Notes on the inner critic

  • The thing I most want to create in life is: 

  • My inner critic’s response to this is: 

  • The answer to ^^^  is your resistance

  • Have compassion with yourself and with your resistance

  • Give your inner critic a name

  • What is <insert name of inner critic> trying to protect you from?

  • Do you still need its protection? 

  • Be on the lookout for the voice of the inner critic

  • Notice it, don’t resist it, don’t let it take over

Remember Your Agency, digital and physical collage, 2025

Remember your agency

Believe in your power to create more of what you want.

We are co-creators with Life. If you want more connection, more beauty, more creativity — what can you do about it?  

You have to take the first step. Be wildly obnoxious about it.

The first step is a signal. It’s a flare, sent high in the sky. A message that says “I am ready to receive. Give it to me.”

And then you must open your arms wide, wider still, as wide as possible.

Gather up the gifts you are given, you will need them for the journey. You will need them to take the next required step, and to keep going.

Marianne Williamson: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Proverb: When your intention is clear, so is the way.

Take breaks

Proverbs: a change is as good as a rest.

Here’s another:

Change of work is as good as play.

When you take a break from what you’re doing, this counts as rest.

Sometimes we have forced change: we loose a job, go through a break up, our kid goes away to college.

Sometimes we make change: we cut our hair, move to a new city, drive a new way home.

Think of a drop of water in a lake.

When that drop falls, it creates wakes that go out. If that drop of water fell in a new place, new wakes would go out, too.

Everything is energy and change disrupts the signal pattern.

Einstein: Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality.

Shift the activity, shift the energy, shift the reality.

The anatomy of rest

Rest can take many forms.

When we think of rest, we may tend to think of it in terms of the physical - sleeping, napping. But rest can also be:

  • Mental

  • Sensory

  • Creative

  • Emotional

  • Spiritual

If you’re relationally depleted, sleep won’t likely fix this. But spending time with someone who uplifts you vs drains you may.

If you’re creatively tapped out, again sleep may not be the answer, but engaging in play or an activity that sparks delight, may fill the well.

Rest is part of our design. It not a nice-to- have, but an essential part of our overall health, wellbeing and creative flourishing.

Proverb: Rest is part of the work.

Creative Recovery

We often resist what we most need.

I’m writing from a cafe in Seattle. A last minute trip I booked reluctantly, mostly because I’m out of the habit of traveling—especially alone. 

I have good friends here. And I’ve lived here before. I love this city. But it’s been a while since I’ve been, since I’ve traveled alone. And even the pull of friends I adore and a city I love was almost not enough to get me to book the ticket.

It can be like this. 

Life can get routine. Or the opposite—overwhelming. Both of these can leave us stuck. In mental and physical ruts that are tough to get out of. 

But here I sit. A chai latte and a blue Seattle sky. (Yes, blue!) 

And I’m reminded that as humans we need things. A change of scenery, time with people we love, the novelty of being in a new place, a chance to explore.

And that sometimes we are tricked into thinking these things are somehow self indulgent? 

No doubt traveling is a privilege. And having friends is also not a thing I take for granted. 

But our creative life depends renewal. This means that the things that renew us are important: to our wholeness, our aliveness, our joy.

Resist what you need at your peril. 

Inhabit your song

I've long believed in artists as leaders.

A great definition of leadership is: imagination on others' behalf.

This is what an artist does. She uses empathy to understand others and the world around her. He puts that experience into words, design, music, products, etc..

Bruce Springstein: A leader’s job is to embody identity for a community - to give words and flesh to elusive ideals. (Only inside a body does an ideal get to become a story.) A leader’s legitimacy, then, rests upon how deeply you can inhabit your song. 

The best leaders and artists have something to say. They give us perspective. They provoke, inspire, comfort. They create a sense of community.

They inhabit their song.

Every choice is an act of creation

Choices:

  • To not betray yourself or others

  • To know and live your values

  • To have a spiritual worldview

  • To practice kindness

  • To be reflective of your personal actions

  • To be of service to others

  • To empower others

Maybe the Flowers Cry Too, drawn manipulation of found image, Joce Aucoin, 2025

Discomfort as teacher

I wore sweats all day yesterday.

Tis the season for: sweats, blankets, hot tea, and all things cozy.

I also cried yesterday. More than once.

As humans we lean into comfort naturally. To feel warm, relaxed, cared for.

Discomfort is also a teacher.

Sometimes we feel discomfort first in our bodies and it’s best to listen. Sometimes we override what our bodies tell us and this leads to more discomfort.

Both are there for our ultimate good and growth: comfort and discomfort, the good and the bad things that happen, the joy and the pain.

Gratitude for discomfort opens us up to healing.

We can lean into the tears, too.

Excitement lies in the autonomy of action

I’ve often referred to my record label, Lujo Records, as my “on the ground MBA”.

It was that. I learned a lot about business.

And I learned something else you don’t necessarily learn in school: excitement lies in the autonomy of action. 

It’s one thing to get a thing done. 

It’s another to makes choices, follow instincts, defend choices, reject unwanted advice, follow your heart’s wise compass. 

Your aliveness comes from having an idea, big or small, and seeing it through, start to finish.

The thrill of doing so isn’t only life-giving, it’s life-making.