#156: Silence Your Inner Critic 15-Minute Prayer and Journaling Experience

Welcome to the silence your inner critic session. It's a time of prayer and journaling so that God can help you to silence that inner critic. Now, we will always have some swirl around us, right? Some things that are coming against us. But we can in Jesus name come against that. And it's an ongoing process. It's like taking a shower. You're not gonna just take a shower one time and be done for the rest of your life, right?

If you stop taking showers for a while, what would.

People would start to smell you, right? Your hair would get greasy if you're like me. But people would start to notice. And I feel as writers, if we're not regularly coming to God business meetings with him or prayer times regarding our writing, there's just gonna be stuff that piles up this junk. And one of the biggest things that you'll notice happens is you'll stop writing. Has anyone experienced that? You'll feel irritated and aggravated and nothing will seem to be coming out right, or frustrated, or you'll just feel like, I'm not good enough. Just all the junk and all those things are going to start to come out. And I will just say, when I'm in my creative flow and I'm creating and I'm doing things, I'm a better wife.

I'm a better. I'm a happier person. God has given us these gifts, and he's given them like they bring us joy. And if you are not having joy in your writing, I encourage you to ask the Lord to bring the joy back, because I really believe he's intended it to have an effect on you where you have joy. All right, so let's pray and then we're going to get into this. Dear God, thank you so much. For each of these Kingdom writers that's here now or listening later, I pray God that you would pour upon them just a outpouring of power from on high, that your spirit would just fill them, would remove any of these blockages, any of this gunk that gets stuck. I think about my drain in my shower and my long hair often clogs it. And then I pull this stuff out and it's gross and it's yucky, but then it flows wonderfully again. And sometimes we just need to remove that junk and the stuff from the world, from our own flesh, from the enemy and the spiritual battles, and say, God, bring the flow again. And so we ask you for that. We ask that you would do that today for us, Lord, for each one of us. And we pray this in Jesus, powerful Name. Amen. Today we're going to go through a exercise and this is something I've added to Christian Book Academy. It's a 15 minute silence. Your inner critic challenge. You'll need to have a journal and a pen. I do recommend doing this in paper and pen because it does affect your brain differently. But you can also type if you don't have any paper available. We're ready to move on to step one where you're gonna prepare your heart, mind and space. Just take a moment to center yourself before diving into the prayer and journaling session. So I just encourage you to take three deep breaths. So inhale deeply through your diaphragm and you can do it through your nose for four seconds.

You can hold it briefly and then exhale through your mouth for six to eight seconds.

So as you breathe, release any tension and just actively invite God's peace. Say God, I just ask that you just pour your peace over me and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. So I'm going to lead you. Let's go ahead and breathe in.

Hold.

And breathe out.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Hold.

And breathe out.

So you can choose your own prayer. But we just gave you an example of Lord, thank you for this time to meet with you. May you quiet our hearts and clear our minds so we can hear your voice. I offer my writing to you and trust that you will guide me. Amen. And if you are in Christian Book Academy, I'm going to go ahead and put this link in here and you can mark each one as done as you do it. You'll just click done and be able to move on. Step two, Reflect on God's creativity. So I'm going to set the timer for three minutes and I want you to meditate on Genesis 1. 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. What inspires you about God's creativity? What? Right one way you see his creative power in your life. For example, the beauty of nature reminds me of God's endless imagination. Or God created me with unique ideas and a purpose to share them. And then just a prayer reflection. Lord, thank you for your creativity. Help us to reflect your creative nature in our writing. Amen. So I'm going to go ahead and set the timer for three minutes and I'm just going to let you go ahead and write about this prompt.

Foreign.

Now we're going to just take a step to rekindle your joy. So what do you love about writing? I want you to write one or two reasons why you started writing and why it matters to you. So maybe it helps you process your thoughts and emotions, like in a journal, or you love encouraging others through your words. But I really want you to go deep. What is it that really sparks joy in you? If it's becoming a drudgery and a dread, ask the Lord, what is the root of that? What is going on? Why am I not feeling that joy anymore? All right, so we're gonna take five minutes. You're gonna spend time journaling. And if you already feel like you're flowing in joy, you can also just ask God this question. Say, God, what do you wanna say to me today about my writing? Wherever you're at, you can just journal. I'm gonna give minutes to journal. I'm going to go ahead and go quiet.

All right, we're winding down about 15 seconds.

All right?

All right, step four, act on inspiration. So I want you just to write freely for about five minutes about anything that excites or inspires you right now. Just let your creativity flow without worrying about perfection. And, Lord, we just thank you for the spark of creativity you've reignited in us. Help us to continue to write with freedom and joy, trusting you with the results. Amen. And then after you've written for those five minutes, you can just pray this prayer at the end. I'm going to set the timer for five minutes.

All right, Just start winding down. About 10 seconds left.

All right, let us know. How did it go? Beth says, yes, much more confident. This exercise helped me. Good. And Val says, feel more flow and more confident. Carol says, so much more confident. Mary, more flow and confidence. More flow. Gianna, more confident. I really appreciate the rekindling of my joy exercise. Judy says, God spoke to me. A very personal affirmation. I love that we do this. Like I said, we have a new one every week. And if this was helpful to you, I encourage you to go through that. Get your timer, set your timer and do it as well.