A dear friend of mine gave me a book several years ago that I read and still remember. This is more remarkable than it sounds. I read a lot. And even the books I loved I can barely recall the characters or plot a month later.
The book was The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson and Heather Kopp. The story is a parable about the hero’s journey, which is really our journey through life. The story talks about all the obstacles the main character must face in order to reach The Dream. Somewhere in the middle, the hero reaches the Flatlands. It’s the place you come to after you’ve decided to go for something and have invested all sorts of time, energy, and cash into it and then you have to wait. It seems that nothing is happening. No connections are being made. No big news is arriving. You. Are. Just. Waiting. for any of the seeds you planted to sprout.
Sometimes your time in the Flatlands is so long that you can’t remember why you started the journey in the first place. The Inner Critic assails you with doubts. “You’re going the wrong way! I told you this wouldn’t work! Everyone hates your ideas! You’re so stupid!”
This experience, which is sometimes called a test of faith, has been documented in many stories: Jesus’ forty days in the desert, Ulysses’ ten-year journey to reach home in the Odyssey.
The point of the Flatlands is to keep walking until you get to the other side. In the Flatlands you have to prove your faith in your higher power and in your own strength and stamina. You have to believe so strongly that you are on the right path that you continue to put one foot in front of the other even when it seems ridiculous that you are still walking at all.
When you are visiting the Flatlands, what other parts of your life can you enhance? Perhaps it is time to play with beauty, deep conversations, art, a good book, music, a vacation, a massage. Remember the Pleasure Deficit post? Well, I am proud to say that I scheduled a massage the day I wrote that post and today I get to have it!
Alysia Reiner (www.alysiareiner.com) plays the recurring role of Cindy on The Starter Wife on USA. Her latest film is The Vicious Kind, produced by Neil LaBute, and she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for her role as Christine in Sideways. She is also expecting her first child with husband David Alan Basche.
When did your Inner Critic first rear its ugly head?
Been there as long as I can remember.
What’s the worst part of having an Inner Critic, or what’s the worst thing it’s ever said to you?
That it never goes away – you just learn to deal with it.
What have you been able to achieve by smacking down your Inner Critic?
Not just achieving goals but living a life with more joy and peace.
What’s your all-time favorite smackdown?
Thank you for sharing, now shut the f@%& up.
What do you do when none of your smackdowns are working?
Call and email friends to help me whip um into shape, put on great music & dance it away, go to kickboxing class
Over time, does it get easier to smackdown the Critic?
Absolutely – it’s a muscle, ya gotta work it.
What keeps you motivated?
I wanna live my dreams, be happy and at peace – the more I do the less the Critic talks.
Acting is one of the toughest careers you can have. How do you handle the Outer Critics?
Don’t read reviews while you are working on something. Period.
Are you scared of raising a kid? If so, how do you smackdown that fear?
It’s a mix of educating myself, choosing what to use (i.e., choosing supportive, not fear-based, books, videos, classes), and listening to my intuition and heart more than ever.
What are your favorite sources of inspiration?
SO MANY! Nature, music, meditation, yoga, love, art, notes from the Universe, my friends & family, sex, laughter, being of service.
What advice would you give to someone who was stuck in fear and inaction?
Go do something! Get your ass out of bed or out of the house and:
Volunteer somewhere
Go to a museum
Make a list of goals, start with tiny ones
& take one action today – just one.
Recruit a friend to be action buddies
Anything else you’d like to add that I haven’t asked?
Action and Smackdown with faith/hope/belief in yourself are muscles – ya gotta work um. And sometimes they get sore when you first learn to use um or are getting stronger… Work through the pain. Pain is weakness leaving the body. And damn it feels good to be strong, believe in yourself and live the life of your dreams!!
Writer’s Block? Creative constipation? Problem just doing IT, whatever IT is? Try exploring the reasons why you’re procrastinating and not doing and celebrate them. Singer Gwen Stefani has a fab video called What You Waiting For?, a song about needing to be inspired to do her work. The Inner Critic is clearly enjoying itself as she struggles to write. She avoids sitting down at the piano by taking naps, talking to friends, and playing video games. But eventually she finds the motivation to work in the experience itself.
Check out the video here: Rock on.
How can you find the courage or inspiration to get up and do that thing you’ve been avoiding?
In our house whenever we feel like we need a pick-me-up we have what we call Life is a Musical Day. And then we sing everything we do with a running commentary set to music. It doesn’t matter that a few of us can’t carry a tune in a bucket. What matters is that we end up laughing every time. We also choose the genre of the musical and switch it up often. For instance, sometimes we sing in wobbly opera voices, sometimes with a country music twang, and sometimes we do scary musical (think Phantom of the Opera or Tim Burton’s NIghtmare Before Christmas).
Today is a musical day because I started reading the news and got so depressed by the violence, economic crisis, and general negativity that I had to counteract it immediately!
This video will help inspire you to live today as a musical. Props to my stepkids for finding this one!
It’s Saturday. Today’s smackdown: Turn up the stereo so it drowns out the Inner Critic’s voice and dance around the kitchen! But first click on the link and watch the video for inspiration:
The lead singer is Dan Zanes who used to head up The Del Fuegos, an amazing bar band in Boston in the 1980s. See Alicia’s (thanks Alicia!!!) comments under “We Interrupt This Program” for links to articles about them. Zanes now makes music for kids. So is he a sell-out? Or is he making money and having a blast?
Yesterday our furnace died. No heat. Okay, fine, a minor (expensive) setback. Then when my husband was cooking dinner the entire grill caught on fire. Seriously. It didn’t help that the day began with an assault by The Heavyweight. “How will I make money?” “What if something happened to one of us and we didn’t make enough money to keep our house?” “What if we couldn’t pay our mortgage?” “What if I fail?” “What if we have to move in with my parents?”
If you’ve read the About section then you know that we’ve been calling each other for smackdowns for the past ten years. In a phone call yesterday morning this is the smackdown Clare suggested for me: “Do something silly this weekend. When I talk to you Monday I want to hear what you did.”
So far this weekend I’ve played TV freeze tag and toilet tag with the kids. I’ve walked my dog singing Old McDonald Had a Farm at the top of my lungs. I’ve pretended to sing Italian opera along with Paul Potts. This afternoon I might do a crazy dance to Madonna or Kylie Minogue or Justin Timberlake. I’ll play Ghost in the Graveyard or Kick The Can. I’ll jump in a pile of leaves. I’ll use the inside of our garage as a giant canvas and paint something huge. I’ll eat a Newman O cookie by taking it apart, licking off the frosting middle part and eating each side in little nibbles so I can savor the entire experience for at least five minutes.
How about you? What silly things will you do today?
