The inner critic is a daunting beast, capable of sidelining an artist’s progress–dare I say an entire career–if given too much unmerited attention.
I’m encouraged by Vincent van Gogh’s words here. Pretty sure he battled his inner critic now and then. I admire his tenacity and courage to tackle it head on. I must confess, I’d rather not write then battle the mantra of doubt pinging around inside my head.
Several weeks ago, I heard some profound teaching by Allen Arnold on the concept of creating with God, as opposed to pursuing life alone. He feels so passionate about his philosophy that he wrote an entire book about it: The Story of With. If you’re interested, there’s a great interview with Allen here.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this teaching lately. Am I being lazy and procrastinating on my current writing projects because it just feels too hard and the critical voice is just too loud? Do I approach my writing life with an orphan mentality–falsely believing it is all up to me?
Your turn: How do you handle the critical voice that threatens to derail your progress?
photo credit: Lia Leslie via Unsplash
I know that critical voice for sure. I will have to look into Arnold’s work – thanks for the link. All we can do, is follow Van Gogh’s work – just paint, or write.
Sounds like a great book. i think its hard to to be confident of our creative projects until we find out some one else is. It’s like our inner critic is paranoid. Waiting for the confirmation of countless others. I like your statement about orphan creating. Makes me think.
Yes, my inner critic is very paranoid. 🙂
The orphan thinking comment has really stuck with me, too. Can’t say enough good things about the book I mentioned, The Story of With. Life-changing teaching.