(Note: This post is about a formal Workshop that was held in the past. For information about the ongoing weekly Book Study at the New Orleans Healing Center, click here.)
This exercise could well be the most powerful element in the entire six-week program.
I've done this exercise before with a group, but just minutes before I introduced it last night, during our fourth session, I came up with the title: "Outing the Inner Critic."
The premise for the exercise is that we all have multiple critical voices inside telling us we can't achieve our goals because . . . I'm too old . . . I'm not bold enough . . . I'm too disorganized . . . I never finish what i've started . . . whatever.
And these voices live underground, coursing constantly through our psyche, never really being exposed to the light of day, to the light of truth.
The goal of this exercise is to expose these inner critical voices to the daylight, and also to fight back against them, as in, "Oh yeah? Who sez?"
Here's how the exercise goes: It starts with a brief visioning session where we imagine that one of our dream goals has happened in five years and we describe briefly our lives at that time. How does it feel to be successful? How do we live? What is life like?
Then, on a blank page in our journals, we list all the reasons why we can't do what we want to in life. This is the inner critic in full bloom. The amazing thing is how many negative thoughts we all have inside, and now they come pouring out. I tell students that others will be seeing this page, so don't put anything on there that is too personal.
Once the list of negative voices is made, I ask students to pick the one that has the most juice today, the one that seems most powerful, for today, and circle that one.
And then the fun begins when I say: "Now pass your notebook to the person on the right." Wow! Really? And that person is to address the circled negative message with a different thought, to push back against what is usually a bizarre misstatement of truth. For instance, one highly competent young person once wrote "I'm not good enough." When I got her notebook in my hand, I thought: Are you kidding me? Not good enough? I wrote on her page that she's likely "too good" for whatever she tries in life, and she'll have to use her energy dealing with that.
When our notebooks make it around the circle, we sit and read encouraging words that fight back against our inner critic. It's not just each of us alone against these shadowy, cowardly voices inside. Now it's the group, all of us kindred souls in the room, against the absurdity of that inner critic. Sometimes the statements are true, as in "I'm disorganized," but for something that can be overcome to stop us in achieving our life dreams becomes more and more unacceptable. I always feel teary at this point.
This exercise is a good example of how working The Artist's Way program in a group is far superior to sitting in one's own house and going it alone. Sometimes the solo route is the only way, but if one can get into a group, these kinds of powerful life-shifting experiences are more likely to happen.
I also want to point out that I scheduled this exercise at Week 4 to give the group a chance to bond, to establish trust in each other. This would not be a good exercise for Week 1 when we don't know each other and haven't revealed our strengths and weaknesses. Last week, a woman wanted to join the group, and wanted it badly, offering to pay full price, etc. But it was this exercise that would suffer the most from a newcomer entering the circle, and I regretfully had to say no. After last night, and the magic this exercise created, I see my instincts were right on. Perhaps I can trust myself.
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