In Search of a New Friend

My inner critic constantly makes me forget that I am a marvel, so I need a new friend who will help me remember.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

It has been five weeks since I returned from my writing residency at the Collegeville Institute. Since then, I have barely touched the book project that I spent my residency working on. That weighed heavy on me today as I was journaling. The semester has ended, so while I still have the summer ahead, this is the end of my official sabbatical period. My disappointment in myself came through as I wrote this in my journal on Friday: “I thought I would have read and written more this week. April was pretty much a bust. Between the fibro flares, the [mindfulness teacher training] course, and the [professional education] workshop, I just didn’t get much done.”

My mindfulness practice showed up in that moment. By the time I put the period in that final sentence, I realized that the final clause – “I just didn’t get much done” – was untrue. I started again.

“In the midst of managing repeated fibro flares, I:

• Completed a five-week MBSR [Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction] teacher training course.

• Developed and delivered a three-hour continuing education workshop for psychologists.

• Wrote and published four weekly newsletters for No Trifling Matter.

• Read four books and about a dozen social science articles.

• Redesigned and reorganized my workspace.

• Traveled across the country for a family vacation.

• Disrupted and recovered my circadian rhythm as a result of said travel.

• Managed five days of not being able to use the kitchen sink or dishwasher due to a plumbing problem.

• Tried to keep my finger on the pulse of what’s happening in America.

• Did some form of exercise and meditation almost everyday.”

As I wrote out the list, I remembered that over the past four years, I managed to write a entire book and complete five fairly intensive courses for my MBSR teacher training, all while teaching a full course load, transitioning to a different institution, and raising a whole human being. I remembered again for the first time that I am a marvel. My inner critic almost made me forget that.

Most of us live with an inner critic, that internal voice that is constantly judging us, pointing out our shortcomings. Mine is especially loud. It tempts me to set unrealistic expectations for myself, to judge myself harshly when I don’t meet those expectations, and to ignore or minimize my daily successes. It tempts me to value myself in terms of my productivity, which is almost always measured in terms of some visible or tangible output: books read, words written. It makes me prone to diminishing and suppressing my genius. Even now, it makes me want to go back and delete that word: genius. “How dare I claim that for myself?” it whispers.

My inner critic is especially vocal now, both because of my sabbatical period and the cultural moment that we find ourselves in. “Sabbatical” is a misnomer in the academic world. These periods of leave from teaching and administrative responsibilities are not really about rest. They’re about productivity. They would better be termed “research leave” or “scholarly leave” because they are granted with the expectation of output, usually manuscripts. When we return from sabbatical, we have to present the work that we accomplished during our time away. Failure to produce might have negative consequences for future sabbatical requests. At one institution, the administration even threatened that if several faculty within a department failed to be generative during their sabbaticals, it would weigh negatively on requests by other faculty.

But even that is not enough pressure for my inner critic. For the first half of my academic carer, I believed that I had to produce an entire book during sabbatical. Eventually, I calmed down and began to reduce my expectations. For this sabbatical, I proposed three goals: (1) taking time for personal restoration and renewal; (2) working on a new book manuscript; and (3) developing two new courses. It was a big deal – and a marker of my privilege as a fully tenured professor – that I included that first goal. And honestly, until this moment when I looked back at my proposal, I forgot it.

I submitted my sabbatical request for this semester almost two years ago. At that time, I could not have imagined that we’d be in the political situation that we’re now in. I’ve been grappling with the dissonance of sabbath rest and the need for political activation since the night of the election. Suddenly, the writing focus of my sabbatical – a manuscript on how we sustain the emotional labor of social justice activism – seemed more pressing. I didn’t want to just work on the project; I wanted to make substantial progress toward it so that I could aim for a faster publication date. I needed to produce because I needed to do something to resist this administration.

My inner critic has established imposed a timeline on my sabbatical labor. She measures my progress against it each day, each week, each month, and lets me know how I’ve missed the mark. But she’s selective. She rarely tells me that I didn’t spend enough time in daily restoration and renewal. She never congratulates me when I do. Of course, it’s not really in her nature to congratulate me for anything. She thinks she’s supposed to keep me humble because humility will keep me safe in a world that despises confidence in Black women.

In Sacred Self-Care, I wrote about how I am trying to retrain my inner critic, “to teach her a different love language, one that is patient, that is kind, and that doesn’t keep a record of complaints.” Now, though, I think perhaps what my inner critic needs is some competition. I need another friend: an inner cheerleader who affirms my enoughness, not just occasionally, but each day, each week, each month. I haven’t spent enough time cultivating that voice. It’s time.

If this post resonated with you, be sure to like, share, and comment. It’s one of the best ways that you can support my work.

Do You Enjoy My Writing?

Like many introverts, I am not good at self-promotion. I tend to let my work speak for itself. But in this algorithm-driven market, I need some help. If you’ve read any of my books and have found them helpful, please rate and review them on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Goodreads, StoryGraph, and any other online book retailer. The ratings help the books get discovered. And they let publishers know that readers are excited about an author’s work, which is important when we’re trying to get our next book deal. So please take a few minutes right now and leave a review!