Useful Strategies for Working with the Critic
1) Drop the Critic as soon as you notice it. Have a line ready; eg – ‘Back off, let me live my life!’ Find a way to reconnect to your work – focus on the act of creating rather than on how the work will be received. Connect with your intention for the work. Connect with your materials.
2) Get to know the critic part of self. Witness and welcome it. I see you (because I am more than you), I welcome you here for this moment, let me take a good curious look at you. It’s OK to be here. What is it that you want of me? What are you trying to protect me from? What do you need from me? Get the felt-sense of the critic and draw it out!
3) Get to know the criticized part of self. Really allow yourself to lean in and feel what it is like to be the recipient of your inner critic. Welcome that part. Be curious. What does that look/feel like? What does the criticized part need/want to say to the critic part? How could their relationship be more useful?
4) Consciously, develop a positive attitude about your creative process. Ask yourself the miracle question*: If I went to sleep tonight and in the middle of the night a miracle happened which completely altered my inner critic and I could meet my work without resistance, what would this look/feel like when I woke up? Really lean-into the feeling of how this would be. Draw it out. Make as many images of this as you can. (At a certain level, the brain does not differentiate between a real image and a created image).
5) Get to know the part of yourself that is your creative ally. She is willing to risk making mistakes; indeed she welcomes mistakes as a learning process essential to the creative act. She offers gentle encouragement, she listens to what the painting is saying, she knows when and how to incubate an idea, she thrives on the experience of total immersion; she is a master of flow. She sets herself clear intentions and stays connected and present, attentive to the unfolding of these intentions and their resultant creative acts. Oh and by the way, she thinks you’re fabulously creative.
6) Reframe your creative process – just as you use a viewfinder to find your preferred composition, use a viewfinder to reframe how you enter your creative process. This viewfinder is your safe container. Create from within this space; the willingness to be with what is, the welcoming friendly attitude, the sense of allowing, of ease, of flow. As the safe container becomes stronger, the critic becomes quieter.
* I was introduced to the Miracle Question technique by art therapist Irena Stenner. I have also explored and adapted the process of Focusing Oriented Art Therapy by Laura Rappaport.
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2) Get to know the critic part of self. Witness and welcome it. I see you (because I am more than you), I welcome you here for this moment, let me take a good curious look at you. It’s OK to be here. What is it that you want of me? What are you trying to protect me from? What do you need from me? Get the felt-sense of the critic and draw it out!
3) Get to know the criticized part of self. Really allow yourself to lean in and feel what it is like to be the recipient of your inner critic. Welcome that part. Be curious. What does that look/feel like? What does the criticized part need/want to say to the critic part? How could their relationship be more useful?
4) Consciously, develop a positive attitude about your creative process. Ask yourself the miracle question*: If I went to sleep tonight and in the middle of the night a miracle happened which completely altered my inner critic and I could meet my work without resistance, what would this look/feel like when I woke up? Really lean-into the feeling of how this would be. Draw it out. Make as many images of this as you can. (At a certain level, the brain does not differentiate between a real image and a created image).
5) Get to know the part of yourself that is your creative ally. She is willing to risk making mistakes; indeed she welcomes mistakes as a learning process essential to the creative act. She offers gentle encouragement, she listens to what the painting is saying, she knows when and how to incubate an idea, she thrives on the experience of total immersion; she is a master of flow. She sets herself clear intentions and stays connected and present, attentive to the unfolding of these intentions and their resultant creative acts. Oh and by the way, she thinks you’re fabulously creative.
6) Reframe your creative process – just as you use a viewfinder to find your preferred composition, use a viewfinder to reframe how you enter your creative process. This viewfinder is your safe container. Create from within this space; the willingness to be with what is, the welcoming friendly attitude, the sense of allowing, of ease, of flow. As the safe container becomes stronger, the critic becomes quieter.
* I was introduced to the Miracle Question technique by art therapist Irena Stenner. I have also explored and adapted the process of Focusing Oriented Art Therapy by Laura Rappaport.
Return to Transformative Art