The Flashlight of Criticism

The Flashlight of Criticism

When we face criticism, we can spiral down in a funnel of shame, feeling less-than and outed for pretending to be better than we really are.

Or maybe that’s just me, because possibly my childhood was not as stellar as yours.

I know it’s unhealthy to attach my self-worth to my performance. These things are my products: writing, speaking, acting, grades; my identity is something different. This distinction is oh-so-clear in my head and not so obvious in my experience.

Everything in the arts is subjective. One person loves what you’ve written or taught, and the next person thinks it’s boring and useless. As a writer, I’ve volunteered to be criticized to try to make my work stronger and more effective. In a cold, clinical setting, I do understand this.

But in my heart it’s something different. Being told what is “wrong” with my manuscript is painful in some intricate way. It reminds me of how far I have yet to go to make my dreams into reality. I do realize that all writers face this. I’ve been through classes and writers’ groups before, processing negative feedback, but I still hurt at first.

Maybe it’s time to just allow this. To feel it, and not to attempt to rationalize it away or explain it. Some feedback wounds because we have more internal healing work to do. The criticism is a flashlight revealing our hidden chasms where shame and fear lurk in the darkness.

The key might be to reach out to the cheerleaders in our lives when we get knocked down. To ask for love and support so we can summon the energy to keep going, to continue believing that we are onto something as long as we don’t quit. Rough work is better than no work when it comes to creativity. Revisions exist to fix the little things.

I’m loving the process of working on this new YA novel. I don’t want to forget that. It’s fun to write, even if it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s the book I longed to find on the shelf when I was 15 years old and that kind of passion is worth pursuing.

Often a pain that doesn’t fit with the circumstances is an indication that an old wound is being disturbed. That’s what I felt last week through a workshop round of mild criticism: a very old childhood fear that I am simply not good enough to compete in the arena I want to work in. The only way to combat this is to keep going anyway. To feel it, acknowledge it, cry a few tears, and then get back to work.

The Last Jedi

The Last Jedi

I’ve taken 2017 off from writing movie reviews, but The Last Jedi was such an emotional experience that I find myself longing to write about it.

Don’t worry if you haven’t seen it (although you really should go now!) as I don’t do plot spoilers. Don’t listen to the crabby haters online who are moaning about how Episode VIII should be wiped from the Star Wars canon (thank you, internet criticism, for creating a group of angry “fans” who demand a creative product meet their specific demands like it’s SO simple and easy to make a successful blockbuster franchise movie). Go see it for yourself and decide.

The Last Jedi is truly a stunning achievement. It’s packed with all of the action true fans long for, plus a host of witty, silly quips and special moments that linger in your mind long after the final credits roll. But more than that, this instalment gives us even more women as leaders worthy of respect (hooray!) and some deep explorations of complicated and important subjects.

This movie does not shy away from topics like the devastating effects of our rabid fame culture, honest questions about identity and belonging, the punishing personal cost of war, corporate greed ravishing the environment and the ever-widening soul-crushing gap between the wealthy and the poor. I love it when I can sink my teeth into these relevant issues and engage my kids in a lengthy morality debate on the way home from the cinema.

Our world is a broken place. The Last Jedi mirrors much of this sorrow in a relatable yet still entertaining fashion. Luke Skywalker, always my favourite from the original trilogy, is back here but damaged, older and considerably more fearful than we’ve seen him before.

Rey, a hero I adored in The Force Awakens, found Skywalker at the end of Episode VII and is desperate to learn what she can from him. But Master Luke is an unwilling teacher, pushing Rey toward Ben Solo, the tortured son of Han and Leia who has turned to the dark side. This connection between “good” and “evil” moved me deeply, particularly the image of Rey trying to answer the nagging question of who she really is and where she comes from.

Each one of us has the power to write our own story. If we don’t like our past, we possess the ability to change our present so that our future becomes something different. Nothing special is required for this. Only bravery. That’s the central message of The Last Jedi, and it’s one we need desperately at this precarious moment of human history.

Go see this movie. Return to a time when you went to see a cinematic story unfold without a thousand other voices in your head telling you what’s wrong with it. Simply go and be entertained. For me, The Last Jedi is powerful, hopeful, beautiful, stirring, emotional, satisfying. We need peace, purpose and courage to light our path, now more than ever.

May the force be with us, always.

That Rey Moment

That Rey Moment

We bought Star Wars: The Force Awakens and watched it again as a family this weekend. It lost none of the magic from when we first saw it in IMAX on opening day in December, but this time, one particular moment deepened in meaning for me.

When Rey faces Kylo Ren in the forest and her fingers close around Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, she crosses over in that instant to her new identity – the person she was born to be but lacked the courage to become before this defining moment. I recognized a profound identification as I watched this dramatic scene unfold, for every one of us has either had that Rey moment ourselves or will at some point.

We all know, deep down, who we really are. But then we must access the strength to step into it, to cross over, to accept that invitation we receive to live as our truest selves. For Rey, in that second she grips the handle of the lightsaber, it’s written all over her face. This will change everything and she knows it.

star-wars-the-force-awakens-wallpaperThese key moments are exhilarating and terrifying, at exactly the same time. It’s thrilling to stop running from our calling at last, but embracing our real identity means walking away from the old one. This involves loss and pain. It’s a bridge we cross, from one inner destination to another, and we can never return in the same way.

The Hero’s Journey requires forward motion. If we stay stuck in the same place, we are not on a journey. We are in a loop. When we finally embrace our own Rey moment, we step from the old, familiar pattern and move on to who we are meant to be.

Now we are moving forward with new things to learn and experience. It’s like Dorothy opening the door to Oz and experiencing every single thing in bright, vivid colour, leaving the black-and-white version of herself behind. There are fresh adventures ahead, provided we are brave enough to go for them. It helps to form a new tribe of other like-minded travellers, who are on their own Hero’s Journey, and can provide support and encouragement in the loneliest spots.

Another helpful practice is stillness. Rey summons the power of quiet later in her fight with Kylo Ren, closing her eyes and taking the time to focus her energy and her mind. This is a requirement for those of us fighting our way through this life in the boldness of our true identities.

Don’t give up. Keep on going. Know that we are all making our way together. We have grasped our unique lightsabers and found out who we really are. Now we must continue to walk this path, even when it’s impossibly hard. Especially then, for we will find what we are looking for if we don’t give up.

The joy and the inspiration is found in the power of who we are meant to be. If you haven’t had that Rey moment of identification, start watching for it. And if you have, keep walking your Hero’s Journey. You are not alone. There are many of us, finding our true legacies and callings, believing that our power and our future lies along this path of who we are and were always meant to be.

Brick Wall

Brick Wall

Do you ever find yourself going along your merry way, fairly happy and peaceful, when suddenly BAM! a brick wall comes out of nowhere and smacks you in the face?

I could do without this. I’m doing my daily soul work: holding important relationship boundaries, looking inside to see where I might be veering off course or doing too much for others, checking in with my feelings, handling the mundane busywork of living. And then, that brick wall. It could be an email, a piece of unexpected news, a distracted spouse, a schedule that doesn’t allow for rest or reflection, a word or a look that is easily misinterpreted.

Emotional brick walls are land mines – you never know when they are going to trigger an explosion. When my reaction is ten times bigger than the situation calls for, I know I’ve stepped on some unhealed wound from childhood. The further back it goes, the deeper its hold on our psyche.

Brick WallThe pain is similar to what you would get if you ran full-tilt into a brick wall or if a bomb exploded under you. It causes panic and fear and chaos. The crappy part is that no one can see this. Only you. And most of the scabs that get torn from our childhood hurts involve our biggest questions around identity and value. We feel internal agony, and pretty soon we are asking, “Am I good enough? Do I matter at all?”

When I was a kid, I walked on eggshells, all day and all night. Under these broken eggs were many undetonated land mines. Most of this had nothing to do with me – it was my parents’ garbage, brought in from their damaged childhoods and given to me as a legacy. But I didn’t know that then. My coping mechanism was to disappear into other people. When an issue came up, I took responsibility for it and fixed it, even if I wasn’t even involved in it.

This destructive habit of caretaking has plagued me for my whole existence. Deciding to shed it was both the best and worst thing I’ve ever done. The best because it finally meant I could look after myself. It gave me options; the choice to let another person manage their own life instead of me doing it for them. But it was the worst because it stripped me of everything I hung my value on. It hollowed me out. If I wasn’t fixing everyone else’s problems, what in the world was I good for? I was nothing, no one, utterly useless without this stressful busy work of bleeding into everyone else’s pain.

I have better skills now. But every so often, that brick wall materializes and I am terrified of all those unexploded land mines. Am I really enough, just as I am, or do I have to hustle harder to prove I deserve a spot at the table? This endless longing to be loved for who I am and not for what I can do ties me up in knots every damn time.

It boils down to this: does unconditional love really win or am I searching for more gold stars for my behaviour chart? I must feel the pain of everything I cannot control, absorb the sadness of the losses I have sustained, and then bravely decide to get back on my feet and keep going. There are no shortcuts in soul work. We have to keep walking, even when it’s dark and scary and we are all alone, and hope that soon we’ll be on the other side and can finally understand the lesson we were meant to learn.

Disconnect from the Outcome

Disconnect from the Outcome

Disappointment sucks. Not one of us is immune to it. We want something, so we begin to hope for it, predicting an outcome not guaranteed to occur.

The longer we wait, the further our imaginations nose ahead, daring to believe that this time, our long-held desire will bear fruit. As a writer, this is the seesaw edge I live on. Submitting work, then waiting for one of two outcomes: rejection or acceptance.

The other day, I heard someone utter these wise words, “I’m trying to do my best and then disconnect from the outcome.” I’m wretchedly awful at the second half of that sentence. Trying my best is easy; accepting whatever results from that is difficult.

disconnectBut I know it’s good for me to keep trying. We all have to. Value plays a sizeable role here. When I tell myself I’m a decent writer because someone else confirms that by praising what I do, advancing me in a contest or offering a contract instead of a form rejection letter, I’m sunk. My confidence recedes, my stomach drops, and I feel worthless.

The key is to hinge my worth on my own unique identity and not to anything I produce. My work is not who I am. This goes for every one of us. No matter what our culture may tell us, success at work does not equal success as a human being. We will fail and we will succeed, but these markers are outside of us. They are not levers on our identity, shifting us ever higher or lower.

It’s funny because one of my slides in my It’s On You seminar is called “Expect Failure”. Another one is “You Own Your Value”. I’m teaching these concepts to students and to adults, and receiving a beautiful opportunity to practice them in my own experience. These philosophies mean nothing if I’m not living them out myself. Example is king. I don’t listen to fancy words any more, when it’s clear that the person uttering them is not modelling the skills they espouse.

Rejection is another chance to practice disconnecting from the outcome. I cannot afford to hitch my belief in my abilities to the opinions of other people. I have to feel the sadness when rejection hits, then dust myself off and move on, creating what only I can do. Even if it’s just for myself.

We do our best, and then allow the consequences to unfold as they will. We can only control our end of the deal. Beyond that, we have to believe that when the time is right, we will see small measures of success. Until that time, we’ll keep on going, affirming to ourselves that we are not the work we do. We are worthy of love and care, whether we win or lose. If we keep walking up to the plate, one day we’ll connect with the ball as we’ve dreamed of doing.