Comments on: Introducing your number one creative enemy

By: Jay Versluis

Jay Versluis — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:06:15 +0000

The Top Dog is a vicious one! I first heard about it in therapy, and getting the concept of it solved a lot of hassle I had with how I saw myself and others. Like John says, not everything that the Top Dog says is getting me down - that’s why it’s so hard to spot him!

For example: he can say “you’re fat and ugly, and you’ll never be a success”, he tells you “I’m only telling you this because I don’t want you to get hurt”. The difficult bit is to distrust the wolfe in sheep’s clothing.

Once I had learnt which voice this is, and which suggestions not to trust, my life became so much happier. I hadn’t realised how much and how often this voice would get me down, getting me sad and depressed, all under the disguise that it’s apparently “better for me”.

I fought him with heavy weapons, but that just made me sadder, angrier, and more depressed. So I sat down with Top Dog for a chat. I acknowledged his presence, and I acknowledged messages that at one point in my life MIGHT have been truthful, but aren’t necessary anymore. More so, that aren’t working for me anymore. Doing the opposite of what Top Dog suggests (i.e. “stay away from people, they’ll hurt you”), I tried the opposite. It worked, and seriously turned my life around.

Great post, John!

By: Karen Field

Karen Field — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:46:53 +0000

I think I get many messages from Top Dog… But I share one with Lynne which crops up time and again - ‘is this really what you want to do’. In fact, I could repeat most of Lynne’s post and it would be applicable to me too!

By: Lynne Smith

Lynne Smith — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 07:08:36 +0000

Interesting topic. I’ve got a feeling Top Dog has been in operation most of my life, without me even knowing it was at work! I have had many ideas that have excited me about what to do for work - and then the inevitable, and now exceedingly familiar, feeling of diving to the depths of hopelessness within three days of the original impulse - TD bringing in all sorts of objections - you’re not pretty enough (ahem!! I know that’s not the sort of thing a woman who has come through the feminist movement should still be concerned with!), you haven’t got enough money to do this, you’re not intelligent enough, you don’t have any staying power, is this REALLY what you want to do?, what’s the point you won’t make it to any great degree, you are too soft and you don’t have enough drive etc. etc. The list is actually extraordinarily long, maybe even infinitesimal, and would take billions of pixels to record. Somewhere in TD’s childhood he was probably deprived of his PAL Meaty Bites and decided to eat into us instead!

By: Julie Shackleton

Julie Shackleton — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:20:09 +0000

My top dog tells me to stay in my job of 19 years as its safe and secure and pays the mortgage. In the words of my father when I failed my MAths O’Level many years ago but got A for ART. “What can anybody do with art?” I think I’ve being trying to find out ever since for myself when i am clearly a creative and capable person.

By: Teresa McCrone

Teresa McCrone — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:09:36 +0000

Yes, my top dog thinks work is pain too. Interestingly, when I get on with it (work) I mostly enjoy it. Even dull things I can find satisfying. But i haven’t yet learned how to stop my top dog de-motivating me.