Anxiety about reactions by others can cripple a creative.

When expressed at all, this fear is usually articulated as, “What will people think of me when they see what I’ve created?”

But it’s not people we’re most scared of. It’s specific individuals. The opinion of fuzzy thousands (or millions) of others isn’t what inhibits us most as we ponder our choice of subject matter.

Rather it’s the frown on a few faces that come clearly into focus: the guys at church, our pastor, our mate, our kids. We don’t mind the world knowing about our lives, but we’re not sure we want our parents to know.

Picture the person whose response to your art concerns you the most. Usually it’s a spouse or a parent. Sometime’s it’s another relative, friend, or an old teacher. It could be an admired colleague or one you don’t like but find intimidating. Whoever’s opinion worries us the most is our “censor in chief.”

That person can feel like a scowling Torquemada scrutinizing every word we write.

Neutralizing our fear of his reaction may not be possible. But imagining how we’ll deal with him helps. Simply identifying our censor in chief can be a revelation. We don’t always realize how much he directs our creativity.

And if we can temper our fear of a censor in chief’s opinion, dealing with the reaction of anyone else is a piece of cake by comparison.

Question: Can you identify your censor in chief?

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*These thoughts are the closely paraphrased words of Ralph Keyes from his extraordinary book The Courage To Write.