WHOSE VOICE YOU LISTENING TOO
“I was still searching for someone to blame for my suffering. I really wanted someone to transfer my hate to, so that I could stop hating myself” Glenn Beck
Our biggest goal in life is to attain peace of Mind. However, it’s our THOUGHTS that rob us of our peace of mind. Every time I have a negative thought, that robs me of my peace of mind I have come to realise it’s all in my head.
For most of us, the expression “you are your own worst enemy” holds a lot of truth. It’s a painful reality that much of what limits us in our lives is our own feelings of unworthiness and self-hatred. “I hate myself” is a fairly common thought. Where do these feelings come from? How do they influence us? And how can we push past them to live a life free of the harsh attitudes of our inner critic?
Our minds are always trying to deny the present moment, in the imagination of the past or the illusion of the future.
This feeling about ourselves is common because every person is divided. Each of us has a real self positive in nature, a part of us that is self-accepting, goal- directed and life-affirming as well as an anti-self the traitor inside, a negative side of us that is self-hating, self-denying, paranoid and suspicious. The anti- self is expressed in our inner thoughts. The inner voice that acts like an internal coach negatively commentating on our lives, influencing how we behave and how we feel about ourselves. Replaying negative events on repeat producing negative feelings pushing us through the door of poor mental health. This critical inner voice is there to undermine and sabotage us in every area of our lives, our careers, relationships and personal goals. When we experience a setback, this voice will tear us apart and remind us that we’ll never succeed. It’s often the sneaky internal entity responsible for fueling the flames that lead us to hate ourselves or resent our circumstances. One of the biggest steps we can take to change our lives involves identifying and challenging this voice. It’s important to separate this negative coach from our true self.
Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in a present moment. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in a present moment! So where are you living?
It’s there to undermine our goals!“Who do you think you are? You’ll never be successful!” It’s there to undercut our accomplishments: “This won’t end well. Sooner or later you’re going to mess up.” It’s there to sabotage our relationships: “She doesn’t really love you. You shouldn’t trust her.” It’s even there to criticize those close to us: “Why does he even bother with you? There
must be something wrong with him.” Finally, this voice can seem self-soothing, mollycoddling us yet encouraging us to act in ways that our self-destructive, then punishing us for messing up. For many of us, this thought process is so engrained that we hardly notice when it arises. Instead of recognizing this voice as the destructive enemy that it is, we mistake it for our real voice, and we believe what it tells us about ourselves.
As we grow, we form a mental image of who we are, based on our personal and cultural conditioning. This is where our ego is born, the life behind our negative thoughts.
As we mature our critical inner voice impacts us in a variety of ways. We adapt to it by treating it like a coach and listening to its destructive advice. When it repeatedly tells us we are worthless, we may choose friends and partners who treat us as if we are worthless. If it tells us we are uneducated, we may lack confidence and make mistakes we wouldn’t make otherwise. If it tells us we aren’t attractive enough, we may resist putting ourselves out there. When we listen to that voice, our inner critic, we give it power over our lives. We may even start to project these critical thoughts onto others. We run the risk of starting to perceive the world through its negative filter. This is where paranoid and suspicious thoughts cloud our perspective, as we act out people will see us differently from how our voice sees us. For example, we may struggle with positive acknowledgment or someone critiquing us, as it contradicts the ways we perceive ourselves. We may have trouble accepting love, as we fail to challenge our inner voice as it has become so familiar. It’s been engrained in us since early childhood, and we therefore often struggle just to recognize it, much less challenge it.
Whose life are you really living?
I believe one of the reasons we experience the feeling of “I hate my life” is because we aren’t following our own path. Instead, we are, often subconsciously, carrying out someone else’s idea of how we should live, who we should be. We have allowed that voice to misdirect us, the traitor inside. In order to have the life we say we want, we have to separate our real point of view from negative influences from our past, from people around us or from society at large
To stop our cycle of self-hatred and live free from imagined limitations, we must learn to challenge our inner critic.
In order for our real, authentic self to emerge, we have to identify and separate from destructive programming we received very early in our lives. Take our thoughts captive and not allow them free rein to dwell on the negative.
Resilience is something we can all adopt and develop within ourselves. The more we can stick through hard times without expecting the road to be easy, the better we can handle what life throws at us. Resilience involves accepting that we have some control over our situation, and that there are always steps we can take to improve our circumstances and thought life. Obstacles can be seen as challenges from which we can grow. No matter what life throws at us, taking a victim mentality only makes us suffer more. By realizing the ways we have power over our lives, we can feel stronger and more resilient in any obstacle we face.
Practice mindfulness as it teaches us how to let go of thoughts that are destructive or undesirable.
If you need to talk, hit me up.
Basil Reynolds
Coaching Consultant
Finding the Music Inside