I’ve read a lot of different advice about the inner critic, and I’ve gotta say: something is missing. There is advice about ignoring your inner critic, drawing a picture of it as a monster, telling it to shut up… basically a bunch of ways to avoid and silence it. It makes sense! The inner critic can feel nasty. It can sound like every careless teacher, every dismissive parent. It can bring out the harshest darkest parts of ourselves, and make us doubt, hate everything we do, give up and ultimately not create anything at all.

The Shadows by Annalee Kornelsen. All rights reserved

Hot take incoming:

I believe the critic loves you and wants you to live.

The inner critic has a really important job to do. It has been training for years. The more you push it away, the more it will pop up because it is a clever mechanism for keeping you alive.

The critic uses any means to prevent us from being rejected. It berates us to keep us from being berated by others. Bigger, scarier others that used to stand between us and resources back when we were too small to get them for ourselves. Love and belonging are as fundamental a need as food, water, and shelter. So if expressing yourself once put you at risk of rejection, then when you sit down to write, draw or send that newsletter your inner critic might be screaming at you like a parent watching a toddler heading right for the wood stove.

The secret to befriending your inner critic? Timing.

The way I see it, the critic can also be the arbiter of taste. It knows what we like and don’t like, It keeps us in alignment with our preferences and values. At its best, it allows us to self-teach, learn, grow, and improve. The main issue is timing.

Most of us bring the critic in right from the beginning, in fact, for many of us, the critic never goes away. It is always peering over our shoulder making comments and adding its two cents.

In order to create, you need time to safely explore. You need to be allowed to write one sentence or pages and pages with horrible spelling and punctuation. You need space to take risks and be out of key. You need to be allowed to mash all the colours together with total impunity! You need a draft phase. You need playtime. No censorship. No expectation.

Here’s the fix. May I introduce you to: “Thank you, but not yet”

Not “go away”. Not shut up. just… not yet. This says, “I value you! You are needed and important. Your input is valuable to me. Just not yet because you can’t critique something that hasn’t been made yet. It needs to exist first. This makes the critic relax a little bit. Loosen its grip. maybe even purr. Here’s the thing: you must keep your promise. At some point in the process, it will be time to invite the critic back in and ask for their input, but you get to choose when and how this happens.

How to collaborate with your inner critic SAFELY:

Like any good dog, the critic needs a job to do, and that job needs to be in service of the ultimate goal: getting you closer to your truest self-expression

Ask it specific questions like:
“What do you like about this?” “How does it make you feel?” “Does it say what you wanted it to say” “How could it be even more “me”?”
Give it a specific job to do: Like an overactive toddler, or a border collie. “round up all the comma splices!” “this pass we’re going to focus on sticking to the rhythm! Make sure we stay in line!”
Ask yourself : “What does good mean?” “what does “done” mean?” “How perfect does this need to be in order to get my message across?”

I have a deal with my inner critic. It’s not allowed to say a thing until I’ve made the thing. If we hate it when it’s done, then we’ll start again if we have to. But we. have. to. start.

xo Annalee

Are you ready for a fresh new start with your inner critic? I work with my clients to integrate parts like this into their inner ecosystem and stop the war with themselves. Learn more here.

How to tame your inner critic