Author: Faith Helma

Try this: name your inner critic

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This is an exercise we did for this week’s Creative Workout Group, and I thought I’d share it for anyone else who would like to identify the motley assortment of critical voices in their heads.

Statler & Waldorf

Here goes:

1) Get some critical phrases down on paper — use any/all of these to jog your memory:

  • Write down all the critical things that were running through your own head just now as you were reading.
  • If you can’t think of any, just make some up. (And if that makes a small part of you outraged, write down what that small part of you is saying).
  • Think back over the last week until you hit on something that didn’t go well, that made you feel shame or embarrassment. Write down all the phrases going through your mind as you think about it.
  • Think about something someone else did this week that pissed you off. What should / shouldn’t they have done? What did they do wrong?

2) Put faces/names/descriptions to the phrases — go down the list and for each phrase, jot down any associations that arise (if you blank out, move to the next one). Try these prompts:

  • Can you hear someone saying it? Is it a voice you know? Does it remind you of someone?
  • Do adjectives come to mind about the voice?
  • Do you imagine anything about the kind of person who would say it? What are they like?
  • Does it remind you of a fictional character, maybe in a book or film?
  • What does this voice look like?
  • Who does this voice make you think of?

3) Write the associations down on a new sheet of paper and take a look at them.

  • Do you notice themes emerging? Are they all one critic or are there distinct ones? Maybe all your associations are a variation on one theme, or maybe you have 5-6 that arise depending on the circumstances.
  • Group or separate things as needed — and don’t worry about “getting it right” (and if you are worrying, add that critic to the list!) — this will be an ever-evolving list, so you can always change it as needed.

4) Give each group a name, like:

  • A descriptive alias (this is especially good if you want to separate out any associations based on real people — so for instance, you could use ‘Old Helmet Hair’ instead of ‘my beloved but cold-hearted Great-Aunt Lorraine’)
  • A random name you have a strong feeling about (for me, a name that came up was Mel — random, but it evokes a quality of weariness and cynicism and mopiness, no offense to anyone named Mel)
  • An authority figure or job title (Drill Sergeant, Kindergarten Teacher, Dr. Leave It To The Experts…)
  • Sometimes the name is right there in your list of associations — don’t fight it (this was the case with Old Helmet Hair)

5) Now give that critic a catchphrase, which is probably obvious — it’s whatever critical phrase is their favorite. Some examples:

  • “That’s not how the world works!” (this one is a favorite of Old Helmet Hair)
  • “You aren’t doing this right!”
  • “There you go again…”

6) Now take however many names & catchphrases you have and write them in crayon or magic marker on a big piece of paper. Write a description of them at the top, like “The Committee” or “Team Suck” or (this is what our group came up with yesterday) “The Academy”. Decorate the paper however you desire, preferably in a way that pisses off your inner critics, and hang it up on the wall.

Good for you! You’ve got your critics up on the wall and you’re aware of the things they tend to say… so now what?

For now, when you notice a critic speaking to you in your mind, you might want to stop and ask them some questions, like: what do you want for me? What are you scared is going to happen? What are you trying to protect me from? What would you like me to do?

Listening to them doesn’t mean you’re going to take their advice — you’re just going to hear them out.

And there are many more things you can do to engage, question and negotiate with your critics, and we will talk about them soon!

Hey there! Did this exercise work for you, but you’d like to delve deeper? I’d love to work with you one on one! Contact me and we’ll set up a session — the first one is free!

TRY THIS: project braindoodling

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During this week’s creative workout group, I did an exercise where everyone wrote the name of a project on the top of a piece of paper, then closed their eyes and drew spirals and wrote any random words or phrases that came into their brains. Then they wrote a description of the project with that in mind.

While they were dreaming and doodling, I did the exercise for myself! Here’s what I came up with:

Scribbles:

IMG_20150121_130806

And when I deciphered what I had scribbled and took it further, I had this:

 Developing my creative guide practice 

Read

Search → Re-search

Go home / go deep / go wide and far 

VISIT GRANDMA

Ask questions 

NO GOALS → all business is my business → I BELIEVE IN ALL OF IT

Be brave
Find beasts
Get wilder

It looks better with crayons:

IMG_20150120_135755

Try it yourself, see what comes to you! Maybe your braindream isn’t as wacked out as mine is, or maybe it’s waaaaaay further out there… only your brain can tell.

Creative Workout: in progress

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We’ve had two sessions of the Creative Workout Group and I have to say, so far it’s been hilarious and brilliant and awkward in the best sense. What a brave and beautiful group of people.

  • We’ve felt our own heartbeats, and felt someone else’s heartbeat.
  • We’ve danced like we’re 9 years old and like we’re 90.
  • We’ve made fart noises while making intense eye contact, which never fails to make me laugh until I cry.
  • We’ve come up with alias names and power words.
  • We’ve shared what fascinates us and what frustrates us.
  • We’ve drawn spirals with our eyes closed to see what words and images come to mind when we think of a project.
  • We’ve described a project to someone else using only our eyes.
  • We’ve shared what we thought someone else’s project was (based on what their eyes told us).
  • We’ve come up with catchphrases / mantras / slogans (I don’t like any of these words, can we do a word association exercise to come up with a better one? And don’t suggest ‘branding’) to describe our projects.

There are some pretty incredible projects, and next week people will get to share them using words (not just their eyes). I can’t wait!

Who is this for?

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I’m pretty excited about the new Creative Workout Group I’ll be leading starting next week (there are still spots if you want to sign up!). As I’ve been talking to people about it, I’ve been getting these questions:

Do you have to be an artist to be in the group?
Do you need to have a project you’re working on?
Who is this for?

So I thought I should spell out who this is for — “this” being the group, and the sessions I am doing with individual clients.

This is for you if you:

  • are going through a transition
  • are feeling lost or stuck or stranded
  • are in the grips of a life crisis (midlife, quarterlife or otherwise)
  • are starting a project (and by ‘project’ I mean anything from writing a book to starting a business to having a child to taking your show on the road – anything big that you want to do)
  • are lost in the middle of a project, or 90% done and roadblocked
  • are trying to decide between 10 potential projects
  • are an artist (current, future, former, struggling, recovering or otherwise)
  • want to be an artist but are scared to say that out loud
  • are a recovering perfectionist
  • have a brilliant idea but don’t know what to  do next
  • can’t get your shit together
  • don’t know how to stop being so hard on yourself
  • are a recovering people pleaser
  • are a student or a teacher
  • are a clown or a philosopher or a doer or a writer
  • are a lover or a fighter
  • are an idealist
  • are a cynic
  • are a realist who secretly loves astrology
  • are a dreamer who secretly hates yoga
  • are a mountain climber
  • are an elephant tamer
  • are a toddler wrangler
  • are a sky watcher
  • are a risk taker

Do you see yourself in that list? Do you feel a thrill when you read it? Then guess what: it’s for you.

If you feel fear in the pit of your stomach and think, I can’t do that, guess what: it’s for you. (And guess what: I feel it too. I’m pretty sure we all do.)

If you rolled your eyes and said OH JESUS CHRIST THIS IS BULLSHIT while reading that list, it’s probably not for you. (Unless that was your internal critic trying to talk you out of being thrilled about it. Then it’s still for you.)

It’s not for you if you genuinely hate the artistic process, by which I mean, anything messy and paradoxical and goofy and tricky that challenges the categories your brain has divided the world into.

And similarly, if you are an active perfectionist – not a recovering one, like most of us are – this might not be for you. If you don’t like messing with your own desire to achieve perfection, you might find this frustrating. Because I’m pretty sure you won’t emerge more perfect. (But with any luck you’ll emerge on better terms with yourself exactly as you are. So if that sounds good, awesome, this is for you.)

What you will find here is a caring, accepting environment where you can stretch and grow, with other people who are doing the same thing. Growing is hard work. But if that is what you want to do, then let’s get started.

My year of sea change

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I don’t do resolutions. After years of haplessly making them and watching them slip through my fingers like everyone else, I finally figured out that THEY DON’T WORK FOR ME.

For me, the word RESOLUTION conjures up associations of a set jaw and steely eyes, grim determination, pioneers, hardship, winter, wartime. There are times when what you need to survive is RESOLVE, so I’m not knocking it. But that kind of resolve is a short term solution to a (hopefully) short term crisis.

And to be honest, this time last year I was coming out of a crisis of sorts. Giving birth to a brand new human being and then caring for him around the clock was a shock to my system. It rocked my whole world off its axis and one year ago my beautiful son was exactly four months old and the fog was just starting to clear. What I didn’t know then was that the real work was just beginning — the next 9 months were a time of intense transformation. I tried new things (zumba! hypnosis! life coaching!) and I don’t know if it’s because I was desperate for adult human connection or because the timing was right, but these things sparked huge insights. I read books that pinged off the insights I was having (especially these two books: Finding Your Way in a Wild New World and Our Band Could Be Your Life). I connected with artists who made me question my assumptions around making art and making a living (especially TJ Dawe and Itai Erdal and Cynthia Hopkins and Artists U, which anyone who is struggling to balance art and making a living should go check out right now). It’s like everything I’d been struggling with for years suddenly shifted two inches to the right, and snapped into sharp focus.

All of this led me to put together a plan that didn’t involve SACRIFICING anything or choosing between one vital part of myself or another, but was exactly what I want to do — my style, my dream, my pace. I realized that somewhere in the last five years I’d stopped listening to my body and to my gut. And they were telling me very clearly what I needed to do. I quit my job. I started making a new solo show. And I started this creative practice.

That doesn’t mean everything is easy and happy now. The journey was HARD, and I’m still figuring out how to balance all of the things I want to do with motherhood, which continues to be the hardest teacher of all. But right now as I’m writing this at a coffeeshop in Ashland, my husband is on a hike with our son, who is exactly 16-months-old. And even though we ain’t got money, we’re so in love that everything will bring a chain of love and tears of joy to our eyes, etc.

So back to resolutions: last year at this time I was too bleary-eyed from exhaustion to even think about them. And yet, it was a year of sea change — tiny changes that joined together into huge changes, that shifted my whole world.

So I guess that’s what I hope for the year ahead. That I keep paying attention to the little things, that I see connections when they arise, that I keep listening to what my body is telling me, that I keep learning how to appreciate time with my son at his pace.

I don’t know what sea changes will come of that. But I trust I’ll be able to rise with them.

Try this: WORD ASSOCIATION

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This is an exercise I use all the time when I find myself stuck around a particular word or phrase. I think I first read about it here but I’ve come across it other places too — in any case, this is my spin on it.

Here’s how it works:

1) Write the word or phrase that is tripping you up in big letters on a blank sheet of paper. Then write = [as many associations that come to your mind as you can].

DON’T THINK, just write as fast as you can. If you want, you can try writing with your left hand — that’s one way to tap into your creative/unconscious/unverbal brain.

Here’s an example, using something I frequently get tripped up over:

MONEY  = cash

= power

= freedom

= pain

= stuck up

= glamor

= fake

= plastic surgery

= cancer

= seductive

= can’t refuse

= Robert Redford, the devil, big ego, blind

= dollars $$$$

= less fighting

= time

= cage

= grandma

= strings attached

= residue

WHEW. That’s a lot of associations. Now you try it! You can use MONEY if you want, but it could be anything. LOVE. BABY. JOB. WINTER. BREAKFAST. Any words that are currently a flash point for you — that shut you down or light you up or make you think in circles.

2) Now, pick 5 of the words above, and go further. Whatever associations come up when you think of those words, write them down — even if they don’t make sense. Like this:

stuck up = suburbs, people moving away and getting stuck up, beige carpet, too quiet, dream house –> end of something.

strings attached = manipulation, forcing, not trusting, hoarding, puppetmaster.

plastic surgery = hollywood, once you start you can’t stop, can’t hold onto realness, can’t abide realness, cutting out humility and vulnerability and humanity, fucked up superhero.

can’t refuse = at mercy of boss because you need the paycheck, they own you because they pay you. Being bossed around, beholden.

3) Now brainstorm the opposites of those words:

stuck up –> low key, down to earth, more connected, putting time and money into something you love (a house you build with your own hands as opposed to a big cookie cutter house in the suburbs). Sharing what you have. Staying true to your roots.

strings attached –> giving with no expectation. Using money to connect and help people. Cutting strings, letting go. Opened up, not walled in. Giving things away, clearing, making space for new things. Following curiosities, using money to have adventures.

plastic surgery –> Frances McDormand, she doesn’t need plastic surgery. An interesting face. Being ok with your own face, with getting old, with wrinkles. Not improving yourself. Refusal = defiance = badass, refusing to be more than you are.

can’t refuse –> freelancer, what a beautiful word. No boss. Nothing owed to anyone.

Robert Redford –> what is the opposite of Robert Redford?! Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were? Kris Kristofferson? Someone who’s not afraid to play the bad guy, not trying to save the world, just doing their thing. NOT branding yourself.

You might notice some themes emerging, and if it helps, you can put them together into phrases and sentences. In my case, I’m noticing that I seem to believe that money is associated with presenting yourself as something you’re not — a superhero, a moral leader, a dream house — and being controlled by nefarious forces. No wonder I’m having issues with money!

What if instead of this hollywood suburban nightmare, I could exist in a down to earth world where people helped each other out and followed their curiosity? A world where I don’t owe anyone anything and can do exactly what I want and present myself exactly as I am. Hmmmm.

4) In that vein, I’m going to brainstorm all the qualities I’d LIKE to be associated with [that world / thing]:

[new thing]     = cash, free and clear

= paid in full

= currency — trades, services, symbols, metaphors, proxies

= fair exchange, fair trade, fair price for services rendered

= paid gigs

= no boss

= FREELANCER! (this reminds me of HIGHLANDER and immortality and Sean Connery)

= not a guru, not the good guy, not a moral leader, just a person

= being exactly what I am, presenting myself exactly as I am

= helping people, connecting people

= action (actions speak louder than words)

= have more adventures

= crowdsourcing / crowdsurfing

= economics

= transaction –> Trans Action –> exchange of energy, services, goods

5) Like in step 2, we’re going to pull out key words and push them further. Not all of these will lead to something tangible, but usually by the time I get to this stage, tangible action starts to appear. It may or may not be related to my original word, but then again, it might in a way my rational everyday mind doesn’t understand.

freelancer = get gigs, get the word out. Email friends, make facebook page, make business cards, put my thing out there, no big deal, take it or leave it. Explain it exactly as it is.

have more adventures = go on a hike every day. Eavesdrop on people when waiting in line instead of checking my phone…? Listen. Try posting whatever the hell I want on my blog. Wear a radical outfit. Buzz cut my hair.

helping people, connecting people = find free workshops to take, offer free workshops? Share ideas on blog.

trans action = try more things, do things for others, ask for help, ask for support when I need it, share more, risk letting people in even if it scares me. Invite more people over to my house. Set up playdates. What is a playdate between adults (not in a kinky way)?

And at this point, if a word or phrase has appeared that you can use in the place of the original word, awesome! Use it! In my case, I’m going to use the word Trans-Action so I can remember that I’m not cheating people out of their precious dollars by pretending to be a moral leader — no, I am using the resources I have to help people out and asking for help when I need it and following my own curiosity and going on adventures and connecting with other people who are doing this too. We are supporting each other.

So instead of saying ARGHH I NEED TO BE MAKING MORE MONEY I can now say, DANG, TIME TO STEP UP THE TRANS-ACTION! 

And instead of charging MONEY for my services (eeek, what a fraud, I’m cheating people, I’m a poser and a fake!*), I’m engaging in Trans-Actions in which people offer me something in exchange for what I’m offering them. Fair trade. They know what I’m offering, I know what they’re offering.

What do you think? Let me know what you find out if you try this exercise!

*related topic: imposter syndrome. Duh duh DUHHHHH! We’ll talk about that another time. 

What I Do (thoughts in progress)

/ Faith Helma / 1 Comment

Not life coaching

Life dreaming? Yes

Connecting with body & deeper self? Yes

Realigning your actions with your ‘essential’ self? Yes

Figuring out what you love and how to do it? Yes

Figuring out your truth, your vision for the future

Not planning

Not meticulous detail

Not step by step analysis

Not career planning

Yes inspiring

Yes instigating

Yes a dreamer, a seer, a guide

I help you find the secret spots the eye can’t spot, help you guide your own canoe through dark deep rough waters

A tracker

Fortune teller

Teller, seer, singer, foreteller

Visor, vizer, advisor

Sybil (not Cassandra) — not doom and gloom! not prophet not psychic — no promises, no guarantees not guru not auctioneer

I’m not selling anything

Palm reader

Tarot reader

Tea leaf reader

Oracle

Soothsayer = person who speaks the truth

Prognosticator, Diviner, Crystal gazer

Focuser — someone / something to help you focus your thoughts

Connector, coach, trainer, expander