Not good enough.

Trash it.

Start over.

It's a familiar script with the inner critic at center stage and you feeling powerless to be creative.  The only way to reclaim your creative flow, you're taught, is to silence the bully in your head.

What if this is exactly the wrong approach?  Through striving to silence the bully what if you're blocking the creative flow you yearn for?

Instead, what if:

-- you're a visual artist, and you find a surface and medium where you can give color and       shape to the quality of the inner critic?

-- you're a writer, and you capture the words and the images that have been binding you         and put them on paper, any place, any shape, any size?

-- you're a musician, and you find the rhythm and sounds, the loud and the soft of the             inner critic?

-- you're a dancer, and you move like the bully in your head and also find what is                    opposite to that movement?

By becoming aware of and including the inner critic in your creative work, you can befriend what has been a habitual retreat from creativity -- and make something creative out of it.

You can use whatever arises within you and in your environment to expand your creativity and to access your creative flow.  This is the fundamental approach of Practice of Immediacy in the Arts (see a video at http://practiceofimmediacy.com/pia-videos).

TIP

Here's an everyday way to tame the inner critic:  When the negative self talk starts, instead of listening to it, gently bring your attention to your breath while softening your body.

No matter what thoughts come up, keep bringing your attention to your breath while softening your body.  This is a skill you can develop any place and any time.