For just about all of my life I’ve talked to myself. Now, at 41 years, I’m refusing to call it trauma or label it in some way that society has deemed okay to absolve myself of responsibility for my actions and choices. All that does is take our inner power away. I do recognize, however, that it is in part due to not having a loving, nurturing mother around and that the love I got from my father was about discipline, hard work and doing the right thing. So, I learned to console myself. And that's when I discovered the roommate upstairs.
The incessant chatter going on in our minds is just that. A noisy roommate. What we grew up with. That noisy chatter typically begins to sound like the people who raised us, and it's a big part of our ego and how we distinguish ourselves from others. It’s part of the subconscious program that begins when we start learning at a young age. For some, it could be their favorite teacher that they’ve turned into their inner monologue. For the traumatized, it could be an angry mother or father, while for others, it could be nothing but love and care.
It may also be why we seek out partners who closely mimic our inner critic, in an attempt to realize the inner world in the outer world. The brain seeks things that are comfortable and natural to us, so if failing was your natural state growing up, then being in successful situations will actually feel foreign to you, and it's likely the chatter will be telling you this.
"This is too good to be true."
"This can't be real."
If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know that’s exactly what the subconscious mind is aiming to do anyway. Humans have this innate ability to create, but most of our time on Earth is spent reacting, instead of creating. The other time is spent in habitual recreation and tasks, until our time has run out and we wonder where that time went. We box ourselves in, not necessarily because of the hamster wheel “of the matrix” or because of greedy politicians or disgusting corporations who want to ruin the world, but instead because of the scary power we know we hold inside.
It’s easier to fall into place, find a comfortable pace, and avoid looking scary situations directly in the face. Way easier. The inner monologue really determines which routes we take, especially the longer the programming has been in place. Did you grow up encouraged to take risks? Did you grow up with parents willing to spend money on your dreams as a kid? Did you grow up hearing mostly yes? Or did you get a lot of no's?
It’s interesting that I find myself here, now, writing this piece. Maybe I will publish it. Maybe I won’t. At the moment, however, I am also in a spot where I am in the process of cutting off the inner monologue. Why would I want to do that?
I’ve identified my inner critic as a noisy roommate. That’s part of where all the “subconscious affirmations” come from. It’s really just the act of aiming to install another program. But you can’t remove memories. You can’t remove them from the mind or the body. The body remembers pain and so does the mind. Mental and physical pain the brain aims to avoid at all costs. Your subconscious mind is halted when the conscious mind is at the forefront “remembering what happened last time we did that.”
And so, we avoid.
We avoid starting that thing that we always wanted, and if we don’t avoid it and actually start it, we definitely don’t finish it, because who would really care if we did? It wouldn’t matter anyway, right, because we would only be letting ourselves down. If you’re single and there’s no kids or significant other, why not just kick back, smoke some weed, have a drink and turn on the television? If you’ve got a family, even more reason to not take a risk, because there’s kids and a significant other who are depending on you. Better to just keep working for someone else and never do anything different. Best not to take unnecessary risks. Best not to look like a fool. It's easier this way.
Better to just stay in line and then wake up one day and you’re too old to feel like doing anything and then you die and that’s it.
Quite noisy, indeed.
But the glimmer of hope never quite leaves, does it? That small flicker of flame never quite dies out. There’s a voice also whispering, desperate to outweigh the critic, the noisy roommate.
It’s the voice telling you to just go and do. To go LIVE. That’s all that voice is telling you to go out and do. To LIVE, before it’s too late!
If you can't quiet the noisy roommate upstairs, at least swap it out for a roommate who has your back. A roommate who will look out for you and tell you that you're doing all right. But the one who is always throwing things at you and telling you that you're insufficient?
Get rid of them.
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