Meet The Deflators: Our Ever-Present, Voices Of Discouragement

Have you ever noticed that the stories we tell ourselves to deflect from acting on our goals are actually highly creative? They’ve got great hooks, nuanced character development, breathtaking cinematography, and incredible dialogue. It’s almost as if “Marv”, (or: Majorly Afraid of Revealing Vulnerability, my term for the internal critic that lives in all of us) has a team of brilliant filmmakers at his disposal—let’s call them the Deflators—whose primary goal is to engage our imagination for the sole purpose of discouraging our imagination. Talk about irony.

The moment we get serious about a goal, “Marv” calls an emergency production meeting with the Deflators. Here are some notes from their production meeting back when I was getting started with my company, Big Muse:

Look, Deflators, I’m afraid Peter’s going to get himself into some serious trouble with this Big Muse idea of his. I need you guys to get busy with a movie we can project on the screen of his consciousness. We can even play the thing as he sleeps, but it’s got to be convincing. It’s got to make him understand that this business will fail and he needs to see how much harm the failure’s gonna bring him. We’ve gotta put him in touch with some of his most vulnerable childhood emotions.

And here’s an example of a little movie magic the Deflators put together for me. It was made of footage from when I was in first grade.

It’s winter. I’m walking home from the bus stop carrying a math quiz with one of the answers wrong. The incorrect answer represents the chance, however small, that my parents could stop loving me. I reason that if I’m not perfect, I might be left alone to freeze out here. My survival instinct kicks in. When I’m sure there’s no one looking, I crush the paper into a ball and push it deep into the snow bank with the heel of my boot.

In all fairness to my parents, I can’t exactly say where those ideas came from. Maybe from fairy tales I’d read, maybe from some Disney movie (lots of traumatic stuff in those things), but the point is that those fears I experienced felt real. They actually caused me to lie and to hide the source of my shame, regardless of the fact that there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d actually be rejected by my parents, let alone cast out into a Minnesota winter’s night. But there you have it—the Deflators created a little cinematic gem, which on some hidden emotional level said, “Don’t be less than perfect or you might die.”

These kinds of negative thoughts are very seductive, and with- out some means of interdiction, they have a way of slowly draining the air out of your dreams. You need to be aware of how your own mind works and catch yourself before you get too far down the negativity track as you begin working on an idea. Recalling the Zen tradition I mentioned earlier, maintaining a sense of being an observer—that is, being able to relax and see what’s happening around you without falling into a stew of raw emotions—is key. One trick you can do anytime and anywhere to relax your mind is to take three very deep, very slow breaths. Try slowly breathing in through your nose and out through pursed lips as though you were exhaling through a straw. I find myself doing this several times during the day and it works wonders. When you are relaxed you can begin to bear witness to how your mind works. By maintaining a calm objectivity you stay free to act in the moment.

But beware: Oftentimes the more creative we get, the more creative the Deflators get. If we can stop and see them for what they really are, then we can enlist them in producing the movie we want to see.

The Ancient Greeksunderstood this concept. In the story of Orestes, the Furies are three monsters who attack and terrify Orestes day and night with their relentless criticism and ghoulish appearance, all because of a little family drama involving pride and murder (nothing like a little family dysfunction to get those Furies hopping mad).

Only when Orestes takes responsibility for his actions at a trial held by the gods do the Furies transform into “fairies,” or Eumenides, that guide Orestes as wise, loving spirits. Thousands of years old, this myth speaks volumes about the most basic cre- ative dilemma of all: Do we succumb to the voices that haunt us or do we take accountability for our lives and dreams and take action? Even though they were vexing, Orestes didn’t angrily banish the Furies. He accepted personal responsibility, reflected on the Furies’ positive virtues, and only then were they transformed into wise guides.

We break the cycle when we recognize what’s taking place in our minds—when we understand that the negative feelings that crop up to quell our dreams are really the products of our own fruitful imaginations. We need only begin to take the small ac- tions toward our goals to break away from the negativity. When we do that, we change the Deflators’ directives and orientation. Then they immediately bring their awesome skills and come to work for us.

Brain Bottle Opener 4: Fear-reduction Benefits

We know what fear wants you to see. What do you want to see instead? Try this:

Take three minutes to write down a list of ways that letting go of some of your fear would positively impact your life. Don’t list external benefits such as fame, wealth, or power. I’m talking about subtle internal benefits. For example, let’s say you have a dream of owning your own snow- boarding school one day. How would getting over your fear about finally taking the concrete steps toward owning the snowboarding school affect your overall mood, your sense of yourself, your relationship with your spouse or your parents?

An internal benefit might read something like this:

Reducing my attention to fear would allow me to create my own snowboarding school. With a thriving business, I would wake up in the morning on the top of that mountain with a strong sense of purpose knowing that I’m bringing joy to others.

Let’s say your goal is to ask your boss for a raise. Your internal benefit might sound something like this:

If I stopped being swept away by my fears, I could finally lay out an argument that would make my boss see why I deserve a raise. I would not only bring in some much-needed extra money, it would make me feel like I was taking more control over my own life. I would feel a greater sense of pride, and that pride would translate to my being able to show more affection to my family.

This BBO is particularly useful when you’re trying to find the strength to start something that’s particularly fearful for you. 

If you’re a teacher and have to deliver an important lecture to your class the next morning, or you have to give a presentation at work in front of your board, creating this list of Fear-Reduction Benefits will help. You will be able to push back against your fear-filled vi- sion and replace it with your own scenario of a positive out- come—one that derives from having more volition and subsequently more power to bring your ideas to fruition.

This article is an excerpt from my award-winning book Let Me Out (Unlock your creative mind and bring your ideas to life)