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My Inner Critic = The Patriarchy

Sep 5, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Sovereignty, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Writing

I was recently organizing files on my computer (something I do when I intend to write, but instead find busy work…) and came across a piece I wrote just over a year ago. Why I didn’t post it then, why I didn’t work with it more, I do not know…Well, I have a hunch, but I’ll get to that at the end. First, the writing I found…

 

*****

 

Perhaps this isn’t news to you, but I just realized this morning that the voice of the inner critic inside of me is the patriarchy; even more specifically, the patriarchal god.

This actually came as a shock to me – one I am still sitting with and trying to make sense of. But the second I wrote the words (which I will share in a moment), I knew this was true. And now that I know this is true, I have a clarity and certainty about some other things that I didn’t before (which I’ll also share in a moment).

First, how I got to this realization:

As is my normal routine, I journal in the morning. I set the alarm and, with the best of intentions, try my hardest to not look at the emails that have accumulated overnight on my phone. I go to the kitchen, fill the teakettle with water, get coffee measured into my French press, and then open up my 3-ring binder and take out two sheets of college-ruled paper. I take the cap off my very favorite pen and write the date in neat script on the top line.

By then the water is hot enough to pour into the press. I wait the four interminable minutes it takes for the coffee to steep, gratefully pour it into my waiting mug, then return to my chair, my notebook, the paper, my pen.

This morning I was recounting details of my previous day, reflecting on what was ahead in the hours to come, scribing a litany of words and questions and feelings. Nothing monumental. Nothing transformational. Just the practice of pen on paper, page after page, day after day.

In the midst of these musings, I began to write about my writing – this writing – this practice of pen on paper, page after page, day after day. As often happens, I dropped down a level – from information to reflection – and then, not surprisingly, to critique.

Why am I writing any of this? What is the point? What is its value?

And only because I have gotten just slightly wiser to its ways over the years, I began to write out exactly what my inner critic had to say:

What a ridiculous waste of time! How arrogant of you to think that your writing has the capacity to impact anyone. Are you kidding? Just because you’ve filled pages and pages over the years, doesn’t make you some kind of expert. And clearly, it’s not made any difference in your life. After all, you’re still listening to me, aren’t you? Why you don’t finally and once-and-for-all give up fighting me and trying to hear any other voice than mine? You know I’m going to endure, defeat, and conquer. I mean, really! What other voice has this much staying power, this much resolve, this much potency, this much influence? I am undefeatable! I am impossible to silence. I am all-powerful. I am God!

What? What? Wait! Go back. What did I just write?

A smile spread over my face and I immediately knew two things: 1) my daily writing practice which often, admittedly, seems trivial at times, actually matters – made obvious through three small words that are now out in the open and exposed; and 2) that “God” comment needs a LOT more attention!

My writing continued:

There. That’s the bottom line. The critic within me is God. Which is crazy – and not. This IS the God I’ve learned of, at least in part: the God I must fear, the God that keeps me in my place and silent, the God of the patriarchy.

More wheels turn as I speedily scribe and watch myself write these words:

Could it be that the inner critic IS the patriarchy, is the patriarchal God?

So, there you have it. That’s how I got to this realization and awareness. Now, as promised, the clarity and certainty about some other things.

I have understood the voice of the inner critic to come from, well, the inner-me. I have seen it as the collective voice of all those spoken to me throughout the years – negative messages I’ve heard, taken in, and believed. But even more, I have convinced myself that its volume and tenacity is because I have fed and fueled those messages, because I have not had the will or fortitude to disavow them. I have seen the inner critic itself as something inherently within me, as part of me.

And because of such, it is something to be exorcised out of me, something aberrant or wrong about me, something I must be blamed for and ultimately responsible for. The inner critic is clearly and resolutely my character flaw.

The problems with this are so prolific, I don’t even know where to start. Stories flood my mind – each one sticky with shame. And, truth-be-told, shame that has been self-inflicted: I should have done better. I should have tried harder. I should have stopped sooner. I should have said yes. I should have said no. I should have known.

Let me intentionally stop this tirade and go back to my earlier revelation: the inner critic is the patriarchy and even more specifically, the patriarchal god.

This is a big deal. A huge deal. A game-changer.

It’s like the great eye in Lord of the Rings (my VERY favorite movie, by the way). It turns, the focus shifts, and I recognize that the force that has controlled me for far too long and for which I have blamed myself, is something that is not me, something I could have no more stopped or controlled than been able to fly. And this not-of-me external force has allowed my shame because in so doing it has remained undiscovered, off the hook, and fancy free to wreak as much havoc as it likes.

As long as the patriarchy can keep me thinking that I am the one to blame, it has accomplished its greatest feat and highest aspiration.

And oh, how successful it has been.

I write some more.

Now you have revealed your cards. Now I know what I’m dealing with here. And now I know exactly what is needed to soother the beast, to tame this savage, to calm my very soul.

I need the God who speaks just the opposite, who reminds me who I am, who blesses and honors, who loves. I need the God of the women I know and the stories I tell. I need the God who speaks wisdom and grace. I need the God who is mother. I need the God who is feminine. I need the God who is far more fierce and powerful and all-consuming than the little god who isn’t one at all, but has somehow become confused.

And this God, though not often enough named as such, is alive and well and waiting within.

She rises still – and strong. She will yet roar.

Me too.

*****

Do you have a hunch as to why I didn’t post this piece until now, until just happening to stumble across it almost a year later?

Well, there’s this: the patriarchy (and/or the inner critic, and/or the Imposter Complex, call it what you will) is still alive and well – within me. The subconscious messaging that tells me to keep such things to myself, to only say what’s acceptable, to not expose it…ever.

Well, until now.

Maybe you, too?

Holes. Gaps. Cracks. Miracles. Light.

May 18, 2017 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Writing

When you write you have to attempt something greater than you can possibly hope to accomplish. That is the only way you can leave a hole, a gap—some chance for a miracle.
~ Heather Harpham, I Went to the Animal Fair

Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
~ Leonard Cohen

Holes. Gaps. Cracks. Miracles. Light.

These are true words about writing.

We start with the holes: holes in our thoughts, our experiences, our emotions, our theories, our theologies, our relationships, even our sentence structure.

We feel the gaps: between what we ache to say and the words we can (or cannot) get onto the page, between what we feel and what we think, between what we long to articulate and our fear of who will (or will not) read, between edit and “publish,” between what is for our-eyes-only and what we so want to have seen.

We know the cracks: the hairline breaks in the sidewalk we hop over instead of land on squarely (safe topics vs. powerful ones); the crevasses into which we fall when no words come; the faultline between writing for readers’ sake and writing for writing’s sake.

But we also experience the miracles: the words that form, the prose that flows, the poetry that seems to create itself; the truth-truth-truth on the lines and in-between them; the recognition and honoring of a wisdom that is ours, all ours.

And the light. Oh, the light. Words that blaze brilliantly into our own holes, our own gaps, our own cracks – and fill them. Words that miraculously shine like a beacon into our own darkness. Words that somehow, painstakingly, mysteriously crafted are actually and amazingly cogent, beautiful, powerful, even breathtaking. Words that lay all our cards on the table, eliminate shadows, reveal our heart, and offer radiant glimpses of our purest, strongest, truest self.

The truth about writing? It’s one of the hardest and bravest and most vulnerable things we can ever do.

There is nothing more sacred, more spiritual, more holy than having a safe place in which to write/speak your voice, your mind, your heart.

So begin, persist, return, lather, rinse, repeat. Please?

Why do you write?

May 16, 2017 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Women's Voice & Power, Writing

“Why do you write?” was a question recently asked of me. 

Here’s my answer:

I write because it is the space in which I feel most creative, most challenged, and most
compelling. Here on the page – whether literally with paper and pen or document open and cursor ashing – everything that swirls within me finds a place to land.

I write because at least for these minutes and sometimes hours, I feel calm and sane.

I write because I have something to say, lots to say. My thoughts are my own, but I long for them to take shape and form that will make their way into the world on others’ behalf, on behalf of the women’s stories I tell and love, and yes, on behalf of me.

I write because the craft of choosing particular, perfect words and then deleting them in favor of others thrills me. To realize that paragraph five is really paragraph two, that the sentence with which I started is actually my ending, that seemingly disparate threads can weave themselves together under my care, time, and attention; this is delight beyond
compare.

I write because sometimes magic descends, ascends, enters in and I become a channel, a vessel, a conduit of something other, something more. It’s of me, to be sure, and not. It’s a voice that mirrors mine, but knows and says things in ways that bypass my ever-processing mind and sometimes even my inner critic.

I write because it feels like, no, is, the place in which I feel capable and strong, wise and certain, creative and alive. All heart. Less head. All together. Less disparate. All me. Less less.

I write to name, to not ignore that which is true. I need this: my ego’s skill at disguising my every proclivity and pathology as normal and logical, convinces me it is unnecessary to do anything of the kind. When my words – my words – show up on paper, or pristine screen, I see my soul; it is grateful to finally be seen and heard, acknowledged and loved.

I write because it is a space that is bigger than me. No one asks me for money. No rides are needed. No lunches must be packed or dinners cooked. No demands are made. And all I hear is “yes.” I am allowed – all of me. My tears, my rage, my fantasies, my frustrations, my desires, my doubts, my big and brilliant thoughts, my expansive heart, my heartbreak, my strong love. There is no one I have to convince or cajole, no one for whom I have to dumb myself down, no one who can’t handle me. It is rare: this space, this respite that restores.

I write because somehow, no matter how much pours forth, there is always more. It offers me the miraculous glimpse of what the best relationship could potentially be: complete honesty, no hiding, and days, weeks, months, years, centuries needed to ever exhaust every word/thought/idea/feeling that is there to be expressed, invited, and loved out of me.

I write because it is the felt and known-with-certainty place in which I discover the discrepancies between who I truly am and who I sometimes become; between the me who stays strong, soars high, dances seductively, loves passionately, speaks boldly and the me who does not a whit of this. Writing brings me back to myself – over and over again. It stands tall, bows low and winks mischievously, then opens its arms, draws me in, holds me tight, promises me everything and means it. I am home.

Mmmm. That’s at least a start to my answer.

And you? Why do you write? 

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #6

Apr 29, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

Today concludes this 6-part series on (Sacred) Conversation with your Heart. I am hopeful, though, that it is just the beginning of so much more of the same!!! 

If you’re just tuning in today, I’d encourage you to read the first 5 posts: Introductions, Tentative Listening, Hearing Deeper Truths, Speaking Deeper Truths, and Loving the Dialogue. 

And now, today, the big finish: 

PART SIX – HEART CONVERSATION AS SACRED CONVERSATION 

For me, this intimate and honest dialogue with my heart is synonymous with the Sacred. There is nothing disparate between the two. They are one-in-the-same. That know-that-I know-that-I-know voice within is the voice of the Divine. 

I’m hearing the Divine speak to me. Not in a burning-bush sort-of way, or miraculous thunder-clap or shout from on high. Rather, a constant, generous, and trustworthy source of wisdom, love, and life. And this knowing, this awareness, this experience IS what enables me to speak (and live) out loud.

Sadly, our religious traditions have been filled with both language and praxis that too-often have kept us silent. We can go back to the earliest tellings of the earliest stories and see how this silencing has been perpetuated, how it has become part-and-parcel with our deepest and most intrinsic belief about ourselves – particularly as women. Beginning with Eve, we’ve been told that her curiosity, her voice, her conversation with and trusting of her own heart is what led to the downfall of all creation. I COMPLETELY disagree. (Watch my TEDx Talk to hear more of my VERY strong opinions about this.) 

Keeping our hearts (and very selves) silent is painful. It twists us into ways of being that are unnatural, unhealthy, and ultimately, not even remotely reflective of the Divine that dwells within. 

When we raise our voices, speak our hearts, and shout our truths, the S/sacred is seen and experienced. 

This matters! Your voice matters. Your truth matters. Your conversations with your heart matter! Potentially more than anything else. For this IS the sacred – made manifest in and through you. Beautiful. Powerful. True. Yes. 

And so it is. 

REFLECT 

Jan Richardson, one of my all time favorite writers has a poem called Having Taken the Fruit. Here are the last two verses: 

It took a long time to gure out / that my stiing silence / was not a path / back to a paradise / where I could never live. 

I finally learned to listen / to the hissing in my breath / that told me the roots / of my own soul / held the healing that I sought / and that each stilted syllable / I let loose / was another leaf / on the tree of life. 

  • Have you ever considered your inner dialogue, your conversation with your heart, as conversation with the Divine? As Sacred conversation? What does that prompt for you? 
  • Where have you known aspects of silence/being silenced in the context of religion or faith? How has your heart shut down when that’s occurred? 
  • What if the loosening of your tongue, of your throat, of your voice is the redemption of Eve’s story in the here-and-now? Can you see how it IS the redemption of YOUR story here and now?
  • The voice of your heart is the Sacred in and of itself. Will you believe this? What might change if you did, if you could? 

I am hopeful these six posts have been helpful, encouraging, and have offered specic ways in which you can step even more deeply into conversation with your heart. Did I mention that it really matters? 

Know that the process and practice of having heart-conversations is ongoing. It takes time to learn to listen and then respond to that steady beating, those internal messages that will guide you into places of strength, courage, passion, and life. And, as you might have guessed, I am beyond-passionate about such; about heart-conversations: yours, my own, and ours together. 

I promise: your heart will not lead you astray. Listening and responding to it is the safest, surest, sanest thing you can do. It can be trusted. As can you. It is good, beautiful, and strong. As are you.

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #5

Apr 28, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

We’re moving toward the end of this 6-part series. I am hopeful it has done your heart good – especially given that it’s all about your good and to-be-trusted heart! If you’ve not read the earlier entries, they all build upon each other. I hope you’ll take the time to catch up. 

  1. Introductions 
  2. Tentative Listening 
  3. Hearing Deeper Truths 
  4. Speaking Deeper Truths 

Today, drum roll please… 

PART FIVE – LOVING THE DIALOGUE 

Once we have become familiar with the language of our heart, the ways in which it speaks to us, the ways in which we learn to listen, AND the ways in which we learn to speak, dialogue is a daily gift. 

Think about the experience of having friends with whom you can pick up conversation and relationship exactly where you left off. No matter the miles or even years between; it’s as though no time or distance has passed. There is an intimacy, a knowing, a familiarity and trust – like synchronized heartbeats. 

The same can be / is true about conversation with your heart: ongoing, meaningful, spontaneous, eortless, and continuous. 

I know a woman who has created a daily ritual of letting her heart speak to her. She carves out time each morning to sit and listen – expecting to hear. She writes down all that her heart chooses to say, trusting its wisdom, its deeper truth, its insight, its value. In so doing, she hears what her heart wants her to speak and do. And then she responds! She articulates (to her heart) all of her fears, her hopes, her desires. Back and forth this dialogue goes. She has learned to trust this process, to be sure; more to love it! Her heart readily responds. 

You can do the same, of course – creating ways to allow and encourage these conversations with your heart, learning to love the dialogue between you – and you! 

And when natural lulls occur, when you struggle to hear – or feel heard, just like in any relationship, you can trust the bonds already formed. You return. You stay. You wait. You hope. And throughout, more certain and sure than ever before, your heart keeps beating, speaking, calling. 

Loving the dialogue with your heart keeps you centered, grounded, and in touch with your most honest, brave, and true self. That dialogue and that relationship fuels and invites a passionate, full-of-heart life! 

May it be so! 

REFLECT 

  • Try the exercise above. Carve out time to listen to your heart – with the full expectation that it will respond. And, as in any good dialogue, respond back. 
  • Consider using two different color pens (or fonts, if typing). Let your heart speak – freely, candidly, spontaneously. Change colors and write out your response. (Remember: no holding back.) Switch colors again, and let your heart speak to what it hears, in response to your response. This is dialogue at its best. And the more of it you do (just like in any relationship) the stronger your bond, your intimacy, your (self) love. 
  • I do this often in my own journaling practice – especially when I’m struggling with myself, something, or someone. I write out how I’m feeling – no matter how cranky or negative or despairing. And then I listen/imagine my heart’s voice in response. I write out exactly what it has to say to me, no matter how hard it sometimes is to hear, allow, even believe at times. It always speaks (like any good friend would). And seeing its “voice” on the page in front of me, gives me opportunity to respond more deeply, more honestly, and almost always with far more tenderness, softness, and vulnerability. Oh, what a difference this has made for me over the years…hearing that wiser, truer, sage-of-a-voice within; learning to love the dialogue with my heart…my very self. May it be so for you, as well.

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #4

Apr 27, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom, Writing

PART FOUR – SPEAKING DEEPER TRUTHS  

Conversation, of course, is more than just listening. At its best, it is filled with call-and response, back-and-forth, give-and-take. The same is true when we engage in conversation with our heart. 

Not one-sided, our heart wants more than just our listening ear, it waits (and waits and waits) to hear our voice. 

When I began to listen tentatively and then far deeper, I somehow knew everything was going to change. My heart knew it too – and far before my conscious mind. All my conscious mind could know, it seemed, was fear! To move from the seeming-safety of an endless internal dialogue into a vocalized external reality explains why I stayed quiet for a very long time. 

But not forever.

It was the ongoing (sacred) conversation with my heart that gave me the courage to finally speak – out loud. 

Speaking deeper truths is not easy; but it matters – more than anything else. 

You can trust the conversation you’ve had with your heart – that quiet, safe, and sacred space. Now, stepping beyond your inner world and into your external one, you can also trust that nothing you have heard, nothing you have discovered, nothing you have finally acknowledged and allowed will lead you astray. 

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open. ~ Muriel Rukeyser 

Choosing to speak deeper truths, to live out-loud, to articulate your desires, hopes, honest emotions, and beliefs is a powerful, world-splitting way to live. 

World-splitting yes, but not world-destroying. Not even heart-stopping (though at times, it may feel otherwise). Your wise and brave heart will keep beating, speaking, guiding, loving. That’s what hearts do. Yours is no exception. So speak. And live. Out-loud. 

REFLECT: 

  • Are you aware of the places in which you remain silent? With whom? 
  • “All her life she has been in love with the hope of telling utter truth.” These words were spoken about the poet, Adrienne Rich. They also speak to what your heart hopes on your behalf. Do you know this to be true about yourself? What if it was? If you spoke that utter truth, what would you say? 
  • What worlds might split open if you began to live (and speak) your heart-conversation out loud? 

Mmmmmm. May it be so.

*****

This is Part 4 in a 5-Part series. If you’ve missed any, you can find #1 here, #2 here, and #3 here.