Gremlins. Inner mean girls. Those pain-in-the-ass, bossy pants messengers that hold you back.
The voices inside your head.
You know what I’m talking about. We all have them, we just call them different things.
Whatever we call them, those voices can strangle us into doing, or not doing, things that we want or know we need to. They can change our mood in a flash. They can take us from a strong, capable woman to a crumpled heap in no time at all.
Over the years, I have moved slightly on my take of our inner voices. When I first uncovered them in myself I felt like I needed to take charge of my forward and backward movements, and getting tough with those voices was part of that.
And while I still think that we women need to take full responsibility for ourselves and our experiences, I have softened some about my inner voices. Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s experience, but I am being called to a different way of self management. Rather than just locking a voice and its identity in the closet until I have done what I need to do, I want to get to know her…and her….and her… better. I am curious about who they are. I want to understand the messages and why they are sharing them at any given time in my life.
The literature is consistent that because they will always be part of us, hearing and accepting the messages of our inner voices without judgement is crucial for our ability to move and grow. Popular thought is also that giving the voices identities and understanding their roles based on what’s happening when they show up is another step in accepting the voices without challenge. The more we hear, the less we challenge, the ease in moving forward.
There is one additional piece that I wanted to dive into more for myself. Up till now, my practice has been to always question my feelings and create some additional self awareness about how I came to have them. That practice has been huge in helping me manage my responses over my reactions, and helping me operate from my deep core.
I’d like to extend that additional self awareness to my inner voices too. That means learning to talk to them.
For that to happen for me, I need to get better at being quiet with myself and my mind. Not that easy for a lifelong multi-tasker! No surprise that I have always been shitty at meditation and yoga. I love the intended effects of both of those activities, but they call for attention and focus and in the past I have just not been hugely successful at winding down. Seems that this is my time to figure that out.
Growth means challenging ourselves wherever we need challenging. Our deep core and our inner voices help up figure out what needs to be challenged.
I am close up and personal with my deep core already.
Now I’m kinda excited about seeing what lies behind those voices.
Here’s to a new place to kick our own asses!!
Dianna xo
