One of the greatest creativity killers is that voice inside our heads some call the inner critic. We might also call it the inner tyrant, oppressor or despot. The voice that says “who do you think you are”, “you’re too old”, "don't waste your time", “everyone will laugh at you”, "you're nothing". Its goal is to keep us safe by keeping us small, inside the box, uncontroversial and under control.

A few months back I wrote a post about ways to befriend this voice.

But recent world events have me rethinking how I want to relate to this inner entity. Or perhaps there are multiple entities that require different approaches depending on how willing they are to share power equitably. 

My primary spiritual practice is shadow work. Noticing what offends me in the outer world and finding where a version of that same dynamic lives within me. Then doing the often painstaking yet ultimately joyful work to detangle, dismantle, transform and integrate it. By engaging in this process, I’m freeing myself from the frustration of fragmentation and moving towards wholeness and liberation.

So when I see oppression continuing to play out every day in the news, I look within and see where oppression has a home in me. While I’m not intentionally starving millions of people or systematically imprisoning and torturingchildren, I have to acknowledge there is a part of me that is willing to bulldoze any opposition to achieve its agenda, a part that wants to hurt others 10x the amountthey have hurt me, a part that thinks that coercion and control is the only way to safety.

I’m going to call this voice the colonized mind.

The colonial mindset has the following worldview. There’s one right way. I know what it is because I'm superior. My superiority gives me the right to impose this one right way on others by whatever means necessary, without regard for their preferences let alone their wellbeing. The colonized mind internalizes this voice as the belief that we should prioritize the things others have told us are important over the indigenous desires and wisdom of our heart/body/soul/higher mind. The colonized mind is in an "I-it" relationship with the other which it sees as inhuman and therefore fair game for exploitation. 

How does this connect to creativity?

The colonized mind sees creativity as inherently dangerous because you can't predict it or control it. 

The liberated mind sees creativity as an essential source of safety, resilience and thriving in a complex, volatile and unpredictable world.

The colonized mind tells me my creative output needs to conform to some specific external standard, otherwise it is invalid.

The liberated mind says creativity is my birthright and there's a wide range of equally valid ways to be creative.

The colonized mind treats creativity like an inanimate natural resource to be discovered and exploited. 

The liberated mind is committed to cultivating a meaningful "I-thou" relationship with creativity based on mutuality and reciprocity.

The colonized mind believes that the only way creativity will cooperate is coercion.

The liberated mind trusts that if I keep showing up for my creativity, my creativity will keep showing up for me.

The colonised mind thinks it knows best and there’s no need to consult with creativity for its opinion.

The liberated mind knows that creativity holds its own deep well of wisdom and that I ignore it at my own peril.

How can we make this shift from colonized mind to liberated mind? 

Three moves.

First, we need to divest our identity. We need to understand the colonized mind as a separate thing, "study its playbook" as Jaiya John says, so we can become sensitized to its strategies. Because this inner oppressor, the colonized mind, comes from our conditioning and from our culture, it will never disappear completely. But we can recognise it as "not me". "Yes, that dynamic is in me, but it's not who I am or who I want to be". The less we identify with it and the more we see it as an externally-imposed ideology, the less legitimacy, attention and energy we will give it and it will start taking up less and less space as a result.

Second, we need to root down into a deeper identity and commit to acting with integrity. If I claim to value love, justice, truth and freedom, I need to bring my actions into alignment with those values. Not just externally, but internally. Yes, it's important to do the work in the outer world. Donate. Speak out. Add our voices to the choir of hundreds of millions calling for re-humanization, protection of innocents and dignity and freedom for all people. But I believe it's equally important to let the catastrophic abuses of power and ongoing oppression catalyze a renewed commitment to demilitarizing our inner lives. In recent weeks my tolerance for inner oppression has evaporated. I have no desire to play that game anymore. To paraphrase Parker Palmer, in Let Your Life Speak, I refuse to conspire in my own diminishment any longer.

Third, tend your garden. We need to remain vigilant for any signs of the colonized mind creeping back and uproot it like a weed. 

But we don't need to do it with an energy of violence or anger. It can simply come from neutral discernment. "Ah, this little plant is not in the highest good of what I'm trying to grow in this patch of earth. No thank you. Goodbye." 

While the hold the colonized mind has on me is much less than it used to be, I still notice those moments of clenching in my body, the feeling of pressure that comes when I'm trying to force something, including writing this post. I was trying to finish it yesterday and realized I was forcing it. So I stopped. I let go of any attachment to sharing anything this week and went to sleep. This is my continuous practice of noticing the contraction and unclenching. Of stepping back into an "I-thou" relationship with my creativity. If it doesn't want to move in a certain direction I stop and listen with an open mind. Willing to see things differently. 

I slept on it and in the morning I saw Jaiya John's quote and it felt like the missing piece that clarified what this post wanted to be. And so here it is. 

May you liberate your creativity from any remnants of inner tyranny. 

May the dignity and integrity of your creativity be inviolate in your inner landscape. 

May your creativity enjoy the full right to self-determination and flourish with its newfound freedom.

I'll leave you with some lyrics from this beautiful song:

It's been a long, long time 

Since I've known the taste of freedom 

And those clinging vines 

That had me bound, well I don't need them 

I've been like a captured eagle 

You know an eagle's born to fly 

Now that I have won my freedom 

Like an eagle I am eager for the sky