"Some people don't know how to give feedback!" declared my friend, Ginette.

We laughed about how feedback is usually 'criticism' wrapped up in what may indelicately be labelled a, "sh*t sandwich!" With equal fervour, I declared, "I never want feedback!"

Ginette's point was serious: don't ask for feedback if you don't want it. But I seriously don't want it. Why? Because I'm getting feedback all the time, every day, 24/7 from the critic in my head. My own Internal Critic does a far fiercer hatchet job than any numpty out there in the other world! I'm feedbacked-out!

Enter The Librarian...

Yes, I know that should be something dynamic like, "Enter The Dragon!" However, books, bookshelves, and libraries are dynamic places for me - packed with power. I realised just now that, just as I love these in the other world outside, I also have them in my inner world. My brain must be racked with bookshelves full of tomes bursting at the seams with what I've learned.

The solution to my internal critic seems clear: I need to install a librarian - a bossy one.

There are few rules in a library - after all, we are all looking for different subjects to study, and we all learn in our own way. But one rule is shared by all libraries: silence!

So my librarian has taken up residence and she (it's a she) has a habit I love. When my Internal, pompous, up-himself Critic makes the slightest noise in my mind, she says:

"Shhhhhhhhh!"

She looks over the top of her glasses, and she is very firm!

It's working so far... and making me smile.

It might work for you too!

(If you've got one of those annoying critics!)

Lex

A Moodscope member.