What If Your Creative Work Attracts Criticism or Even Crickets?
Maybe you've heard of the fear of being visible? The Jailer is the part of you that remembers what it’s like to be seen, and also remembers that being seen means attracting attention, criticism, or sometimes worse, crickets. The Jailer takes the stage in order to keep you safe from these uncomfortable or painful feelings.
My new book, Artists: Prosper! Make Peace With Your Brain, and Money + Joy With Your Art is out this month for real. Instead of October 39th, the real-ish date is November 13th. I spend the first part of the book talking about what blocks us from making art.
In Artists: Prosper! I talk about the Judge, the voice in our heads that tells us our work isn't’ good enough. If you manage to overcome the Judge and actually finish work, a new obstacle shows up to make sure you don’t show it to anyone. That block is the fear of visibility. I call it The Jailer.
Do you know the Jailer?
Have you named your inner Jailer? Mine doesn’t have a name--it’s more like a feeling in the pit of my stomach when I put something into the world. A cross between food poisoning and the stomach flu.
What’s your Jailer like?
How do you feel about being seen? About criticism? I’m giving out copies of Artists: Prosper! to people with the best descriptions of their inner Jailers. Send me a note, and tell me what yours looks or feels like. Once we get conscious about what’s going on inside us, we have a chance to heal it.
If you’d like to be notified when Artists: Prosper! is available, go here, and give me your email address. You’ll be among the first to know. And if your Jailer is making your life miserable, take heart. You’ll learn how to make peace with it in the book.
THANKS for your support--for reading this blog, for helping me work out the ideas for the book in this writing, and for continuing to do your art, whatever form it takes.
Our work matters, and deserves to be visible. Once we work things out with the Jailer, that becomes possible.
Would you like to work on your visibility with me?
In the meantime, helping you figure out what you’re really doing in your business for your people, and the best way to communicate it to them are my superpowers. If you need help figuring out your own business superpowers, let’s chat.