Now before you start the admissions process to that cushy place for people who say they hear voices, I’m talking about the different types of thoughts that go through my head.  You know, you have them, too.

There’s the voice that makes the snarky comments to your boss that you don’t say aloud because that could get you fired.

There’s the voice that is your normal thoughts.  “What should I eat for dinner?”  “Why did I go upstairs again?”  “Why is that guy standing out in his yard in his bathrobe?”  After watching a lot of BBC shows, this voice has a British accent.

There are the voices of my characters in my novel.  They’re all distinct.  And when they talk to me, I have to write down what they say.  The writers among you know what I’m talking about.

Then there’s the voice that none of us like to admit to having, to listening to.  It’s the one that haunts us.  That makes us feel two inches tall.  That tells us no one would like us if they knew what we are really like inside.

That voice is quick to point out every single mistake.  It calls attention to the asymmetry of your eyebrows.  It points out every single hair you missed when you shaved your legs.  It tells you that you need to lose weight because you’re sooooooooooooo fat.  It berates you for saying “you too” when that’s not what you should have said.  It tells you you’re ugly when you look in the mirror.  It tells you no one loves you, they’re only there with you because they want something from you.

Usually, this voice sounds like someone we know.  I’m sure that you know exactly what I’m talking about.  There’s someone in your past that has verbally abused you, or bullied you, or told you something one time that wasn’t tactful or was thoughtless and it has stuck with you your whole life.  Like the fact that my first grade teacher never pronounced my name right–the entire year!  Or the abusive boyfriend who told me I was lucky to be with him because no one else wanted  me.

There’s a fascinating book that I’ve read in the past year (okay, there are several fascinating books) that deals with one source of negative self-talk (self-talk is the technical term for how you talk to yourself in your head).  That book is Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Karyl McBride (Goodreads page).

I know that not all of you are daughters.  And not all of you have narcissistic mothers.  And I’m not saying that I have a narcissistic mother.

I am saying that at one time or another, we’ve all encountered someone who made us feel small, inadequate, not good enough, hated, unimportant.  And I’m sure we’ve all encountered someone narcissistic.  They’re everywhere because narcissism is a spectrum.  We all have some of the traits.  There’s a brief explanation here.   The easiest way to define narcissism is as extreme selfishness.

No matter where you encountered your particular narcissist (does someone’s face come to mind?), it is likely that you still carry a part of them around as one of the occasional voices in your head.  Dr. McBride gives so many helpful tools in her book.  There’s a questionnaire to evaluate the potential narcissist in your life.  There is a discussion of the relationship dynamics and the effects of narcissism on those who have to deal with the narcissist.  And then there’s a section on how to heal.

That section gives steps on how to recover from these invisible wounds that people give us.  When we figure out what happened and how it effected us, we can address that.  We can start to make changes.  We can address those negative voices in our heads and change the way we talk to ourselves.

I don’t know if I can even find the words to tell you how much it has helped my mental health that I have been able to pay attention to my thoughts and correct the negative ones.

I still get the “You’re such a loser!” thought on occasion.  I try to follow it up with “I’m a child of God.  I have value.”

I still get the “That was a dumb thing to do” thought, too.  And the “You’re so stupid” thought.  It takes a lot of effort to say “I make mistakes, but that doesn’t make me dumb or stupid.  That just makes me human.”

It takes a lot of work at first.  But it’s worth it.  It’s so worth it!  That doesn’t mean that I don’t still have those thoughts from time to time.  I do.  Especially when I’m exhausted or I have a headache or a stressful day.

Just because that voice is there in your head, doesn’t mean you have to pay attention to it.

Another resource that talks a lot about inner voices and such is episode 007 of Cat Rose’s The Creative Introvert Podcast.  She lists 10 different inner enemies to creativity.  These inner enemies aren’t just things that introverts or creatives deal with.  There are things that we all deal with: negative self-talk, procrastination, perfectionism.  Give it a listen.  Like Will I Ever Be Good Enough? it’s got a lot of good information that can help get us closer to being whole, more complete, people who treat ourselves with kindness.

In the spirit of treating ourselves with kindness, here’s one of my favorite Andrew Peterson songs: Be Kind to Yourself.