After a recent workshop led by Kate Jones from Neon Living in my Creative Haven community, I wanted to share some of my own thoughts on how I work with my own inner critic. Join me on an early morning walk on the Outer Hebrides with Skye my whippet, as I talk about whats happening in my life at the moment as well as how I cope with my inner critic!
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
Sign up to my newsletter to hear first about new retreats:
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/margaretsoraya/
Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
After a recent workshop led by Kate Jones from Neon Living in my Creative Haven community, I wanted to share some of my own thoughts on how I work with my own inner critic. Join me on an early morning walk on the Outer Hebrides with Skye my whippet, as I talk about whats happening in my life at the moment as well as how I cope with my inner critic!
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
Sign up to my newsletter to hear first about new retreats:
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/margaretsoraya/
Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
Welcome to today's podcast. I'm walking along the beach at 7am and we have a beautiful, calm sunrise. There's not a breath of wind and I'm having to walk because the trade-off is always with low wind in August on the Hepaties is midges, so I was trying to do some photography in the dunes, but it was pretty much impossible to stay still and still be sane, so I decided to record this instead and take a walk. Whilst I was doing it, there's a real reflection down on the beach just now because of that low wind, and it's really nice to be here alone because 7 o'clock in the morning I don't know where everybody else is, but I suspect they're in bed. But I quite like my early mornings and the sky doesn't. But she hasn't really got a choice in the matter. I sort of pluck her out of bed and pop her in the van if I'm going early and she just kind of looks at me like what are we doing? But then when she gets here she's absolutely fine, a bit like as humans, I suppose. You know, once we get moving, we get out the house. You realize how amazing it is to be out so early.
Speaker 1:So I'm really enjoying doing these solar podcasts and just sharing a little bit more about my life. At the moment. I'm still having a little bit of downtime painting my house on the outside so it's quite a big job and taking these walks and doing a lot of swimming. We are gearing up towards the festival at the moment, so we're gathering all our masterclass options and allocating everything and just doing the fine, fine tuning. It's so exciting and I just kind of get really excited. Once I start to do a bit of planning and start to realize it's coming closer, I get really, really excited about it All these amazing people coming together in one place. I'm just so looking forward to it. I'm also doing some planning for 2024 and just trying to figure out where and when my new retreats and workshops will be. I do have one photography workshop at the end of November and that's a six night workshop which has spaces on it. So if you'd like to join me in Harrison, the more stormy landscape, please feel free to get in touch.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to talk a little bit about the workshop that we had recently in Creative Haven, led by Kate Jones from Neon Living, and it was all about the inner critic, which sparked some thoughts from me afterwards and started to wonder whether everybody has this inner critic, and if you don't know what the inner critic is, it's that voice, our own voice in our head that comments on our lives, our abilities and ourselves in a negative way. It's not helpful and it often keeps us from achieving and creating and being happy in life. But you can learn to tame it and thinking about the positive side of learning about it and self-awareness, and so I guess I thought it might be helpful to share my own experience of it as someone who is fairly content and steady and self-aware now. But you see, I've spent years working on this voice, so you'd assume that I didn't have one now or maybe that I'd totally overcome it, and you'd be right in many ways, because I spend my time now creating freely and not really caring what other people think. So this inner critic it might tell you things like who are you to hold your own exhibition, or you don't deserve time to be creative, or you know that's a luxury that you don't need or deserve. It may tell you that your work's rubbish and it may touch you in a way you wouldn't even consider talking to a friend. I mean, would you even consider saying to a friend, that's rubbish. You just wouldn't. So why do we think it's okay to talk to ourselves using words like this? And there's a reason for this inner critic. We can all do some work and look into our past and examine them and figure out why we have it and what's driving it, and there's plenty of resources out there on how to do that. The artist's way is a good one. Julia Camman does quite a lot of work on the inner critic and gives you exercises.
Speaker 1:So when I was young, I used to struggle with depressive episodes sporadic and really dark and really deep but somehow I had to learn to get through these periods. So I taught myself something that I call jumping out myself and sitting on my shoulder and telling myself that it wasn't real and it would pass, and to keep going and to do whatever I needed to get through in those moments, those hours, those days. So I used to do things like go out and exercise. I used to do a lot of exercise when I was young swimming was a big release for me or aerobics I used to do aerobics All these these tools that I gathered as I was very, very young, and now when I have moments where this inner critic comes out, I use the same tools that I did back then.
Speaker 1:So when I'm slightly low, less resilient, usually actually when I'm tired, and I have moments of questioning myself and questioning what I'm doing, mostly around my business whether the business is doing well or whether people are picking up on things or listening to this podcast or buying my workshops in retreat, and I sometimes link my value to how well things are going in my business. So I still have this inner critic. It still lives with me, but my ability to deal with it is what has changed. So this is where the positive side of your inner critic comes in. You can learn to work with it. So, basically, I do the same thing that I used to do when I was younger. I named it. It's actually called migraine Margaret because migraine Margaret is very different from Margaret that you see on a normal everyday basis. Migraine Margaret stools with the inner critic because she's tired and I think there's something there in the hormones that goes slightly off whack.
Speaker 1:So when I'm in that phase, which is usually pre-migraine and I know this because I've observed this a day before this inner critic really comes out and it happened last week actually I told migraine Margaret to stop it and not to listen to her and to put Netflix on and just you know what. Just go for a rest, go for whatever you need to do at the time. And for me at that time it was watching some Netflix, absorbing and just shutting down the brain because my brain couldn't cope with this bombardment of voices. So my solution at that point was to get absorbed in something else. I suppose other people could do it through reading. Readings are good. Get really stuck into something. So get stuck into a book. Netflix fully isn't the greatest example, but it works for me.
Speaker 1:And photography, being creative, getting stuck into, getting really, really engrossed into either walking or creating. So for me, that's how I deal with my inner critic. I know when it comes, I know why it comes and I don't listen to it. So I just shut my brain down and just consciously say do not listen to your head at this point in time. I hope that helps you in some way. I think sometimes, just even knowing that we all have these times in our lives that we don't feel like we are Sky charging past me, she doesn't suffer from the inner critic whatsoever, probably because dogs live in the moment and they don't overthink. They don't think about the past or the future. They just love the fact that they're on the beach charging around and it's a joy. It's a joy to see.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it is now quarter past seven and the wind is lifting a little bit. I'm off to go and find some Macca flowers to photograph, doing a little project at the moment, photographing the flowers around Harris, because in August the Macca is at its best and the flowers are just wonderful. And it's so lovely to focus on something for this summer, because the usual kind of wave photography is out and I've been in my underwater photography but I also like to have something else going on, so I think, something completely different. It's just really opened my eyes to the summer here and how beautiful the summer can be. I am heading to take my youngest son off to university in Glasgow, so he's starting there next week and then I'll be back here for the end of August and we'll see how they're the flowers and the marker has changed in that space of time.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting. I did put a shout out recently in Facebook about reviewing this podcast. I will be popping a little promotion on to Instagram Now. That promotion will be if you can review this podcast. So you literally go to the show, you scroll down, you see ratings and reviews, you tick the five star, hopefully, and leave a little comment and it makes all the difference.
Speaker 1:I'm really invested in this podcast and I really want to keep bringing you new thoughts and new people, but it's quite labor intensive. So the one thing that really helps is the Apple review score. So if you can do that, and then let me know in the Instagram comments under the post, I will be sending out a gift of a 11 by 14 fine art print of one of my underwater shots, chosen at random on Instagram, just by way of a thank you. Ok, that's all for me. I'm going to go and find Sky, who's went off after a rabbit and is in the tunes now, so I will leave you with that and I'll be back next week. Take care for now.