The Noise Inside

This week has been, in the words of Vincent Jones, emotional.

Are you one of those people who gets those whispering doubts in your head? You know what I mean, the whispers that say you’re not good enough, that your efforts haven’t quite made the grade. I am. They’re annoying, right?

Those whisperers are cheeky little imps. They take up residence in our head and then, start copying our voice. They do such a convincing impression of us that we start to believe that’s actually us speaking and because we think it’s us, we listen as though there’s some truth to it. Cheeky blighters!

I was having a very candid conversation with my friend Alex, basically spilling forth all the doubts I had about myself that were rattling around my head. He stopped me in my tracks. “Andi. You are WAY too hard on yourself”

I’ve been told that many times before. In fact all my life, I’ve pushed myself hard to achieve the best I can but though I’ve achieved things I should be proud of, I too often focus on what I haven’t done.

Are you one of those people too, where self-congratulations is short lived compared to the ongoing conversation of, it was good but it wasn’t good enough. Look what so and so has achieved.

My mate Alex was able to put a spanner in the works of that repetitive cycle and I finally stopped and saw my thinking process in action.

It’s very easy when you’re striving for something, to forget about everything you’ve already achieved. For example, I was able to contact someone pretty high up in the movie industry this week but instead of patting myself on the back for my Columbo like detective skills, I tutted inside my head. Why didn’t I get hold of someone even higher up?

As I spoke with Alex I realise I think of my efforts or rewards as not being good enough if they come to me (which makes me think I should have done better). That is some messed up thinking. It’s like “I’m not good enough” is where I look at the world from and everything I come into contact with gets coloured with that.

Luckily I’ve seen the whole mechanism in action and can now do something about. Or do nothing. I reckon, rather than throwing energy at it by trying to stop it (which probably gives it more energy and power) I’m just going to catch myself and choose to think positively instead. That voice, the negative noise, is part of me, but it’s not the higher part of me, the one that is whole and complete and can create anything it sets it’s mind to so I think from now on, I’ll only listen to that part of my head. She knows what’s she’s doing.