Make Peace with your Inner Critic (Free Workshop)
Do you struggle with a harsh inner critic? Most creatives do.
But you can rediscover a sense of freedom and find joy again in your creative process.
This free workshop is going to be interactive. Bring a pen and paper and get ready to set yourself free!
Join me Live on SUNDAY at 7pm (UK) and get notified by joining our free community https://zurl.co/qSWO
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Week Four of the dare to create free workshop series. So, this week, during my Thursday lives, I been talking a lot about goals. And in the latest ones, we looked at setting goals and staying the course. And you know, even when the going gets tough, however, sometimes there is an inner voice that stops you from actually moving forward. And so we need to look at this in order to be able to set goals for life, and then move forward with them and put them into practice. Now, my name is Elisa Di Napoli, if you haven't met me before, I also go by a disabled purse, which is my performers name. And one of the things that I do that I'm passionate about is that I help creatives get their projects out there into the world. So they can share their gifts, their unique gifts, and shine their unique light into the world. Because let's face it, the world needs it, especially this side. Now, if you don't deal with the inner critic, you will not move forward. in life in general, especially when you set goals, the voice will get louder and louder and louder, that you will believe in more and more, and eventually can lead to paralysis, even creative block. So today, I want to share with you a fun way to work with it. Now let me just check, whoever is online at the moment, if I can see any comments, feel free to send me a message or leave a comment. Hello, Margo. I can see you. So let's start then. How do you deal with the inner critic? Well, there's many techniques, right? Some people think that we should argue with it almost as if we're in a tribunal. And we've got, you know, the accusation, lawyer, the prosecutor, we've got defense, other people think that we should silence it, which banish it with rituals. But the thing is, although some of these techniques may work, to some extent, what you resist tends to persist. So I wouldn't recommend using these Hello, shallotte, I would, I would didn't recommend using this technique, because doesn't really work 100% sometimes it can actually cause more of a problem rather than help you to find a solution. So today, we're going to find a fun way to deal with this. And first of all, before we get into the nitty gritty, because this is going to be a very hands on workshop. So we're going to do actual exercises, not just me talking. But just before we get on to that. I want to you know, a lot of people ask me, Well, why why do we have this inner critic, you know, is it just me. And a lot of us think that it's just us that it's just, there's something wrong with me, and I'm so negative on everyone else doesn't have this voice? Well, the good and bad news is that everyone has got this voice to a certain extent, to a more or lesser extent. And it tends to be an internalized parent voice. Now, that doesn't mean that it comes to your parents in May, especially if you had very critical parents. But it could come from other people as well, like siblings or teachers. Basically, it comes from negative conditioning, and the world is full of negative conditioning. So it's part of being human, we all have it. But when we internalize it and it becomes unconscious, that it takes charge, and then we have no way of dealing with it. So the first step is that we need to become aware of the voice. And the second step is that we need to not take it so seriously. And the third step is that we need to replace it with much more nurturing, loving, compassionate permission statements, permission statements to just be us. So let's start with the practical side of this workshop. And so if you
if you are ready, what you will need is some paper, so just some paper like so, and a pen and you need to just be comfortable. Preferably if you can sit down with your feet flat on the floor, your hands by your side that can help but make sure that you can very easily write down things that come to you without losing the state of attention. So what we're going to do is we're going to relax the body a little bit with some breathing and some exercises, mindfulness exercises, and then we're going to start writing, okay, and then I'm going to ask you to do something with that writing. That's very fun and practical. So, let's set our intention for today. So the intention is to make peace with the inner critic, and to access creative freedom. So I invite you to actually write it down. My intention is to make peace. And I'm doing this video with my inner critic. And access, creative freedom. Right. So just take that in. And let's begin by having our feet flat on the floor, your hands by your side. And just focus your attention with your back nice and straight, your head looking forward on a spot in front of you doesn't really matter whether it's on the ceiling, whether it's on the wall, but just look at this spot. Right now, unless start by with our eyes open. Looking at this spot, take a deep breath in through your nose. Hold. And then let's say it have to start with really empty your lungs completely. Keep your eyes on the spot and other deep breath in. Big breath in, stop hold on this time through the nose, just through the nose, keep your mouth closed, until there is no more air in the lungs. And then again, the breath in, hold through the nose mouth close, really slow, try and make that a bread real slow. Now, when you're ready, close your eyes. And let's continue to breathe like this for as long as we need to really be in to relax, to arrive in this space right now. So just a few more deep breaths, maybe three, maybe six. Just arrive empty your lungs. Notice that pause after the out breath before you breathe in again. Imagine your bellies like a balloon inflating out as you breathe out, you deflate it, you let go of the data you let go of the to do listen again. One last deep breath breathing in calm and relaxation. And as you breathe out, breathing out any tension in the body and in the mind, keep your eyes closed. And just pay attention. Be mindful of your sensation in your body. What are you feeling if you were to scan your body from the bottom from your feet up almost like a photocopier or a scanner. just noticing what's there. You're not trying to change anything right now. Maybe there are no sensations, that's fine too. Going all the way up to your head. Notice what you find. And see if you're gonna let it be what it is without judgment. If you notice the judgment, that's okay. Just a knowledge on judging this feeling. That's it. That's enough.
Now as you keep on breathing, you can continue to breathe deeply if you need to relax more. Otherwise, you can go back to your normal breathing now. And what I want you to do is keep on listening with your whole body. So for example, we've been paying attention to the sensations of the body. But what if you were to pay attention to the feelings, if any, any emotions that you may be experiencing right now. Again, Try to be as curious as possible. Try not to have any judgment good or bad. Let it be what it is, can you sit with what you find?
Maybe you feel calm? Maybe you feel a bit anxious? Maybe you're feeling happy? Maybe you're a bit annoyed? Whatever it is, can you sit with it? Can you just let yourself experiences feeling without trying to avoid it, or holding on to it? just noticing it's there.
Next, what I'm not invite you to do is to invite your inner critic in the room. Imagine that your inner critic is a person and is now just about to sit next to you. Imagine what that inner curry looks like. Is it a man or a woman?
What is that they look like in your imagination.
And now, I want you to turn towards him or her with your eyes closed. And as you pick up your pen, you can mindfully pick up your pen. And then close your eyes again, just for a moment. I want you to imagine that they are going to speak now to you in the way that they normally speak to you with that critical, negative voice. And you are going to be the stenographer, you're going to be the Secretary and you're going to transcribe what it is that you're hearing from their mouth. So you can then open your eyes just mindfully, you open enough so that you can see what you're doing. And then only when you begin to listen to hear the voice. You open your eyes and you begin to write it down. I'm gonna do this with you. We're gonna do this for a few minutes. So take your time. Whenever you're ready, start writing
If at any point you feel like you've got nothing left to say just send me a message or leave a comment. When you're done.
I'm done. So I'm just going to wait for you guys. When you're done, leave me a little comment. So I know I can move on.
Okay, right, so everybody's finished. And now comes the fun. Now this is when I, what I want you to do is to choose a number between one and four. So either 123 or four to the number. And then I want you to write down these things. Now these are just suggestions and you can also have your own okay, but the point of these is that they need to be a bit extreme. So what I want you to write down is for number one, a spoiled whining child so just write down a spoiled whining child. number one.
Number two is a drunk or stoned or otherwise drugged person. Someone out of their mind with some kind of drug of choice. Alcohol, whatever it may be. So drunk stoned. Whatever person number three, a cheesy game show host cheesy game show host
the fourth one is a porn star. Yes, you heard right porn star. You'll see what I mean in a moment. So Now, what I want you to do, and I'll give you an example. So I'll put myself on the spot here for you, and make a fool out of myself. And this is kind of the point not to make a fool of myself, but to make a fool of the inner critic. So what we're going to do is, I want you to basically read out loud and act out loud what you have written down, but with the voice that corresponds to the number that you chose. So for example, if you chose a spoiled whining child, because you chose number one, and I want you to read what you wrote, with a voice of a spoiled, whining child. So I'll give you an example of my awful inner critic voice. So whining child, oh, what's the point? Nobody cares about what you think, say or create? irrelevant? Whether you live or die, do something or don't it doesn't matter. See what I mean? Or if it was a drunk, or stoned person? I don't know. I hope I can do this properly. But like, you could see his to exist right now. I want to make a difference. I want to make a difference. You're no you're not that good. You know, I'm not very good at doing that. But it's not the point of being good. Yeah, you could change change that if you want for like a Nazi, okay, that would be quite funny as well, like a real harsh person, but over the top, or a game show hosts. So for example, what is it and there is no point in making albums or writing books. No one cares about them. You are deluded. If you think it really matters, you might as well try just got a normal job. You know what I mean? Or a porn star porn site can be fun, very seductive voice. You may as well not try. Just get a normal job. There is so much competition. So you see what I mean, the point here, if this makes you laugh, give me a little thumbs up, you know, it's it's to stop taking it so seriously. Okay, so get up to get out of that serious voice and to make it ridiculous. So it doesn't have to be one of these four. It could be your own version, okay, it could be a clown, it could be something else that you know, would be absolutely ridiculous. But I invite you to do it now. To do whatever you as much as possible. When the voice comes. You just transform it into something completely stupid over the top because you want to be aware of it, and you don't want to take it seriously. Does this make sense? So I invite you to do this, and let me know how it feels. And I mean, do it now.
And then just let me know. Leave a comment.
So that I know that we can move on because there's a couple more things I want to do with it.
And the next thing that I invite you to do When you're ready, and know that you can always go back to this, yeah, great, fantastic. So the next thing I want you to do is to divide your paper into three columns. Right on one in one column, we go into just write, we're going to have what you have just written in sentences. Now, you can do this later, because of course, this takes a bit of time, okay, but I'm going to, I'm going to explain. So, on the left hand column, I want you to write down the actual sentences on their own. So for example, you know, I've got what's the point, then I've got nobody cares about what you think, say do a create. And I've got irrelevant, then I've got, you know, I go on and on and on, right? So for each one, just have one line per sentence. If you want to speed things up, you can just label them ABCD, etc, and go forward. But it's good to have the sentence on the left, that is very clear. So you know, okay, what's the concept behind this? Okay, for me, it's futility relevance not mattering that kind of stuff. So, on the left, we've got the sentences just writing them on the left hand side, clearly, one by one. And what we want to do with that afterwards, it's in the middle, we want to write on the top, I want you to write where might have I pick that up? Where might I wear my? Have? I picked that up? Right? So why did I pick it up? Where I could have I picked it up? From whom? Is it school, parents, siblings, TV, magazines, whatever. Yeah. And and the idea is that you answer that question, you write down where you picked it up. And before you complete this, just let's I'm gonna tell you what to do. And then you can go ahead and complete it. So like I said, left hand column, just a sentence one by one middle column, where most I might have picked it up and on the right hand column, I want you to write whose model Am I copying? By believing basically his model Am I copying and believing in that? Is this something that is worth modeling? Okay. Yes or no? Is it something that I want to actually model? Is it a belief? Is it a model that I want to keep? Is it worse? modeling this basically, right? What did he pick it up? And is it worth modeling?
The idea is that you want to build awareness. You want to become a conscious of where these voices are coming from. Is it your mom as your dad as you do? That teacher that put you down? Is it your brother, is it people at school, what is it a lot of the time is from our childhoods.
I'm just going to give you a few minutes to do this because it is important. And then we'll do one last thing.
And for example, you know, it might be that sometimes people say to me, oh, it's just my voice, this is my voice, okay. And sometimes it is a voice that comes out of experiences. So it might have been that an experience in your life made you feel irrelevant, in my case, right or, like you didn't matter. And so you may have an image coming of that time, that experience. So you can write that down. Oh, this is this comes from that time when such and such thing happened. And I as a child, not having the tools to correctly interpret what was going on, I drew the conclusion that I am not good enough, or whatever it may be.
Now, of course, it takes time to do this. So we're not going to do all this together. But just get a couple done, so that you know what you're doing. And then you can keep going after this workshop on your own, and you can go through each and every sentence and really dissect it becoming aware of where or how it formed. And whether it's worth keeping whether this model, this judgment, this belief is worth keeping or not. Okay, so one more minute.
Okay, now we've got the hang of it. Once again, keep going later. Don't just stop here. This is very important. Okay. Once you once you got that, what we want to do is, I want you to now once again, close your eyes and put the pan away just for a second. And take a deep breath in. And take a deep breath out, let it go. Let's just do these a couple more times. Breathing in holding and letting go. Let your shoulders drop and again while assign the breath in through the nose. Hold although there let it all go as you breathe out nice and slow. Let it go. Okay, I'm tingles lungs. Now keep your eyes closed. And I want you to imagine I invite you to imagine now to bring to mind an image or a phrase that represents someone showing you unconditional love and kindness. Maybe it's a pet that you love. Maybe it's a person. Maybe it's someone that has died. Maybe as a spiritual being. Does not matter. Whatever feels right to you imagine. This presence represents unconditional love, acceptance, kindness and compassion.
Notice how it feels to have this energy of love. kindness and compassion directed towards you.
Imagine this person is so wise, full of acceptance and love, no matter what you do all say it's a nurturing presence and it gives you permission to be who you are 100%
perhaps there's a place in your body where the pain wants to leave, maybe a sense of resistance. And they never will release. Just let it do its own thing, sometimes is a sense of freedom. Sometimes it's pain for having haven't been prisoner for so long.
When you feel that sense of absolute acceptance, permission to just be you.
Then ask yourself, what would this presence say, in response to all those sentences? If I was given permission to just be me, what would be the answer to all those sentences one by one. And so you can then at that point, open your eyes and keep that presence inside you keeping that unconditional love and compassion and acceptance in you that look at that first sentence. And ask yourself if I was to give myself permission if I had permission to just be me, what would be the answer to this?
These are your new, positive, empowering statements. What you choose to invite in your own life now to replace those old, unwanted toxic, unneeded
beliefs and statements and start to write them down. These are your power statements, your mantras, your affirmations, your suggestions, whatever you want to call them. Your deeper truths so write them down and just start by writing down. Maybe a couple of them
Bonjour Elisa
Fine…
ok
yes let’s leave it there for now… thanks
totally welcome.