The Inner Critic’s Inner Pocket

Nothing like voice lessons, or any activity that involves intensive body awareness, to make you aware of old Inner Critic tactics you never noticed before…

I’ve always had plenty of jaw tension, and I knew that would be one of the biggest obstacles to overcome for a great voice. Over the past few weeks I’ve been consciously walking around with my jaw dropped and back (as opposed to just slack, although I still kinda feel like a village idiot) to practice relaxing it.

And I discovered that for some reason, it’s hard for me to feel happy with my mouth open. When I’m blissed out, the drawbridge is up. And as soon as I drop the drawbridge, the first hundred thoughts that occur to me are all complaints and fears and griefs. Clearly my Inner Critic has been hiding poison in my jaw, to be released slowly into my bloodstream and soul at a slow and devastating pace.

As usual, what works is to acknowledge whatever moaning and whinging my Inner Critic feels like doing, but to keep my jaw loose so that as I get bored with the Critic and start to bliss out again, I’m practicing happiness with a loose jaw.

Give it a try: practice being blissed out with your mouth open and see if you have the same problem….

Create a work-free day.

Pick one day this week and every week in which you will do absolutely no work. That means, no checking email, no housework, no yard work, no catching up on work for your job. Instead, commit to an entirely free day. See your friends, have 4-hour meals. Read a book. Go for a walk. And most importantly, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT allow your Inner Critic to say a word against this day. It won’t help if you create a day to relax and then let your Inner Critic beat you about it the entire time. You’ll end up more stressed than you started. So take your day. Own it. And your kindness to yourself will have lasting effects on the rest of your life. Enjoy! (And thanks to Sarah and Nik for sharing their sacred day with us!)

Straighten up

What mundane tasks do you do every day that you could actually do standing up? Try it, and feel your spine stretch and your brain relax…

The Present Week

My brother and I were chatting last night about how to handle a situation where planning for your future conflicts with your enjoyment of the Now. In other words, when you can sit outside with a glass of lemonade and a good book for three hours, but you also need to start creating a contact list of people you’d like to informational interview in preparation for your next job search… how do you relax without feeling guilty?

Balance within yourself can happen in the present moment, but balance in your life takes a span of time. So as long as your week contains both the work and the relaxing, that’s balance. That’s fair. Think about your week ahead; do you have time planned for all sides of your life?

Then you don’t have to feel guilty through the especially pleasant parts.

The present moment… in a second.

Yes,  yes, yes, the present moment is all that matters, be in the now, etc. etc. etc.

All very wise. I totally agree.

But I think there’s a little step that frequently has to be taken before you can get to the present moment, which isn’t discussed much. My Tai Chi teacher called it, Embrace the Boring.

The whole reason we have to tell ourselves to Be in the Moment is that that moment usually involves something we’ve done many times before. Nobody ever has to remind you to be present when you’re about to jump off a cliff (that is, do something you’ve never done); all your senses and self are heightened then!

The trick is to have that same delight and adventurousness when you’re facing the equivalent of brushing your teeth. Or, in fact, brushing your teeth. Something you’ve done so many times, it’s… boring.

So embrace the boring. Accept that nothing new may happen this time around, but also accept that it doesn’t have to be new to feel delightful. Feelings don’t have to be stimulated to exist. Embrace, relax, and you can feel enjoyment just fine, about nearly anything, now. Right now.

Unwinding Time Management

Oh that mythical hour to do *nothing* in. (Not the hour you work with your passion; the hour when you don’t work at all.) How many times have you tried to review your days and slice out an hour to meditate or have a cup of tea and just relax? How many times have you failed to carve out that hour, and then the Inner Critic chastises you for not being able to be good to yourself?

For me, my happiest, most buoyant days aren’t the ones where I got a whole hour to be unproductive. They’re the ones when I took a lot of very tiny breaks, scattered through the day, but on each break I really let go completely. Ten minutes on the subway, three minutes during one of my favorite songs in a cafe, five minutes waiting for a friend to arrive at the restaurant, two minutes in bed before sacking out.

Try it today. Instead of making an hour your goal, make five short breaks your goal instead and see how you feel at the end of the day.

One finger relaxation.

While you’re standing up, ask someone else to run a fingertip, very lightly, at moderate speed, down the lower half of your spine a few times. (Not up and down; just down.)

You will be tempted to be amazed at how quickly and thoroughly this relaxes you. Don’t be; that will add tension back in. Just let yourself sink.

(This might seem like a very intimate touch, and the single ladies out there might already be getting pissed about how they have no one to do this for them. Ladies, I’m single, too, and I swear to you, everyone knows somebody they can ask for this simple touch.)

Test your pleasures.

Instead of doing the same old things for fun, ask your family and friends what they absolutely love to do. You know, the times when they are so involved in the sheer pleasure of what they’re doing that they get caught up. Then try out their greatest pleasures for yourself. My husband is going to attend a Japanese drumming performance by Kodo with me and I’m going to play Grand Theft Auto IV with him.

How about you?

Relax your derriere.

I brought up this smackdown in a blog post a long time ago, but I think it deserves its own mention because it’s such a fast, effective fix. As soon as you realize that you’re following the thoughts of the Inner Critic (or Outer Critics) take a second and relax your butt.

I thought this was just a weird little thing I did that happened to work, and I kind of assumed that what made it work was the fact that it was so weird and laughable. But yesterday, to my total astonishment, I read the following in a book written by world-renowned voice teacher, Kristin Linklater:

“It often happens that when I am in the presence of people who intimidate me – intellectually or socially – I feel stupid and can’t think of anything to say.  At the same [time] I may notice that I am hardly breathing, that my stomach muscles are tense and that my buttock muscles have tightened. When I relax my buttocks I immediately become more intelligent and find all sorts of things to talk about.  The buttock muscles connect with deep breathing musculature that is woven into the pelvic floor and when all these muscles relax, more oxygen is released into the circulation. I assume the livelier blood chemistry affects the brain because I am no longer stupid. Try it!”

from Freeing the Natural Voice

Expect the unexpected.

The Inner Critic can have way, way too much fun over the holidays. ‘Tis the season for preconceptions! Your Inner Critic informs you that it knows exactly what’s going to happen for you this holiday because your holiday follows the same script every year. This person is going to say such and such, and that person is going to respond in this way, and you’re going to feel like this, and you won’t be able to stop yourself from doing X, Y, and Z, and then it will all snowball until everybody hates each other, or just hates you, and once again, you will have failed at having the ideal holiday you should have had and will never have.

Smackdown!

Stay open for the unexpected. Something, at some point, is going to be different, and better, than it was before. The difference may be as big as a hard-hearted relative being unexpectedly kind, or it may be as small as a pattern of frost on a square inch of your back door, and the fact that for once you took thirty seconds to notice it.

No matter what the surprise is or how small, let yourself be amazed by it. Let that moment be your Santa Claus! The more amazed you feel, the more that moment can change your whole holiday.

Because if one little thing can change, you can change, too. You can step off the treadmill of whatever your holiday usually is. You can step back from the drama, and you can relax.

Enjoy

Peace and love,

Clare