When Your Inner Critic Shows up…You’re doing it Right.

I think often with taking self-portraits

When our inner critic shows up to try to stop us, we think we’re doing it wrong.

That this doesn’t happen to other people, only us.

So we put our camera down and quit.

Thinking that its easier for everyone else.

That these photos are proof that we aren’t photogenic, that we aren’t enough.

But here’s the thing. From my perspective, when your inner critic shows up…you’re doing it right. Not wrong.

You’re doing it right because you are at the precipice of a new story.

You might be only a few photos away from that one that helps you see yourself in a new light.

Your inner critic is a sign that you are stepping out of your comfort zone.

That there is the possibility of a new story.

And your inner critic is scared shitless of change.

So it bounds you, tells you yet again that story that knows will press your buttons.

Repeats the words that unhinge you and make you give up. Cause it thinks it knows you that well.

It shouts even louder the closer you get to change, to being outside of its comfort zone.

But what it doesn’t see is that it is blind to what is beyond its boundaries.

That when we say no to these old stories and open the door to a new one…

We get to define how we talk to ourselves not our inner critic.

But it can’t see that far and so it holds us in tight.

So in case next time you pick up your camera, you might take a self-portrait and feel like you are doing it wrong

If you see the old story of how you feel about yourself in photos.

You aren’t wrong.

You are just in front of the door of the new story, locked shut by your inner critic.

Press the shutter, take another photo.