The first key to handling criticism is the existential key. Until you decide that your path in life matters, that it is ultimately your responsibility to live by your cherished principles, and that you and only you can create a life worth living, you will have insufficient motivation to put criticism in its place.

In this series, adapted from my book Toxic Criticism, we examine the ways that criticism and self-criticism interfere with our ability to find our life purpose and live as strongly, passionately, and effectively as we would like to live.

Most of us would be quick to say that we are free to think just about anything and to express ourselves in any way we see fit. In reality, artists do a lot of measuring, somewhere just out of conscious awareness, about what is safe or seemly to reveal and what is unsafe or unseemly.

Interview by Janet Grace Riehl -
Eric Maisel: Even before you can make meaning, you must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your own life and fashion a central connection with yourself, one that is more aware, active, and purposeful than the connection most people fashion with themselves.

The goal of a creative mindfulness practice—the kind of practice that you really want—is not only the nonjudgmental observation of your thoughts but complete right thinking that leads to authenticity, creativity, and mental health.

Info on a series of podcasts on the Personal Life Media page "The Joy of Living Creatively: Tapping Your Innovation and Imagination."

We have our little linguistic tricks that help us avoid the experience of anxiety, but those same linguistic tricks keep us from doing the work that we hope to do and prevent us from achieving our goals.

An interview. Based on his experience as a therapist and creativity coach, Eric Maisel created his book Ten Zen Seconds to provide an accessible mindfulness strategy based on traditional practices and cognitive psychology.

A certain task confronts creative people all the time: making choices... whether to write this book or that book... whether to aim for personal, idiosyncratic work or more commercial and market-driven work, and so on. While it is obvious that you will face countless choices of this sort, it is not very well understood how anxious all this choosing makes you and how likely you are to flee from your work, your commitment, or your career because you don’t feel equal to making a given choice.

We object to a universe where meaning has to be made. We object to a universe that is meaningless until we force it to mean. We object to nature pulling this dirty trick and making us a partner to it, giving us exactly two choices, to not look this reality square in the eye and live as a coward, or to see what is required and live as an absurd hero.