trust my creativity, dig deep, and stay in the unknown. It’s easier to pop back up to the surface of “necessary tasks”, than to drop down deep into my body. My inner critic doesn’t like to go deep. It doesn’t like the well of feelings that lives there, the messiness, the unknown of what could spring up when that pool of emotions is hit.

Better to stay safe, above the surface, and email my accountant.

But that’s not what my creative impulse woke me up at 3:54am to do.

So here I am, 2 hours later. Laptop still in my lap, and I’ve circled back. Circled back to myself. Writing from the heart is like shooting from the hip. I don’t know where it’s taking me and or what’s going to fly out. I face huge resistance to stay here, and frankly, it’s easier to stick to the safe stuff like sending emails. But staying safe keeps me stagnant and prevents me from expressing who I am.

Do you ever do that? Feel inspired to do something and then, once you begin, you think you “should” be doing laundry, taking care of others, returning emails…ANYTHING ELSE but face the resistance that springs up when you start to do something good for your soul, your creativity, your inner life?

You’re not alone.

Instead of searching other people’s quotes, I’ll share a quote I just made up, “Instead of choosing the tried and true, pick YOU.” Hmmm, my quote game is NOT strong this morning and that’s ok, I attempted, and most importantly, stopped searching other people’s quotes.

This is progress because my fingers are still moving across the page outrunning my inner critic! Can’t catch me now, critic.

I’m over the resistance hump and it’s because I recognized my inner critic (AWARENESS), didn’t beat myself up (SELF-COMPASSION), and I circled back, keep going, and didn’t give up (PERSISTENCE). 

Thank you for reading and for listening. This is more of a running ramble than a polished post and it’s what I needed to get out, get down, and flow through my fingers this morning. My creativity impulse is now running free, and my inner critic is eating dust.

I feel lighter, content, and a bit jovial as a result of expressing myself.

Devon