How to overcome criticism

I consider this one of the most important ideas of developing your own creativity. Not handled, is the biggest blockage to your creativity.

This idea might be new to you, so I ask you to please stay with me, and hopefully it will make sense to you.

OK, let’s go.

Have you ever noticed that you talk to yourself? I mean, in your mind. Of course some do it out loud, but I mean thinking conversations in your head.
Not sure if you do? Think about how you evaluate anything.
“Do I like this?”
“Is this true?”

Right now you are probably asking yourself if you agree with me, or if you want to continue reading, for example.
Truth is you are constantly talking to yourself in your mind. Yep, in some ways we are all schizophrenics.

So, joke aside, who are you talking to? Well, let’s look at it this way:
Where do you get all your knowledge from? Who taught you about the world, what you know today, etc?
Yes. Your parents, school, friends, work, media, experience etc.
All this information is what you have dialogs with, in order to evaluate if the situation in front of you is good or not. The funny thing is that most of us have no idea where these ideas actually come from or if they are even TRUE.
Actually, we all take our opinions for granted. We even think we are our opinions, that our opinions define us.

We also have believes about the world that often are in conflict with some of our desires or needs.
For example:
“I want to go for what I really want and become an actor” vs. “Artists are poor and it is better to have a real job”
“I really enjoy to sing” vs. “I can’t sing that well”

Even thought it might seem strange, the point of these inner voices or inner dialogs is to protect you, to make sure you think twice and don’t get into trouble. Most of these “inner values” were first taught to you by your parents.
So, now you might say: “Big deal, I have already separated from my parents a long time ago. I really don’t have the opinions of my parents. I’m actually quite opposite to them.”

Ok, it is true that your opinions come from more sources than just your parents. The ideas you have today might, or might not sound like your parents’ ideas. But in fact, any opinion you have today, is controlled by deep values of what you think is right and wrong in life in order to survive. These deep values come from your parents/guardians. They could not come from anywhere else.

How so? Well, think about it. Just as you cannot forget your first language, you will never forget these rules about life that your parents taught you at an early age. They taught you these foundations rules so that would not hurt yourself and those rules are still in you. Maybe hidden, but I guarantee you they are there somewhere and they affect you more than you know.

Let’s look at all this at a different angle.
All you can tell me about yourself are facts and ideas. For example, age, occupation, political views, religion, likes and dislikes.
These ideas are not who you are. You are not just “objects” like age, names, opinions and occupation but much more. Still, these objects, is what many consider most important.

But even if you might be aware of this, we stick to our ideas like it was our true identity. This comes from a deep feeling of fear of losing mother when we were totally dependent on her as an infant. Losing mom, completely, at that time meant death. So with this fear, we kept an image of our mom in our minds in order to feel safe when she was not with us. This image stays with us all our lives, and we depend on it unless we grow up, understanding we don’t need mom anymore.

So you might say: “What are you talking about? I don’t need my mom!”
Well, today, even though we pretend to be “adults”, we keep our old ideas, like keeping the image of our mother, in order to feel safe. Losing our identity (i.e. our opinions), scares us to death, even if it won’t kill you. But that is what we truly fear.
Do you stick to your ideas and life style? Do you have certain deep rules what life should be like, what you should be like or what other people should be like? Or do you know people who think like this?

Ideas and concepts are not bad. They are a valuable part of life. Again, hear me on this. Opinions are good and necessary. What I’m saying is not about deconstructing values, but about understanding how you think.

I’m trying to show you that your ideas can also be limiting for your creativity. Some of your opinions might be a little “outdated” and perhaps not even your own ideas. So, by being aware of them, they will serve you better.

Look at it like this:
If you were not attached to your ideas about life, you could do anything you wanted, you could be anyone.

You don’t have to change anything, but if you want to unleash your creativity, you must learn that your inner voice has a very strong grip on you, with fear of death.
So, don’t go around trying to “not have any concepts”. That would be quite ridiculous. For example, what I’m writing are ideas, nothing more. But they are concepts that might help you open your mind. If so, that is not a bad thing, right?
I’m just reminding you that the world is bigger than your opinions and that your perspective, even though important, is not all there is. There is always more. In fact, the possibilities are endless.

So, how is this useful for creativity?
Hopefully this is already starting to make sense to you.
But let’s start with critics. Most artists know about critics. The most obvious ones are in the reviews. But we also worry about what our friends, lovers and family think about us. But the worst critic there is, no doubt, is your inner voice, or better called “your inner judge”

Please try an experiment with me.
Say out loud: “I’m so beautiful today!”

Noticed the comments you made about this statement? Noticed the reaction to it?
If so, congratulations!
You just heard the inner judge, or inner critic.

Have you ever seen a person feeling ashamed?
How did they behave in that situation?
How did they breathe, where was their gaze, how was their posture?
Most people look down, slumped down with a shallow breathing. It looks like someone is above them yelling down at them, telling them how bad they are. There is a reason for this behaviour. The inner judge is “attacking” us.

What do I mean?
Look at the ashamed person and how they behave. Doesn’t it look like the person is being told off by his/her parents?
Our parents used to judge us, tell us when we were bad, they might even have hit us. All parents told us what to do. That is what parents do, and should do. Hopefully without violence of course.

When you were little, you needed to learn that some things were “bad” or you would have easily killed yourself or caused problems. “Don’t run in front of cars. Don’t play with fire. Don’t hit your friends!”

The problem is that most parents did not just help you survive, they had very strong ideas about what you should do, say, behave, think, feel etc. Their intentions were the same, meaning they wanted you not to get in trouble. But like everybody else, your parents had their own fears and quite often overreacted or just had a bad day when they told you things. “Who do you think you are? Don’t be silly! What is that good for? Look what a mess you did! Grow up!”

Quite often your parents mistook the protecting role from just controlling you. All parents do this. Of course some manage it better than others.
Point is, they made sure every time you did something they did not approve of you would feel bad, in order to make you stop that behaviour, in order to protect you.
Now, their standards are probably a little outdated today. But most of us still keep to our parents’ standards like glue.

Here is how you can see the last statement is true.
When you feel ashamed today, it is because you have broken a life-rule (sometimes an unconscious one) that your parents taught you, and you feel like that little kid again. It is not because you did something dumb now. It is because the current situation reminds you of the situation when you were little. I mean, have you ever felt ashamed?

Here’s a simple example.
Perhaps you go on stage and feel stupid even though you are doing great and people like you. It could be because once your father (This could also be mother or even siblings, but the idea is the same.) yelled at you when you showed him something that you were good at that he did not like. So, today, when you do something similar, that he did not like, you immediately hear the disapproving voice of your father and you feel ashamed.

Being yelled at today, even though not very nice, does not mean you have to be ashamed. You have the power to react in any way you want. Why not react in a way that is good for you AND for the other person? Why not see what needs to be done instead of becoming ashamed?

In fact, today, becoming ashamed rarely solves anything. So, why do you do it? Well, when you where a child, becoming ashamed was probably a good idea, because you were powerless to your parents. Today, you have the right to explore your own life as an adult. You have the right to make mistakes and to try things out without feeling ashamed. You are not powerless anymore. You are not a victim.

It does not mean you do whatever you please, but you don’t have to become a powerless kid again when things go wrong. You could see the truth of what the situation really needs, not just following some old pattern from the past. When we become ashamed we usually lose our ability to think and feel straight. We become dumb and incapable.

I do want to add that being ashamed does have a value. Considering immoral actions, feeling ashamed is one of the ways that stop you from doing hurtful things to others for example. I see youth without good parents or role-models doing bad things with no shame or afterthought. They need shame in order to grow.

I hope you see that we are talking about unnecessary shame that only hinders you, that does not serve a purpose. I believe that if you are interested in this topic, you don’t have a problem of behaving civilized. So, in the way we are discussing here, I want to show you that shame is a great way to notice that you are probably being attacked by your inner critic.

The inner judge does not only make you ashamed. It has all kinds of opinions. I guarantee you the reasons you have not gone for what you really want, is because your inner judge has opinions about it.

For example, you might want to paint. But the inner judge says it is a waste of time, that there is no money and that you probably can’t paint anyway.
These opinions are not yours. Your parents taught these rules because they were once your guardians and wanted you to survive and you could only survive with their rules. To follow the example above, they did not believe painting was a wise choice for survival. It is not a matter if they were wrong or not. If you wanted to survive, you had to follow their values.

But now you can take care of yourself.
In today’s perspective, the inner judge is a liar. The inner judge does NOT know the truth for you. The ONLY purpose it has is to try to protect you from harm. Its power is based on OLD rules that are completely outdated. Does painting really hurt you?
I hope you see how important it is to learn this. Being in control of your inner critic will open your creativity in ways you cannot imagine.

Here’s what you can do.
You have to learn to defend yourself from the inner judge. Remember, the judge is not you. It is old knowledge from your past. Also remember, this is a practice and it takes time to learn.

First step.
Become aware of the inner judge. Start paying attention to the judgements about yourself. You could do this by writing down statements you notice. A good idea is to say them out loud when you notice them. This way you will find out the beliefs “installed” in you. Ask for support from your therapist, psychologist or coach if you have one.

Second step.
Realize these judgements do NOT come from you. They come primarily from your parents. If you notice a self-judgement, make sure it is stated as “You are worthless”, not “I am worthless!” This makes it easier for you to separate from the judge. Otherwise it feels like you are attacking yourself, and that is not true.

Third step.
Feel how much these beliefs are hurting you, rather than helping you. See how they cause you to feel ashamed, to make you stop from doing what you really want to do.

Fourth step.
Are these beliefs/opinions really true? Try to be objective, analyze the logic of these old rules.

Fifth step.
Learn to defend against the “attacks”. The point is to STOP the attack. You don’t want to engage in an inner dialog with the judge, you want to cut-off the judgement. This can be done in many ways. It is best done with humour, but before you get good at this, it is easier to just tell the voice to go to hell.
Examples:
Not now.
How dare you shaming me!
Fuck off!
I don’t have time for you
Shut up!

If you have written down the attacks, it can be quite inspiring to come up with phrases that ridicule or contradict the attacks in a fun way.
This is quite a deep topic and I think I have taken enough of your time. But if you apply what I talk about, it is a great start that will help you tremendously.

If you want to go deeper with this, here are some ideas.
Buy the book “The artist’s way” by Julia Cameron. It has some great exercises about the inner critic.
For those who want to go even deeper, I highly recommend the book “Soul without shame” by Byron Brown. It is an excellent choice if you want to master this topic.

You can also contact me for a session at my home or over Skype. Part of what I do with my coaching work is for people to become aware of their super-ego and to learn how to defend against it in order to support their creative process.

If you read all this, I complement you. I know it is a lot of material but so important for artists today or anyone who wants to be creative. Don’t neglect this area and it will change your life.

Find similar posts here:

• Will I create?
• Your true voice?
• 3rd perspective kills creativity

About Samuel Törnqvist