Some of us have one or more troublesome inner voices that frequently put us down in our daily grind.
It’s like we have a negative commentator in the audience in the theater of our lives: “You’ll never succeed”, “Who do you think you are thinking so highly of yourself?” “You’re an idiot” “Control yourself” “Just settle for less”. The commentaries are like little vortices going endlessly round and round in the mind gradually drilling deeper and deeper into our self-image and eroding our confidence.
Sometimes these voices are the internalized voices of our parents, peers or other caregivers when we were young. Sometimes they are our own voices echoing erroneous conclusions we have made about ourselves from experiences we have had with others that we didn’t quite understand. Their behaviour was confusing so we decided something about ourselves was wrong: “I’m no good”, “I’m not loveable”, “I’m to blame” etc.
Sometimes these voices yell so loud that we rarely notice that we are really good at heart with the best intentions for most people.
What can we do about these voices?
Well the worst thing we can do is tell them to shut up…that just makes them go into a temper tantrum and scream louder.
In my experience the best thing, (which might seem counter-productive), is to listen to them.
- Listen to the voice and then allow yourself to experience the state it puts you in. The state can be your emotions, body sensations and posture, your thoughts or all of them put together.
- Go into that state and then ask yourself what character this voice would need to be coming from to say what it is saying. It could be the Inner Critic, Controller, Victim, Saboteur, Rebel, etc.
- When you name the character an interesting shift happens. You start to realize that it is a just persona, a mask you are wearing. Its just your ego, not the real you. You will feel some freedom from the ego as you de-identify with it. You are you and the real you is just wearing a mask. You are not the mask.
- Then you can ask that personality what its deeper positive purpose is. The message might be: “I’m here to protect you” “I’m here to offer correction and advice” or “I’m here to guide you” etc
- When you get the real message you make a deal with that persona: “Well Inner Critic here’s the deal if you stop yelling at me, I’ll listen to you but only if you’ll give me your direction when I really need it, not all the time. Then we can live together in peace” When that deal is in place a wonderous thing can help.
Your ego becomes your ally.
It stops upstaging you and becomes part of your supporting cast of characters. Its opposing force turns around, joins with your energy and empowers you more fully to achieve the success and fulfillment you desire.
If you can resonate with what I have said here and you would like to explore this process (and others) to let go of your internal barriers and to make friends with your ego then check out the one day workshop Becoming Your Own Best Friend.
Imagine what can happen if you spend a full day working through this process?
What big shift can happen in your life?
Check it out here: BECOMING YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND
or the the other series of Bright Life Workshops.