How to get unstuck creatively, and making peace with your inner critic

This afternoon, I’m heading north from London, returning to Scotland after a full and exciting 24 hours down south, and despite having the luxury of an entire train journey to write The Long View, I have found myself, today, creatively stuck. ??

If I am ploughing on at all, this is more due to stubbornness than inspiration - and because part of the deal of taking on the weekly challenge of writing The Long View is also exploring what happens when I open my laptop, and … nothing comes.

Struggling with visibility, and empathy

I think the issue is: I can’t shake the idea that there are people out there, actually reading what I’m writing.? I do know this to be true, and I am always thrilled to hear from readers when they write back, but I have always found I needed to keep the idea of an “audience” quite out of focus, in order to stand any chance of holding my nerve and getting through the tunnel of self doubt, to produce any kind of output, on the other side.

The fact that thinking about an audience sends me into a tailspin is kind of ironic, because the very best writing, teaching and campaigning happens, I think, exactly when the person holding the pen has very much held their audience in mind.? That empathy and care is often the thing that helps you to express yourself in a way that really connects with others.

I guess what I struggle with - and absolutely struggled with last night, when I celebrated the launch of a legal briefing for Lawmanity x IRMO - is being so visible.? The actual experience of watching people hold that report in their hands, and start to browse through the pages, minutes before I stood up to speak, nearly ended me.

“But Jen,” a colleague said, chuckling, “You didn’t write that report just for it to sit on a shelf, did you?”

No, obviously, I did not.? I really enjoyed the process of writing it, and I’m proud of this work with IRMO – Indoamerican Refugee and Migrant Organisation , an organisation led by and for the Latin American community in the UK, to produce together something that recognises, and responds to, one of the most pressing issues the community faces.

Furthermore, because IRMO staff and the parents they support are such talented and passionate people, I’m certain that they will take this report and it will play a small part in big changes to come, at the very least, for individual children and young people who will be one step closer to unlocking the education services and support they deserve. ???

What I didn’t enjoy, was having to stand up in front of an audience of my peers, my colleagues, and quite a few people I had never met, effectively, to say:

“This here is my entirely my work, or at least the mistakes and the bad parts that you might not like, and yes, it was absolutely the best I am capable of doing, at least for today."

[slowly backs into a wall, cue fade to black]

Our inner critic, our worst enemy ??

Audiences are mostly kind, and that means that when we stand up to present our work, unless we have really ticked someone off or are very unlucky, they will mostly respond sympathetically, and may even band together to support a shaky speaker to a solid finish.

Our inner critic, however, will start with the harshest and most unhelpful observations, and may well accelerate through an entire presentation, like a bike heading downhill with no brakes. ????

What could, or should, I do to make peace with my inner critic?

This week, I asked for help:

• My partner told me that I should be happy with the idea that I did the best I could, in the circumstances.? I wasn’t convinced - because, obviously, my best could be really inadequate.
• My psychotherapist told me I was being too abstract, and for once, she didn’t know what I was talking about.
• Then, I spoke to a friend, who is a filmmaker, and he reflected that presenting your creative work publicly is scary, and that’s the end of it. There is nothing to get over. That is just the price [of producing and sharing art].

I liked this last answer the best, because it felt real, and also reminded me that - in a way - the decision to face our fears (and our inner critic) was already made by us at an earlier stage.?

More precisely, at the start of the project: in the moment when set our mind on expressing an idea, or a feeling, or way of seeing the world, publicly to other people.

...

I'm still looking for answers, and have clearly resolved none of my awkwardness about presenting my own work, although I have at least (with relief) made it to the end of today's article!

Thank you for reading, and I would love to hear from readers: what you do when have a piece of work and become creatively stuck, and do you have any good advice on making peace with your own inner critic?