People dont just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. -Albert Ellis
The Inner Critic can be the writers worst enemy. Each time we sit down to work, it feeds on our insecurities, reminds us of past failures, and criticizes everything we put down on paper.
Until now youve probably thought, like most people do, that the Critics sinister whispers should be brushed away so you can try to get back to work. But brushing them away is the worst thing you can do, because youre not dealing with them. And that means theyll just come back.
But you know that. Thats why youre reading this article.
Imagine a room with a floor that settled a little too much, and now everything is tilted in toward the middle. If you drop a basketball on the floor, it will roll to the middle. You can push it back toward the wall, but as soon as it loses momentum or hits the wall, its going to roll right back.
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Now imagine yourself sitting right in that sunken spot in the middle, and imagine ten basketballs. If they settle against you, its hard for you to write, so you have to push them away. Even if its a really big room and the basketballs are leisurely, repeatedly pushing ten basketballs away is going to keep you from getting much writing done. Youd be better off dealing with the problem directly: gathering up the basketballs and getting them out of your way.
The Critic does the same thing as those basketballs. It keeps you so busy trying to ward it off that you dont get much done.
So lets talk about how to pick it up and get it out of your way.
LEARNING TO LISTEN
The activities well do below are based on the work of Albert Ellis, the man whose quotes are peppered through this article, and Aaron Beck. Both men believe that irrational and distorted thinking are the true cause of most problems.
Ellis believes that we make ourselves miserable with three main musts:
* I must do well or Im no good
* You, you louse, must treat me well or youre worthless and deserve to roast in hell
* The world must give me exactly what I want, precisely what I want, or its a horrible, awful place (1)
Beck, meanwhile, has come up with a big list of distorted thinking patterns including:
* Overgeneralization: viewing a negative event, like receiving a rejection letter, as proof of a larger pattern: you are a failure across the board
* All-or-nothing-thinking: theres rejection/failure and acceptance/success, and nothing in between
* Emotional reasoning: you feel like a failure, so you must be one
DIGGING IN
The first thing youre going to do is spend some time writing down all the nasty things the Critic says to you. Often people say, It makes me feel bad and I want it to go away, and you want me to pay more attention to it?
Yes, thats exactly what I want you to do.
Heres why: you have to know your enemy to fight it. Until you can hear all of its insults, you wont know when or how to fight back.
Once you start to pay attention, youll notice that the Critic knows just which things will make you feel the worst, and it repeats those things the most. Part of what makes it so virulent is it knows your deepest insecurities and fears, and those are what it uses against you. Its successful because youre afraid those things are really true.
Worse, its stealthy enough that most of the time youre not consciously hearing what its saying to you. Youve been listening to it for so long you hardly even notice its voice. Instead, you assume that your reactions or fears are based in objective reality.
Especially because it uses insults that are hard to defend against. For example, its hard to argue with Youre not creative enough because its hard to define what creative enough really is.
EXERCISE 1: A-B-C
Our secret weapon: the ABC model.
We use a chart for our homeworks in CBT. There are 5 columns, which well label A, B, C, D, and E. For right now were just going to worry about A, B, and C though, so create 3 columns on your piece of paper (you may want to turn the paper horizontally so you have more room to write) and label them A, B, and C.
B Stands for Beliefs
To start, write down all the nasty things the Critic says to you under column B. Even the things that seem small and silly. Be sure to include any phrase that uses the hot words the Critic likes best: should, shouldnt, must, mustnt, have to, cant, etc.--words that make us feel stuck because they dont leave room for alternatives. And sometimes the Critic uses memories or pictures, so write about those, too. What is your Critic trying to make you think or believe?
Ex: I dont know why I even bother sending out queries, I always get rejection letters. Obviously I dont have any talent and I just look stupid to everyone who sees my work. I should just give up and admit Im no good.
Dont be surprised if your list is several pages long!
For some people, this may be difficult. If you feel really angry, or small, or sad as you work, thats all right. In fact, the more difficult it is to write, the more important it is that you do it and the better this is working.
C Stands for Consequences
As you work, write down any emotions youre feeling in the C column; that is, the emotional consequences to the beliefs in column B. Some statements might make you angry, some might make you sad, some might make you anxious. Just write it all down, and dont worry if youre repeating the same emotions beside different kinds of Critical thoughts.
Ex: Hopeless, depressed, hurt, angry, worthless
A Stands for Activating Event
Now. Every time you sit down to write, get stuck in your writing, worry about the time you have set aside for writing, find ways to avoid your writing time, or make excuses for not writing, you need to quickly backtrack and record what you were thinking in the B column and how it made you feel in the C column. Then, in the A column, write down what happened to trigger the thought and feeling. Did you get a rejection slip? Did you see a writer on a talk show? Did you realize your writing time is coming up?
Ex: Received a rejection slip
So youre going to be cataloging three things each time you sit down to do this:
A stands for Activating Event (what happened?)
B stands for Beliefs (what you thought, what the Critic said to you)
C stands for Consequences (how you feel)
A, activating events, contribute to C, consequences in our gut. But its B, our belief system, our philosophy, which mainly, largely, or certainly in great part, makes us feel and think the way we do ? I should say behave the way we do, especially in a disturbed manner. We disturb ourselves. -Albert Ellis
Most people do better with the next part if they spend a week or two just doing the A-B-C part. Were always impatient to jump ahead, but getting ahead of yourself can make it difficult to get what you should out of the exercise.
What were going to do next with the D and E is put the Critic in its place.
EXERCISE 2: D-E
After youve spent your week or two recording your A-B-C, youre going to add D and E.
D Stands for Dispute and E Stands for Evaluate Effects
D: Looking at the Critics assertions more carefully and disputing them
Ex: What evidence do I have that Im a failure? Well, all these rejection letters.
* What evidence do I have that Im not? Well, my friends say they like my stories, and I did win that award back in college...
* What if I never got published? Would it kill me? No, but Id feel bad. I guess I have to focus on how much I enjoy writing...
The D takes some effort, but its worth it; if youre able to practice, this will become second nature.
Questions to ask yourself as you dispute the Critics claims.
What evidence do I have that ______ is (and isnt!) true?
Is there another explanation?
If its true, how true is it on a scale from 0% to 100%?
If its true, then realistically, whats the worst thing that can happen?
So what if that happens? How would that be so terrible? How will my world be destroyed if this happens?
What would I tell a friend if she said these things to me?
What would that mean about me if this were true?
What effects are these thoughts (the Critics words) having on me?
What would happen if I changed the way I was thinking?
If its really a problem, what can I do to make it better? (Should I take a class? Join a writing group?) (2)
Pretend youve got your Critic on the stand in a court. How are you going to convince a jury that its a liar?
SECONDARY GAIN
One of the toughest things about Disputation is that its much easier (and in a backwards kind of way, a lot more fun) to wallow in self-pity. I genuinely believe that sometimes we need to wallow a little, but put a limit on it. If you take more than a day or two, youre just avoiding the problem.
Also be careful not to take your frustration out on a partner or friend. Wallowing is fine. Torturing someone else with your wallowing isnt.
ELLIS: If you didnt musterbate, then you wouldnt awfulize, terribilize, catastrophize, say I cant stand it, and put yourself down. If you only stuck with, Id like very much to do well, but I never have to, you wouldnt then disturb yourself.
MISHLOVE: In a sense..people are using that as a screen to keep from getting in touch with their genuine feelings of disappointment.
ELLIS: Thats right. Their very genuine feeling, their good negative feeling, would be disappointment: I dont like this. What can I do to change it? How bad, how unfortunate. And they miss that with, How awful, how horrible, how terrible. And then again they get bad results and sit on their rumps again and do nothing, instead of forcing themselves to go back to the grind and change what you change what you can change and to accept what you cannot. (1)
REWRITING
After youve put together your Disputation, re-evaluate how you feel. I like clients to take an extra step and re-write the original critical statement into something more balanced and positive.
For example, if your original statement was something like Im a miserable failure as a writer, after your disputation you might realize places thats not true (or that its not as bad as youre telling yourself), so you rewrite the thought as Sometimes when Im having a hard time saying what I want to say, I feel bad and am afraid I might fail. But other days I feel like material is flowing, and no matter what other people think of me, I write because I love to do it.
Or
If I never get published, Ill feel sad (or angry, or devastated...), but lots of famous writers got hundreds of rejection slips; what made them special was that they never gave up in spite of that. Even though they sometimes feel personal, theyre not rejections of me or even necessarily true rejections of my work--theyre just telling me that my work isnt right for that publication right now, not that its terrible. I need to keep looking to find my work the right home.
It can help to go through a list of cognitive distortions and circle or star the ones you use most. Theres a good list at Alliant.
Knowing, for example, that you have a tendency to take things personally can help you come up with better disputations. Maybe youll realize that a rejection letter isnt a personal rejection--the person who sent it doesnt even know you! And your writing just might not be a good match for that agent, editor, or house; a rejection doesnt mean youre no good. And--worst case scenario--if your work really does need a lot of improvement, you can improve. There are lots of books, websites, and writing groups to help you.
It can be helpful to read some books that remind us that our heroes have or had trouble with their writing, too. Try Rotten Reviews and Rejections by Bill Henderson and Andre Bernard, The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes, and The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner. I also love Quotable Magnets by the Quotable Cards company. Fridgedoor.com has an enormous collection:
WHITTLING THE CRITIC DOWN TO SIZE
Remember, the Critic has spent a long time teaching you to believe a lot of bad things about yourself and your writing, and it will take time and practice for you to learn new thinking patterns. When you think something over and over, your brain actually aligns molecules in such a way that its easier for that thought to occur. The only way youre going to disconnect that chain of molecules is to let it dry up by refusing to go over and over and over that thought. Instead, you create a new chain that says something more realistic.
You may want to practice these new statements a few times a day. Stick them on the bathroom mirror or over your writing desk. Say them out loud. Tell the Critic.
Remember those old cartoons where a big scary shadow would appear on the wall and the hero would cower in terror, only to have a teeny little mouse come around the corner? Thats what the Critic is like. It casts a big scary shadow, but if you shine some light on it and confront your fears, youll find that the Critic itself is just a little pipsqueak.
And now you have the skills you need to handle that pipsqueak.
--
References and Works Cited
(1) PHILOSOPHY IN PSYCHOTHERAPY with ALBERT ELLIS, Ph.D. Transcript from the series Thinking Allowed, Conversations On the Leading Edge of Knowledge and Discovery, with Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove. http://www.intuition.org/txt/ellis.htm
(2) Beck, J. S. (1995). Cognitive therapy: Basics and beyond. Guilford: New York.
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