The Menstruality Podcast - 102. The Sacred Role of Your Inner Critic for Cycle-Aware Creativity (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

As cycle-aware leaders, nurturers and creatives we have a unique opportunity at our fingertips. We have access to an amazing inner technology for managing our inner critic. (You know…  that ever-present and frankly infuriating voice inside that likes to remind you that you’re not good enough, that freezes you into analysis paralysis, and that shames you into playing small.) In today’s podcast we explore how to restore this inner critic to its natural home in the cycle - the pre-menstruum - and work to put boundaries in place to contain it. Because, when it’s in its rightful place, the inner critic can actually become a creative ally. We explore:The truth that your critic will never become your best friend. It absolutely won’t! But it can become a life-bringing force, when you know how to relate to it. How to navigate the tricky terrain of your inner critic, and offer some guidelines for putting it back in its natural place, so you can experience its sacred role in your creative process. Our upcoming Inner Critic workshop on September 14th: Your Inner Critic: Your Gateway to Your Creativity where we will learn how to relate to it in a more generative way, and liberate our creative energy. ---The doors are now open for our Your Creative Power course, starting in September. You can find out more and take your seat here: www.redschool.net/creativity---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here and for tuning in. This week I'm back with Alexandra and Sharni and we're wrestling with a challenging figure who can cause all kinds of problems in our life, particularly when it comes to creativity.

And you've probably noticed we're a little obsessed with creativity on the podcast lately. This is the next in our creativity series that we're hosting in the run-up to the launch of our new Your Creative Power online course, which starts on September the 21st and we would absolutely love to have you with us. But today Sharni and Alexandra explore the unique opportunity that we have at our fingertips as cycle aware leaders, nurturers, creatives. We have access to an amazing inner technology for managing our inner critic and when we say inner critic we mean that ever-present and often infuriating voice inside us that likes to remind us that we're not good enough, that freezes us into analysis paralysis, that shames us into playing small. So in the episode they talk about how to work with this inner critic in a more generative way because when it's in its rightful place the inner critic can actually become an incredible creative

ally. And I think my favourite bit is when they talk about how your inner critic will never become your best friend. It's never going to do that but it can become a life-bringing force when we know how to relate to it. Well, I'm very much looking forward to getting into this next part of our creativity series with you, and it's a biggie talking about the critic but before we do let's see where we're all at I don't have any idea where you are Sharni normally I'm already plugged in where are you at you've been stopped tracking my cycle we spend three days apart and you lose track of me you can just add three to the last one I must be on day five or something I actually I was gonna say because you've been bleeding you've like you're you've been wiped clean all is

forgiven there's a natural amnesia that happens when you bleed it's like who am I where is what's happening with the rest of the world yeah so no I've been here all along while you dropped out your bleed Sophie I've still normal life's been going on for me I've been plodding along I've been plodding along and wound my way into my inner autumn um I'm day 20 today and uh yesterday I really felt the kind of change in tone and uh a kind of discoloring destabilizing feeling came over me yesterday and then today I mean today I'm just feeling really a lot of heartache actually and it's heartache that's been with me for months and yet now thanks to my in autumn it's erupting

you know it's rupturing and there it's a bit like a damn wall breaking there's no holding it back and that's both incredibly painful but also has a quality of relief about it it's very painful and beautiful at the same time and this morning when I was swimming in it and feeling very tearful and I just kind of had waves of emotion moving through me. I asked myself the question which I ask myself most days when I check in with myself which is like what do I really need today and what came to me was very simple was about staying with myself no matter what and um yeah so I've sort of been on the inside tiptoeing my way through the day to stay in contact with the heartache even as I've been busy you know we've been writing and creating and

riffing and debating and all sorts of things going on so far so good so let's see how the conversation goes wow it's really good to feel you and it that feels like very tender ground and appropriate ground for the conversation they're going to have sure is yeah and I'm hearing it in what feels like yeah kind of opposite part of the cycle or you know on the other side of the breaking down process that you're in as in yeah I do feel like a clean slate I feel very clean and clear and fresh and quite empty today delightfully empty yeah so I'm just going to take care that my critic doesn't

seize this opportunity to fill the void I was going to say the vacuum no thank you I will enjoy my emptiness thank you very much and I feel like we're synced, Alexandra. I feel like I'm, I bled on the new moon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can, I now know which day I shall be on. Cause I'll just check in with you. It's yeah.

I'm having a very kind of distinct precise experience actually of having been in this becalmed state of more more merged state over the new moon and it has a very um permeable and uh expansive energy to it and slightly altered and i can turn up and do stuff but i don't feel my egoic you know and this morning it was really funny i'd had a shit night a really shit night i can't even grace it with the word sleep and um but i got up and i had this kind of grunt you know energy it's like suddenly it's like i was in gear i think i'd found the gear because you sort of go out of gear in that winter zone you know that human zone i was out of gear and suddenly i found the gear again it was so distinct and um yeah whatever has been percolating over there because it's a very kind of sensitive dreamy time now it's like the dreams

the thoughts are now showing themselves i was having ideas today and there was a degree of discipline and focus that came in fascinating love this way of knowing each other through cycle awareness is so endlessly fascinating i love it we should start a podcast or something ah you know to walk us into this conversation about the critic, we received such a beautiful message from someone, from Sarah, you know, because we've been asking people for that to share their creative experiences and challenges. So I'd love to read this from Sarah. She says, thank you so much. This is amazing to me. I've been struggling to write my book on and off for 20 years now and everything you share here resonates with me. In this past month it finally became clear to me what my book's purpose is, the value I have to offer and I'm definitely to put it

out there and share it. My inner critic has been crushing me for 20 years. I'm terrified of what friends and people think. I know better than to be worried about that, but it feels blown out of proportion, like my survival is at stake. I've been writing like mad this month now that I have a clear vision. I'm in the deepest, juiciest creative flow with it, hoping, aiming to complete the core writing of it within this next month which may be a wild overreach but I want to give myself to this noon while the fire is here I'm 46 feeling the long days of the inner critic in my cycles I've been doing menstrual cycle

awareness for a number of years now and I'm so grateful Sarah sara it's just so glorious and and this isn't simple but i want to say it's sort of like a simple tweak you do we know once you know that about how you know the role of the critic and um it's sort of home in the menstrual cycle and it's home in the creative cycle and once you know that suddenly it's like suddenly something is released it's extraordinary yeah i mean it's a discipline to return it to to corral it to give it boundaries basically that's what we're talking about giving the critic boundaries and um that that requires some real muscle building

at the same time in many ways it's such a it's just a simple tweak. The thing I love about your story, Sarah, is how you coming into what your book is about and the value of what you have to say has created this, I want to call it a buffer in you. It's created a bit of a sanctuary around you. And it's also brought you into the wellspring of your creativity. And this is so true, which is why we go on and on about the importance of really receiving the vision and of course really taking time at menstruation because that helps us to receive the vision because when we're connected to the vision that is the jet pack to launch our action actually it's the fuel behind our action it's the inspired

action that we need in order to get going with whatever it is we're doing and I really love hearing how you're on fire with it you are absolutely I could hear you are in that flow place where it is just pouring through you I feel like you are in that flow place where it is just pouring through you. I feel like you're in a joy stream with it. And you've given yourself this time in which to really ride this wave of what's coming through you. It's so beautiful. That's the power of being able to really connect with the vision. It's great.

It's great. And how MCA has really helped you with that. And in a way, you've been inoculated against that fear that your critic has been poking you with, which is very intense what you said. It's like a life-death fear, which when I heard that I thought I think we all feel a version of that does feel like sometimes a matter of life and death our critic definitely takes us into that place and here the purpose of your vision has inoculated you against that.

It's very powerful. So powerful. I'm aware that there might be people listening who haven't really encountered the idea of the inner critic that much, or for whom it'd be really handy to hear what you mean by the inner critic and how you understand the inner critic in the context of creativity. So could you walk us into that? I always feel like I'm coming at this question completely afresh. What do we mean by the inner critic? Well, in its simplest form, it is that voice within us that sees only what is not working not right in inverted commas about us it's the negative voice it's it catches us doing things wrong, in inverted commas. It never catches us doing anything right. It never goes, hey, great job.

High five. It's probably sitting there having a grouch moment when you're succeeding, figuring out, I know, there must be some way to bring her down, there's something she's missed here. It's incredible. It's an extraordinary voice. It is the no in us. It's very dominant, this voice. It almost occupies the whole of the inner field of ourselves. It's like the default in us for most of us. And I think more so for women, actually, just because of centuries of patriarchy.

But anyone who is in a place of um feeling excluded in some way from society who feels marginalized because of who they are uh for whatever reason um i'm thinking of it particularly as a woman how i've experienced it where um it's like the being a woman is somehow the wrong and the right is the male you know and um so it kind of goes right back to that so it's not surprisingak, very not good. And it is it serves a very vital role in our being. But only if we know how to, well, firstly, become aware of it operating, because usually it's it's underground. It's subterfuge. We just feeling crap. We feel shame crap or you know fear or anxiety and we don't realize that it is this it's this underground presence that's getting to us and so we have to learn how to recognize that it's around and to separate out from it to be able to name it

and then the more we're able to do that then the more we change our relationship with it the more we can transform it into a figure that actually becomes a creative force in our lives although i have to add a caveat here it's never going to like us it's always going to be the critical voice it's never going to be your best buddy its role is to criticize and so you know this has been our work over years hasn't it shani about how to transform this figure into something that is actually life creating rather than life denying and in a way they have it in sarah's story of a life death experience with this figure yeah transform our relationship to this figure exactly in a way that it is becomes generative not because we change it um but because we relate to it in a way that really honors It honors its provocation as being creatively catalytic rather than nihilistic and destructive, which unchecked is what it becomes.

It just destroys. If we aren't at home in ourselves, if we aren't awake to the presence of the critic, it's in the driver's seat. And don't drive good. it is not a good driver it's not taking you where you want to go yeah so this is really the the magic when it comes to creativity is finding a different um relationship with it. Well, when you put it in that context, it really feels like it's a very aligned with this work that we're always doing to dignify the premenstruum, to dignify the inner autumn,

that to dignify the parts of us that our society would rather didn't exist and would rather keep quiet, shut up, go away, just be your summer bright, malleable self all the time. And it just feels like it's very aligned with this. There's a part in us that we probably would wish it was, would go, but it's actually doing something useful if we can relate to it yeah that is that is exactly right sophie jane because the inner autumn we spoke in a recent podcast um where we were guests about the shadow work of the inner autumn and that is what's happening in the in autumn which is the work we need to dignify is how what's unconscious is being revealed to us and that's very much part of what our inner critic

is doing it is pointing to what is unseen and what is unknown. And the way it points to it is actually very distracting, I want to say. It's so easy to get caught up in the drama of what it's pointing to and feel all hurt and wounded and like afraid and all of that. But if we can actually bring ourselves into presence, we can look to where it's pointing and it's pointing very precisely into something that was previously unknown or unseen it's illuminating something in the shadow in the collective shadow in our own unconsciousness or in the kind of creative shadow of what we're creating like the what's not working piece and we need that because we can't see what we can't see

we can't see what we can't see we kind of need this um we need this tussle in order for something to be illuminated yeah when you were saying that shani we need this tussle in order for something to illuminate to be illuminated i was actually going to finish that sentence with in order for something new to be born. Exactly. But that is. Yes. And I was I was actually particularly thinking of it. You spoke at the premenstruum and I just want to name menopause because in many ways, menopause is the great work of menopause is, you know, I want to say kneecapping your critic. Sorry, that's my naughty sense of humor.

No, no, I would never want, critic, I'm terribly sorry. I would hate to kneecap you. I grudgingly have to admit you're a sort of useful ally. You have, in your way, served me. But there is a real life-death moment in menopause, a real tussle with this figure. And do you give in to it or do you finally really claim yourself? And in that act of claiming yourself within this tussle, you actually then give birth to, you can really give birth to or liberate what you're about, what your calling is about. It is the awakening process at work it's profound and sets you up for your post-menopause years yeah so we are kind of

already answering this question of why the critic is so critical, as in crucial, in the creative process. I feel like we need to, because you said illuminate something new, and I feel like I just want to say, you know, how I'm holding creativity or, you know, what we're thinking of when we talk about creativity. There are many ways we could describe it and one way we can describe creativity is that it is this human capacity that we have to be able to generate something new something unique that both changes us the creator and also changes the world has an impact in the world in some way and for this newness to be generated or created

and your story or example of menopause alexandra really points to the cyclical wisdom that we are um being informed by here there's something new to be created something has to die you know in the story of menopause it's like our identity we let go of who we thought we were and who we have been in order to give birth to this more true more integrated more aligned place in ourselves and when I and when we think of creating anything it's exactly the same process that's happening something needs to die and I'm sort of thinking about what I was saying about the shadow and the critic which is that part of creating something is we think we know what we're doing or we go ahead and we have an agenda and where you know you know, we have a plan, right?

But the moment when creativity really, really starts is when we're confronted with this challenge. You know, it could be heartbreak. It could be some massive change in life circumstance. It could be criticism. It could be any number of things. But when we're confronted with this challenge, it stops us in our tracks and asks us really to put our agenda down. In other words, to drop what we think we know. To drop who we think we are, and to step into the unknown.

And that's, it's an ego death that's happening. We're having to surrender ourselves to a intelligence beyond what our mind is capable of knowing and that's what that darn pokey critic is doing it's poking us irritating the bejesus out of us just enough that we're going to hold up our hand and go, okay, okay, like, right, I'll stop. What is it? What you're saying here, Shani, is that when we feel the sting of criticism, and this is actually how I hold it now, actually, I go, oh, I'm in an evolutionary moment. There I was, trucking along, feeling smug and happy and thinking like, yeah, I've nailed this.

And then I give feedback. Oh, how I love feedback. Not, but I do know it's essential and um so my my egoic force is sort of interrupted you know and um and that tension that created things are born out of tension. We talk about creative tension. It's creative tension. The critical energy in any kind of creative endeavor is bringing in this creative tension. And it's how you meet that tension.

You know, I mean, I can often momentarily collapse and go oh no what's wrong why can't it just be nice and friendly and keep going be perfect so i have to have my moment of collapse and then um but yeah but because one is driven by one's need to create and because one has a vision and you've got chi your vision is driving you you stand up again and that creative tension then awakens something uh within me it interrupts something and in that interruption uh there's a possibility for something new to come through but it is it's it demands a lot of kind of inner work and presence of mind to meet it and to use it creatively if you like so um the inner critic is, the way I speak of it, is that it is an evolutionary moment, another moment,

when I say evolutionary, it's kind of another moment of expansion, something more into something better. And what that actually means is that we really are not creating anything on our own where there's good news, that's good news, and that's bad news. So I could share a story because this happened just recently, and luckily so we've already told you this, so this isn't the first time you're hearing it.

Your reaction will be graceful this time um just kidding maybe you were very graceful the first time um so here we were last week merrily creating this uh free event that we're going to be uh sharing and we had had a plan you know we had an agenda we thought we knew what we were doing or happily creating we created the entire event and pretty much and we were very chuffed with it and then um and then we checked in with Sophie we thought oh we better just check in with Sophie and see if this is gonna work okay you know From your perspective, Sophie, is this going to work? And you came back and were like, no, no, no, no. I really think we need to frame the event in this way. And you gave all kinds of good reasonings for that. After listening to your voicemail, we cursed and swore

and threw our, I don't know, what did we have to throw? We work on computers, so we can't really throw them, but we couldn't have thrown our computer out the window, we would have. And then we recovered ourselves and we're like, okay, so if the event's going to be about that and what happened was because we let the creative tension in and we let the different perspective in it took us from what was a good event into something that now is part of a much bigger thing. It really took us into seeing something we hadn't seen before. And it actually illuminated a piece of our life. Yeah, it brought this whole new life.

It illuminated ideas that we hadn't even come into yet. And, in fact, a whole piece of our creative power course has landed more because of the the whole disruption of this creating of this event um and this morning I was laughing and said to Alexandra you know there is nothing straightforward about creativity it always takes you on the scenic route you know down detours and it's so easy in any given moment to be like oh that was such a waste of time wow we spent the whole day doing that now we don't need that you know that kind of thing but the truth is all roads are leading to the birthing of the vision that you're holding even when it doesn't look that way and that's made me a little more humble in the face of you know feedback and

criticism and because I'm like oh yeah yeah yeah it's all leading it's all leading there even when it doesn't look like it in other words nothing is wasted nothing is ever wasted when it doesn't look like it. In other words, nothing is wasted. Nothing is ever wasted when it comes to creativity. And that's true in our lives as well. You know, nothing is ever wasted. Such a beautiful perspective. And I found myself thinking, how do we know this to be true? How do we know it's all pointing in that direction? But then what popped up in my mind was because we're cyclical

because our cycles show us exactly looping around exactly beauty exactly you get to the end of your cycle every month you're like it's all over that's it it's death i'm not going to be the same again everything's fucked and then what happens is you shift gears and it's like oh right it's this new life it all comes right again yeah that's how we know it's true because we feel it every month yeah and actually cycle awareness is really really builds your capacity to kind of remember that it's cyclical sorry that feels so corny it's it's it's so core to being able to transform this critical figure into something that can be generative that can be a partner within the creative process that you're involved in whatever it is that it actually can become a creative ally yeah it's so good holding that. That's what saves me because it does.

Dealing with the critic is holding that thought. If you're in a critic is loud like mine and you sense it's holding you back in your creative expression, in your life. We'd love you to join us for a workshop that we have coming up in September. So it's an interactive online workshop with Alexandra and Sharni called Your Inner Critic, Your Gateway to Your Creativity. It's on Thursday the 14th of September and in the workshop Alexandra and Sharni will explore how to set boundaries to contain your inner critic so you can experience more visioning, dreaming, playing and the experimenting that's necessary for creativity, but the critic loves to block. They'll share some practical steps for recognising what the critic is saying, like how to hear that voice and how to sort the

wheat from the chaff so that you can step out of shame spirals and harvest the learning from your critic and they'll guide you through an exercise to learn how to safeguard yourself from critic attacks and stand up for who you are and that's something that you can use again and again whenever you need to get a space from your inner critic and free up creative inspiration so you can join the workshop at redschool.net forward slash critic that's redschool.net forward slash critic it's so good to be alongside other cycle aware like-minded people when we're creating too because I'm actually remembering it was Lauren's idea I must say you know Lauren had this brilliant idea in our team meeting and I went oh it's a bell rang inside me and I hung on to it and it was that idea that I brought back to you but it's this when we're creating together as a group that's when it really gets both messy and

fantastic because there's even more room for disruption and I'm thinking of when we do begin your creative power in September we'll have peer pods so people can be together while they're experiencing their disturbance but also be supported and provoked through through whatever they're bringing through the course it brings that extra extra layer extra element because it can feel lonely creating yes oh my god yeah we can learn so much from each other's perspectives. And actually the peer pod is very much for that. It's like a little creative, you know, pot where everyone gets to learn from each other and support each other. Yeah, we do need that.

I've got a story too. And I think it might walk us into the next piece of this conversation which is really about okay so what is this sacred role what is what is the critic trying to do if we can contain it so my story of my critic my recent one was just a few days ago on my day two very tender very tired day two and I was preparing to teach the final part of your cyclical business so there were there's 175 people in the course I knew there'd be like sort of 40 or 50 people coming live I'd be on video and I went and looked in the mirror which is a dangerous thing to do on a tender place in the cycle and my critic was right there ready to give a very long and

detailed commentary on what I looked like that day you look tired you haven't done your hair you haven't got any makeup on you can't show up like that you can't be on video like that in fact who do you think you are what like who do you think you are to be doing any of this kind of thing what teaching you can't even think right now your head's just full of fluff and blah blah on and on it went and because I have been working with this beastie inside myself I knew to just take a breath like what was going on and say you know let's get some space from that I'm going to go and show up for this thing so let's show up and actually a really beautiful thing happened because Ruby who is on the mentor team I told the mentor team what how I was feeling and Ruby said oh Soph bring it

in like teach from that place please like show yourself us. And then I went and got the power card, let yourself be exposed. I thought, oh, here we go then. And I did. It was such a beautiful unfolding that happened in the session. You know, I was real. I told everyone my head was full of candy floss and they were all laughing and saying that they related and we were all humans together again you know instead of some me showing up with some mascarade quaffed fake professional mask I was just me on my day to tender and I love that story I love that Sophie

I just love that it makes me think of of how part of the way our inner critic behaves is it expects us to be superhuman. And I love, Alexandra, you've said this before. It's like, yeah, your critic doesn't have to live in a body or live in the real world your critic is like a disembodied entity that can you know surpass all the limitations of being a human in a human world with a menstrual cycle with you know a bad night's sleep all the stuff the stuff we have to put up with

our inner critics don't care for any of that they expect us to be superhuman and what you're saying Sophie is how when you let when you became aware that your inner critic was putting those demands on you to be sort of non-cyclical you know to be wherever you weren't in your cycle sort of more to be ovulatory you know in a summer not in a winter um and and and polished when you felt rough and so on and so forth when you noticed your inner critic doing that and you created some space for yourself it actually brought you into the vulnerability of your humanity and Ruby beautifully reminded you to rest in that vulnerability and that is of course how our critics inadvertently are humanized is humanizing us you know in its demand for us to be superhuman every time we object to that and stand up for our humanness we are made more whole we are made more real yeah I'm thinking back to what you said earlier about it's pointing at something and

then there's a lot of noise and hubbub and emotion around what it's pointing to but I feel if my critic was pointing at something there is exactly what you're saying it's a human yeah exactly taking you out of autopilot of what you think you should be and ought to be and when you catch that it steps you back into how you really are and that as we know is lifeblood you know being how we really are and being where we really are is really where life is happening so thank you critic for returning us there again and again yeah it actually liberates your energy it's actually incredibly energizing to um yeah stand up to that figure or meet that figure and um because all the stress falls away yeah yeah exactly you claim yeah exactly the stress falls away so so it's it's your it i want to go back to what we said

right at the beginning uh and you emphasize this shani that it's about our relationship to this figure um and the critic on its own just commenting away, nothing's going to happen. It's about you engaging with that. That is the turnkey that brings you into your humanity and lifts up your energy. Liberates your energy. I like that. Yeah, that creativity needs that. We need energy to create.

And a lot of our energy is pent up with our critics. So every time we do this, we are actually fueling our capacity to create. I'm actually thinking, Shani, of, you know, when we get feedback, for instance, on our work, you know, like when we were writing wise power and uh you know we put the book out for feedback and we got really great we chose people very wisely because we wanted critical feedback and um you know we were going oh geez how do we deal with that you know but uh or but it was the engagement with it that was very activating. And there were things actually we didn't agree with. You know, we actually claimed we felt more fiercely about what we had done in a particular place.

And, of course, we changed things, too. Yeah, bloody good point. Yes, that's great. And it was very if you can engage with criticism, it's very vivifying. It's another way of saying it's very liberating. It is. I'm so fascinated by that. And and how it sort of liberates the spirit of your what you're creating. So we kind of liberated the spirit of the book more um whether we agreed with everything they said or not it was our engagement with it and our tussling that um brought us into a new place in the book book the book to a new place i'm loving what you're saying here. And you actually wrote me a list of 11 jobs that the inner critic has when it comes to creativity, when it comes to the creative process, the things that we are birthing unique and new and I feel like reading some of these to you to hear what you want to say about them now

so the first one was to help you edit refine and mature your project yeah it's it's it's the polishing process it's taking the rough diamond of the first draft and really bringing it into a beautiful shining beauty yeah it's part of the whole completion of a project it needs this final stage of honing and refining it's not done until it's passed through this doorway really yeah and often we see things put out in the world that are unedited and unrefined and unpolished and they don't have the same kind of impact no they don't have the effect that they could have so it's really important for potency yeah yeah and it's tempting to skip over that bit because honestly it's like nerve-wracking so it's tempting to be like okay I've written something let me just put it out in the world and then move on to the next thing

it takes a lot of courage to go through this phase of the cycle, you know, the discern phase, the edit phase. But boy, is it worth it. You've put here that it creates precision and potency. And that's it, you can feel the potency of something that's really been worked through this part of the process, the solidity, the maturity, like like you said the robustness of it yeah yeah I mean you'll I mean you both know me well enough to know that I'm uh that I'm a big one for this I will debate a particular word or where a comma needs to go in the sentence for an extraordinary amount of time and the reason I do it is because that level of precision creates this coherence that to the naked eye most people would gloss over and wouldn't you know pick up but there is such an alignment that comes in the process of me really being with

the discernment of what it is versus what it is not. And it's one of my superpowers, irritating for other people. However, I really feel it creates this level of potency where, for example, when people receive our work, our work, the power of our work, for example, the power of our book goes beyond the actual information that's in there it actually has an effect on people and that impact has a lot to do with the precision of every single thing that's in that book nothing in that book has not been tussled over again and again you know and that that has given it this potency uh which I really stand behind I really I do too you know I see this at work all the time but I also have I've learned to lean into

it with you because I know when it's like we become like these two goats with horns and we start rutting yeah I feel the fit that like the fierce discernment rise in you and I've learned to go right let's get into this with where it's going to take us is so fruitful whereas in the past I yeah it would have been more irritating oh yes yes you must never never back down from creative tension yeah it's like walking away from a really good meal just don't do it Alexander's very quiet right now no i'm exactly the same words we will really fight over words because words have um atmospheres for me it's so interesting yeah and if if it's not right the tone's not right can't be with it it can't stay with it it's so interesting yeah so I think

what we're saying here because not everyone's a writer but what our critic is helping us to do here is get really clear about what matters to us and bring us into a deep precision with what we're doing and not to um just forgo stuff or um what's the word get lazy yeah it's not quite get lazy um oh it's to not sort of abandon what matters to us that's what it is yes yeah to not abandon what matters even as it may feel really small and nitpicking it's that precision that is ultimately leading to the potency of what you're doing you've put that here on the list help you to take a stronger stand for yourself and what you are creating authority baby it says and it's that it's like the more you are

with your critic and able to um relate contain do everything we're talking about the more you can play that role for yourself of actually standing in your authority and taking a stand for what you believe in and you know to be true yeah well what's with me right now is yes you're um you know trying to get the right word or whatever on whatever if you know in the case of our writing but in the process of tussling there's something happening within us as well so it's not just that your work whatever you're creating is getting refined there's something happening in your own being that's getting more solid and of course it's our authority it's us more and more getting behind and drilling into or drilling into and getting behind what it is that's working us what it is that is our vision

so in the act of creating something i am simultaneously being created i'm in the act of creating something, I am simultaneously being created. I'm in the act of evolving the work. I am myself being evolved and I am being stepped into a greater refinement of what I'm about and what I'm serving. And that's very delicious. And that's a lifelong work. This is, you know, as you get older and older, the more that you're stepping up to things, the more you come into this kind of sweet spot within yourself

from consistently meeting that creative tension and that critical energy. It's a very good feeling. It's a grown-up feeling. Yeah, and it's a necessary feeling when it comes to creativity because any time you create something you are you are going to need to step into a bigger experience of visibility it's part and parcel of creating because what we create goes out into the world and it gets seen and we get seen

whatever it is we're creating so this whole thing of coming into our authority is actually the work with our inner critic is growing our capacity to feel more ease and confidence with becoming more and more visible yeah which my goodness I know lots of us need I'm I'm really feeling the word sacred right now coming back to what you're saying what you were saying Alexandra about how we're growing the project but the project is growing us and that's where this word sacred really comes in for me because it's about us becoming ourselves which I feel really is probably the most sacred thing we could do and probably the biggest offering we could give to the world is to actually be ourselves so that what we are here to bring can come through yeah it's the most creative act. Yeah. It's beautiful.

Yeah. And also on a different level, I'm thinking about my water fountain. I was wondering about that. How's your visioning with Artie been going? Well, when you talked about the visibility, I thought, okay, the visibility thing has made sense to me in terms of my work in the world. But I actually thought, hang on, it's in my front garden. People have been walking past and looking at this garden I've been growing and planting.

And I, you know, I look out the window. Are they smiling? Do they like it? You know, is there something in me that is more visible? So this fountain, you know, a lot of people are going to see it and hopefully enjoy it. And I haven't made any physical progress because I've been doing what you told me which is being with the vision and dreaming with Artie and we look at it and we think about it and um I'm feeling it more and more but it's nice to recognize okay there's a part of me that is vulnerable because my neighbors are

going to comment on it and I've got one particularly feisty ex-fireman of a neighbor who likes to um take the piss out of me I need to be robust he's like the outer incarnation of my inner critic so I get to I love him he's a brilliant guy but he will take the mickey out of whatever i do so i have to be able to stand behind it yeah yeah yeah yeah you're gonna have to grow some muscle before the the fountain reaches your fun garden and this is what's funny is um the outer critics of which of course there are always a plenty and whenever we create it there will always it's absolutely 100 guaranteed he's still on report yeah you will receive criticism um and the places where that criticism totally undoes and does us is where our inner critic

agrees with the outer critic so that's what you need to get on board with really yeah that's what you need to get on board with that whatever he's saying you can really stand behind what you've done because you've met your own inner critic on the matter your next meeting after you've consulted further with arty is with your inner critic, Sophie-Jane. Well, that's what I'll bring to our workshop. Yay. To our inner critic workshop. Oh, perfect.

Yes, because that's going to be very practical. And actually, we're going to give you exactly the skills you need to be able to create a sanctuary around your vision, the vision you and Artie are holding, so that no one, not even that fireman, can shit on it as we like to say he would be very happy to know he's made it into this podcast fireman Chris thank you this conversation's been really uh I feel liberated after it you know I feel that the shame that can sit inside me

around all of these stories that my inner critic tells me, you know, when we yak about it a bit, it frees up some of that. So yeah, I want to invite everybody to join us on Thursday, the 14th of September for this workshop, your inner critic, your gateway to your creativity to lay down some boundaries around this creature within us and so we can stand up for ourselves and our visions and our creative

process looking forward to that and yeah thanks you too thank you sophie you're very welcome. Thank you so much for being with us today and for tuning in. If you haven't already, it really helps the podcast if you leave a review on Apple Podcasts and also subscribe to the podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps us to reach more people with this work so thank you so much for doing that and I'll be with you again next week so until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm