Healing Creative Anxiety

One thing that’s been essential for me in overcoming the inner critic is understanding that it’s a state (like being crabby or tired), not a legitimate perspective. I’m naturally more critical of my work after 4 PM, or when I’m not getting enough sleep or exercise. It’s not logical or reasonable.

As a result, there’s no negotiating with the devil. Trying to write when you’re in a state of inner criticism is kind of like tossing a cat in a bathtub. No matter what kind of evidence you compile to defend yourself, the inner critic will step up its game. Proving yourself to the inner critic is like sticking a straight A report card on the refrigerator of Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan doesn’t care about your academic performance, he’s just there to sack the fridge. Same as your inner critic, it’s not actually there to improve your work, it’s there to devour you.

Now, I say this with great sensitivity to the difference between anxiety and nerves. Anxiety is a DSM-5 term and I’ve been treated for it. If you’re dealing with more anxiety than you can handle, find a doctor who you can have an honest and understanding conversation with. Still and all, I have a library of resources that I use to keep my mind healthy and creative (not destructive).

Over time I’ve created a battalion of seduction. If I feel myself falling into a slump these are the handlebars, I grab to pull myself back up. Usually, I’ll choose 3-pronged strategy to get me from a place where I’m stuck to a place where I can use my life’s challenges as inspiration.  I call it my trifecta. A trifecta might consist of:

·         Journaling, exercise, and green juice.

·         Meditation, asking for guidance through a card reading, and a walk through nature.

·         Stop drop and declutter, EFT and a long conversation with a friend.

Having a trifecta can start to lift you out of a place where you feel bewildered. As we get deeper into the process and move down the chakras, fears can rise because all of this gets more real. When it gets more real, resistance gets more real. It’s easier to daydream about being an author than it is to start writing a book. It’s easier to start writing a book than it is to finish edit and publish a book. And it’s easier to publish a book than it is to grow an audience and make an impact on the world. This is why it’s important to take notes and incorporate your struggles into your work. Wounds carry so much wisdom.

My husband told me one of my favorite artist stories of all time, when Matisse began Drawing with Scissors. I like it so much that I ask him to repeat it to me when I’m down. He, of course, tells it in Spanish, but it goes something like this…

At the beginning of World War II he was on the cusp of his seventies, and his body was deteriorating in such a way that he could no longer hold a paintbrush as he had before. Matisse was known throughout his career for his bold paintings, with confident lines that could express a woman in one swift stroke.

But in 1941, Paris was crumbling around him under German occupation, his marriage of four decades had ended, and he was bedridden because of his illness. However, he asked his nurse for a scissors and started to cut up colored paper. In the darkest period of his life, he made his brightest, liveliest work.  Drawing with Scissors is a testament to what the human soul can create from pain and grief.

Even if you’re beleaguered by the heaviest of inner critics, you can use that in your art. Is there an aspect of that critic you can use to enhance a character or as an example of how to overcome difficulty? As Marcus Aurelias famously said, “What stands in the way becomes the way.”