When Life Awakens Your Critic(s)
It can be hard to keep feelings of victory and success alive when things get hard.
The bills pile up.
Jobs are lost.
Credit cards max out on groceries.
People betray your trust.
Loved ones pass away.
Health issues flare.
Cars get totaled.
Sometimes you can go from feeling on-top-of-the-world to rock bottom seemingly overnight.
Sometimes the daily grind just doesn't feel all that victorious, at least not with a capital "V".
Sure, we feign positivity through it sometimes, but deep down, when it's really, really hurting the most, the lie of mistimed hope can burn.
So what do you do? You keep Being.
Being what, though? A Loser? (Because isn't it so easy to "go there" in times like these? I only risk saying this here because I've been there so frequently myself.)
My answer to that is, perhaps surprisingly at this point of my oh-so-upbeat post, is a resounding NO.
Someone once dedicated this song to me, and I hated it for the longest time, but after listening to it repeatedly I picked out stuff from it to hold onto.
“What a feeling (I am music now)
Being’s believing (I am rhythm now)
Pictures come alive
You can dance right through your life”
You keep breathing. You open up. You cry if you have to, maybe even at the register when your credit card is declined.
Just don't stop.
One of the Critic's common survival mechanisms is to put a halt to everything, especially your passions! Critics are not compassionate.
So be super, super-duper nice to yourself!
Not in the sense of laying down and going to sleep. (Though, a nap in stressful times can work wonders, I hear...and I back that.)
What I'm talking about is Not Giving Up.
What does "Not Giving Up" look like?
I think this is where the universal answer becomes personal.
Not Giving Up is like exercise, and everyone has to find what works for them. We're all at different places with different sets of circumstances and conditions surrounding us.
Even stillness and meditation is movement, in my opinion. Movement can take so many different forms.
Breathing is movement.
Love is movement, along with the rest of the "fruits of the spirit".
Feeling (as opposed to denying) is movement.
Opening your eyes is movement.
Putting Gesso on a painting surface is movement.
BEING IS MOVEMENT.
And according to Flashdance:
Being is also Believing in who you are and what you're capable of.
Here's an idea: When things feel stuck and insurmountable, one tangible way of beginning to reclaim your Victory is by writing out a list of how many moving things you can do in a day, an hour, a minute...even a second. And then, practice them. Do not judge them at this point. Remember, your critic will be eaves dropping! Even if you think there's no rational way it will make anything good happen. Let me know how you feel after you write out a list of just how many things are in your power to move because even making that list is movement.
Sit back and reflect, but don't get too comfortable.
Reflect on your listed movement options long enough to cross out those movements on your list that might not actually be in your long term Victory interest...Movements like popping the top of 30 beers and going on a binge everyday for the next week, perhaps? Stay true to yourself, but don't go overboard. ;)
Don't Give up. Keep moving.
***
I was told once in my elementary school career that if I kept moving my pencil across the page when I was trying to write a story or come up with an idea, even if I wrote "nonsense" 500 times, that the words of my story or idea would eventually make it's way to the front. The real stuff, the real work, the stuff that really needed to come out and reveal itself for the success of my assignment would have no other place to go but onto my paper.
So I think it's a little like that when it comes to success with other things...even something as "big picture" (or small picture, depending on how you look at it) as Life. Your life. The lives around you. Lives Everywhere.
Don't Give Up.
That's all you have to do when there's "nothing" you can do.
*I am not an expert or authority on this or anything else. But Not Giving Up, so far, has helped me, at least in some way, to be here, alive.