Don't believe everything you think.
Let's add to that, the lesser known gem:
Don't believe everything you feel.
WHAT THE?!
Oh, it's a pisser alright.
It turns out that just because we think or feel it doesn't mean it's fact.
How can that be? Aren't thoughts and feelings legitimate?
YES.
But legitimate doesn't make them facts.
I think to myself: 'Things aren't going the way I need them to. I'm scared.' Instantly it's as if my inner little girl starts to cry...and scream.
I've got to soothe and quiet that little girl, right? It would be horribly mean to let her be in such misery. She says she wants a cookie. better yet, 10 cookies. (Let's use cookies as a metaphor for whatever escape hatch we use, okay?)
Over the years I've learned which foods will put me in that instant coma I desperately seek. the coma where I can't hear the little girl and I'm not overwhelmed by today's circumstance. The thing is, the cookie sedative only lasts about 15 minutes. then self-loathing sets in. 'You ate 10 cookies, you loser!'
Nothing quiets self-loathing better than 10 more cookies. or some other mind-number of some sort.
And so it goes.
While digging around in my emotional basement today
I came across a shocking discover:
That crying,screaming voice doesn't belong to my inner little girl!
Nope.
It's my super smart, super tricky inner critic.
My inner critic really hates when I discover things that make me more whole and more able, so it takes any chance it can get to slip in through the cracks to derail me. Any moment that I am over stimulated with the stuff of life, it pretends to be the voice of my inner little girl, and it says 'I am in pain! Only a cookie will help me!'
Well I call bullshit, Mr. Critic. Bull. Shit.
So I am now on an adventure of trying to catch him in the act. When I walked in to the grocery store and found myself inexplicably drawn to this huge hunk of chocolate, I picked it up and considered who was asking for it. it was not painful to set that hunk back down and move along.
Please don't discount this concept just because I'm using food as an example. I am not on a diet nor trying to be on one. It's not about cutting out certain things that are 'bad'...it's about challenging the inner voice that is shouting.
Deal with it, Mr. Critic, I am NOT broken beyond repair, as you'd like me to think.
I am NOT frozen by fear, as you sometimes try to convince me.
I am NOT doomed to be stuck in old patterns and beliefs.
I AM in the process of dusting off those old, worn out thoughts and feelings and trading them in for fresh new ones that fit me.
This IS my truth.
okay...enough for now...consider it food for thought.
hey pookie...i loved the food metaphor, since i am an emotional eater. i had a healer once tell me that my cravings for crazy rich food, cheese of the triple cream variety, etc. were a craving for mother's milk, since i am one of the legions of un-mothered, i find that so useful. i notice when i'm feeling ANYTHING, good or bad, i want to cork it up and stop feeling immediately. custard makes a crappy cork, by the way, because it has the same result as 10 cookies...the problem is still there AND you just ate a bucket of custard! i love the concept of looking at the chunk of chocolate and considering who wants it and getting past it. there IS a puppetmaster behind the un-mothered child...it's a dark saboteur, it's afraid of the light. it's a tricksy dynamic because to call it out i have to allow the feelings first....NO CORKING! and what i discover is that the fear of the feelings has become bigger than the feelings themselves...the BELIEF about the belief is the thing that has been crippling and when i realize it, as you said, it was NOT painful to put the hunk of chocolate back down, when i look at my feelings with detached sympathy. i realize that i created the ogre that is using my woeful childhood as a calling card; has made a cottage industry out of an unfortunate beginning. let's see if we can write this week, despite the chunk of chocolate in the middle of the road.
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