What and how a person thinks about things can mean the difference between feeling at the mercy of obsessive-compulsive disorder or feeling in control of it.9
Using a meta-cognitive approach to apply new methods to deal with self-critical thoughts helps people reverse deep feelings of anxiety, shame, and the tendency to self-attack.10 Therapies based on meta-cognitive learning target the thinking brain, but they are also highly effective at rebalancing distressed mental states.
Further results from these studies indicate that with the proper structure, our aspiration to banish the Inner Critic is more than attainable – it’s likely. Consciously thinking about our thoughts in a different way not only alters the very circuits those thoughts run on,11 but also reshapes how we process information,12 and creates a long-term impact on our thinking patterns and brain pathways.13
Our minds are so much more powerful than we realize. In our quest to quiet the inner voice of heightened self-criticism, our thoughts can heal.
Through observing our mind and thoughts, we can learn to identify distressing emotional responses and unhelpful thinking about the self and the world. By using a framework for reappraising thoughts that previously have been emotional hooks or triggers, we can relate differently to negative thoughts, feelings, and memories.14 As we begin to challenge inaccurate thinking and modify beliefs, we can transform unwanted moods and behavior patterns for the better. Our brains can learn how to function differently, and we can break our Inner Critic “reflex.”
Build A Whole New Mind Frame
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
— William James, psychologist and philosopher
If you feel like your vociferous Inner Critic has continuously thoroughly thrown you off balance mentally and emotionally, that’s because it has. The brain is very good at building a neural structure from negative experiences,15 which means that the Inner Critic gets stronger from the repetition of toxic thoughts. This weakens our mental foundation. By repeating the Inner Critic’s mistaken beliefs, we’re inadvertently training our minds to grow ever more self-critical. If we’re not open to changing our thoughts, we will continue to harm ourselves with this habitual hurtful thinking.
Fortunately, we’ve just discovered unequivocally that the brain can change. From your own experience, you know that when you’ve built skills to a level of mastery, but then you discontinue their use, those skills deteriorate. For example, you took piano lessons for seven years as a child, but it’s been so many years that you can no longer read music. It’s been ages since you’ve played tennis, so you’ve lost your power serve. The Spanish that you spoke so well during your year in Buenos Aires twenty-five years ago has become embarrassingly rusty. When skills lie fallow, they become more difficult to employ with ease.
The fact that the Inner Critic is a result of habitual thinking like a skill or a reflex works to our advantage. We have the power to transform it and take away the source of its strength: the continuation of self-critical thoughts. It’s not the average daily thoughts that have the power to encourage robust mental health, however. It’s thinking differently by challenging unhelpful habitual thought-patterns and replacing them with new and improved ones that restore the mind to balance. And the exciting part is that this is not hopeful speculation or supposition; this is proven by science. The effects of intentional, mindful effort on brain function, errant neurochemistry, and even the very structure of the brain itself can be observed through neuroimaging.16
With the knowledge of neuroplasticity and our capacity to positively affect and transform the emotional brain, in terms of diminishing the strength of the Inner Critic and its hold on our thoughts and emotions, the field of what’s possible just opened up exponentially in front of us. In Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, Begley puts it beautifully: “We are not stuck with the brain we were born with but have the capacity to willfully direct which functions will flower and which will wither, which moral capacities emerge and which do not, which emotions flourish and which ones are stilled.”17 This, my friend, is a whole new ballgame. The opportunity to completely transform our Inner Critic dynamic is within our reach if we choose to pursue it.
But guess what? You already have chosen. By reading this book, you have already started upon the journey back to your Creative Self through banishing your Inner Critic.
The choice to focus upon different thoughts is at the very core of this process. For the noxious thoughts that the Inner Critic produces, a mind that questions, challenges, and chooses new thoughts to focus on is the antidote. By thinking new thoughts, the mind can make its own medicine. By intentionally changing our thoughts, we practice “top-down plasticity”18 which literally changes our brains.
Through thinking new thoughts, the mind can make its own medicine. To begin healing the affliction of an overactive Inner Critic that bars us from our creative selves, our minds are not only going to produce medicine, but also rebuild our creative health, one new thought at a time. With time and practice, our new mind frame will turn the Inner Critic’s once insistent roar down to the level of a whisper.
How will we do this? We’ll rewire our brains from the inside out through administering a Creative Dose.
Give Yourself a Creative Dose
“It is not enough that you have a refined sense why and when you become anxious: you must then do something.”
— Eric Maisel, Mastering Creative Anxiety
From this point forward, the habit of letting your Inner Critic disrupt your confidence and block you from the fullness of your creative capacities is over.
Through practicing certain kinds of mental training, our mind is capable of healing itself. Thus, much in the same way that medicine helps the body heal, the exercises in this book are named “Creative Doses.” The Creative Doses help us to create the medicine that is the antidote to the messages of the Inner Critic: new thoughts. Their purpose is to place you in a more clear-thinking and realistic mindset, helping you see the distorted attitudes of your Inner Critic more clearly and stop identifying with them. The exercises are designed to help refortify your sense of self – your Creative Self in particular. And much like medicine, the underlying concepts, practices, and tools of the Creative Doses have a cumulative effect: the more you use and apply them, the more effective they will become. We will also see ourselves and the path we need to take to get back to our creative power more clearly.
You may be thinking, “Think new thoughts?! If it were that easy, I would have done it already!” I hear you. Here’s the thing: most of us have not had all of the information or structure we needed to do that. Random, unfocused efforts produce random, unpredictable results. You may have been doing the equivalent of trying to throw darts while lacking both an actual dart and a bull’s-eye.
With the Creative Doses, however, we will embark upon a process of deliberate change based on the meeting point of neuroscience and psychology. Following in the footsteps of the studies using metacognitive learning, our process focuses on increasing awareness of our thoughts and emotions and shifting our attention to those that are more positive and supportive. Over time, this practice will effectively build new circuits of self-confidence, giving the well-worn self-critical thinking paths less activity and helping them to fade from disuse.
Despite sounding aggressive, this process of banishing the Inner Critic is actually a kinder, gentler approach. Force is not what’s needed. The Inner Critic has strong-arm tactics of manipulation through strong negative emotions down to a science. Fighting the Inner Critic doesn’t work, nor does criticizing or judging it. Resisting the Inner Critic doesn’t work either – I’m sure you’re familiar
