Externalise your Censor - 100 Days of Design, Writing & Emotions

Emotions:

Personify the inner critique.

In 'The Artist‘s Way’ the inner critique is called the ‘Censor’. It‘s the disembodied voice in many creatives’ heads, the perfectionist that's never satisfied with what you produce.



'The Artist‘s Way’ recommends finding a cartoon image to represent your Censor. Maybe it's the shark from Jaws or Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.

You can even pick a real figure. The key is to externalise your Censor. Externalise the inner critique and create some distance between yourself and it. It's one thing to be told that the inner voice isn't entirely you and that it doesn't speak the truth. It's another experience entirely to have a mental image to clothes the invisible voice in.



At the moment, your inner critique is likely to be deeply mixed with your sense of self. Giving it a visual will help you develop a healthier relationship and began to divide yourself into multiple parts. This is called parts work in therapy. It's a lot of fun and it's also a useful tool for every day life. It helps you make sense of your conflicting desires and the anarchy that can happen in the internal world.

So, since all advice written here is advice to self, I went ahead and assigned a character to my Censor.





Huh?! 'Why is it so cute?', you ask.



The Artist's Way believes the Censor is an internal villain that‘s ‘out to get you.' I don't agree. I believe every part of our psyche is working in our best interest. You and I are a psychological ant colonies, every ant is working for the good of the colony.



The Censor is a misguided protector. It cares about you. It wants to help. But unfortunately, somewhere along the way, it learnt that the best way to protect you was to police you from the inside.



So, my Censor is a cute Stitch. All the best intentions at heart yet sometimes ends up destroying half my house while trying to protect me.