The voices in your head and the self sabotaging battle that keeps you hostage

August 21st, 2023

As I continue to reflect, I have learned to recognize how the most significant fight is happening inside my head and not outside of it. The limiting beliefs programmed into my brain feel empowered in part by society’s rules and expectations of who and what I should be in order to be someone of value to those around me.

I have come to realize that most of our lives end up in a chase to achieve things that exist mostly only in our heads, and there comes a point when we no longer remember what it is that we really wanted in the first place. We end up with a purpose defined by others and living a life competing with ourselves because we don’t accept ourselves.

What does it take to just be? How do we learn to silence the strong voices? Will I ever be good enough? Will I achieve success? Will I be able to move past the twisted feelings of wanting more? Will I be recognized and validated? Will I stop asking these questions? I must say that I feel that the voices and questions can be reconfigured, but it takes a lot of work, and even when you think you have silenced them, the programming is so hard that it will take some time. But we must not desist in our intention to balance out our lives and provide a space to move forward despite those invading thoughts.

I am now a certified life coach, and I have learned through self-awareness to recognize when the battle starts and fight it with compassion, silence, and reflection, but also with stamina and courage in order to win. So, how does it look, you might wonder?

For me, the invasive, self sabotaging thoughts come in the form of questions and judgment. I conclude that they come this way because my brain knows this is my weak spot, my trigger. No matter how much work I do on myself through meditation, acceptance, and growth, the triggers still lie in my subconscious; I have just buried them but not called them out properly.

As I am on the path of mastering my mind, I want to share some steps that have helped me win the fight:

• Recognize that the battle has started. How? Anxiety creeps in, tears come from nowhere or everywhere, creativity goes down, energy drops and suddenly you’re all around your head with a million thoughts and answers at the same time
• Let the emotions come; let it all out. Typically, we will try to defend ourselves by blocking our thoughts, getting busy doing something else, distracting ourselves by taking on more tasks, or whatever we have at hand to stop thinking. Big mistake! Give yourself time to feel, mourn, and question. Accept the fact that the battle has already started and you feel bad about it; acceptance is a game changer.
• Prepare your defenses. As you accept your feelings as authentic, you will feel a burden lifted, you will feel more at ease, and your intuition will know that you have opened a space for truth and vulnerability and are ready to listen.
• Be ready to ACT. Know that you have listened to your inner desires, and be ready to act upon them. As this happened to me today, my intuition told me to write about it, and even though I’m not feeling in the best place, I got on to it.
• Let go of the outcome. Once you act, even if it is a small step as simple as sitting in front of the computer with your mind at zero inspiration, be sure to say, “I am doing my best, I am acting, and the outcome will come.” We are too attached to the outcome of our actions, and we do not prepare for an unexpected result. Once you let go of the outcome, the universe takes charge because you have already started a ripple effect, and as Einstein said, “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”

So yes, it is not about silencing the voices; it is about accepting them, having a conversation with them, going into the battle, and accepting that even though they might sometimes be right, we have a more significant weapon to defend ourselves from self-doubt and self-judgment, and that is your intuition.

As I embrace this awkward moment of truth through this article, I can’t stop listening to the voice that says, “Is it good enough? Will someone read it? Am I going too far?” but I am actively deciding to trust my intuition to bring it out. I still don’t fully believe in it, but I decided to trust the process.