My Inner Critic

5 Kamal 162 B.E. August 4 - 5, 2005 A.D.

Everybody, whether writer or nonwriter, has an inner critic. It is the negative voice that shouts to you whenever you start to do something that is out side your comfort zone. It yells and ties your stomach in knots whenever you attempt something new. Sometimes it shouts in a familiar voice from one's childhood and sometimes it takes the voice of the person him/herself. We all know it when we hear it. It speaks to us in derogatory phrases and tells us we are incapable of succeeding.

Everyone has a different way of handling the inner critic. Some of us continue pushing, writing or whatever we are doing until it goes away. Some of use a system of rewards for not listening to it. Some of us have go so far as to describe it and found similar images in cultural icons or our personal lives; then went on to burn those images, shut them into closets or put them in trash cans to overcome that voice. My personal way for overcoming the voice is to say a prayer of protection before I start a writing project or any type of project that activates my inner critic.