I’ve been mean lately. Like, nasty, snarky and rude. The person on the other end of my meanness should probably unfriend me on Facebook and basically cut me out of her life. The things that have popped up and have been communicated are hard to hear, probably not true and borderline insane.
I can’t, however, unfriend myself. I can’t turn and walk away from my inner voice. I can’t yell and scream and tell her to “SHUT UP” and expect it to stop. My brain, my inner voice and inner self talk has been crude and awful for the past week.
You’re so anti-social.
You should have gone for a longer run.
Why did you eat that?
What are you doing with your life?
How are you paying rent this month?
You’re really not good at anything, just quit.
Why are you like her?
I sit here and type some of the things that run through my head, think other things and can’t bring myself to share everything. It’s that bad.
SHUT UP.
Doesn’t work. Damnit. I’m truly, in general, a happy person here in Chicago. Happier than I have been in the past, but this voice… who is she and how do we silence her? Sometimes I go for a run and listen to her, try and reason and argue. Other times I convince people to meet me at the bar and I shut her up with a few beverages, she’s quiet while I’m surrounded by friends, but she gets angry when I’m home alone in bed–Why did you have that last glass of wine? You spent too much money. Are those people really even your friends? This voice makes me cancel Skype dates with my best friends, she pulls me down onto the couch, turns on Netflix and says “Tomorrow, tomorrow will be clearer and sunnier, and better. Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow is bullshit. What if there is no tomorrow? You can’t just turn a voice off. I’m trying to end this post on a positive note without sounding cheesy and I’m not sure how to do that. Cheese might be the only answer. Since we can’t shut our inner voices up, maybe take what they say with a grain of salt–work as hard as you have been, and also acknowledge “at least I WENT for a run today…” Being kinder to ourselves can be hard, we’re all our own worse critic and have the tendency to just be mean. So I guess it comes down to treating yourself with respect, realizing that the things that pop into my head I would NEVER say aloud to another person–so why am I treating myself like that.
Not cool Sloan, not cool.
So on that cheese filled note, a new goal is set in place for myself and I challenge you all to join, be nice. Be nice to yourself, take note and acknowledge your accomplishments as well as the path you are on. I’m writing this to pump myself up for it–it’s a daily struggle and I’m on that bus trying to be happy and live a life full of learning and moving forward. Because forward is the only way to go.
thesolesearch 
I want to say something profound about inner voices. It sounds like you know you need to unfriend her as you first identified. She is not your friend. Let her know that there are rules for inner voices.
1. No negative comments. You will not listen. Instead you will do one of 2 things: 1. Take out a pad of paper and write 3 things you are proud of. Or 2. Meditate with a positive mantra for 15 minutes. This is how you will react to even 1 negative comment from the voice.
2. There are 3 parts to our unconscious.
PARENT. a. Caring, helpful and loving
b. Cross, abusive, and hateful
ADULT. reasonable, problem-solving and steady
CHILD. a. Fun loving, joyful, spontaneous
b. impish, hurtful, troublemakers
When an inner voice is negative it comes from either your PARENT or your CHILD b. voices.
The negative comments from your inner b. PARENT are full of “should haves or shoulds”. Comments are hateful, abusive and accusing–not helpful.
The negative comments from your b. child often get people in trouble or interfere with positive plans or actions. This negative inner child doesn’t want you to succeed. It wants to have your child b. to come out to play whether it interferes with your goals or relationships.
Our adult inner voice develops as we grow older. It is there to reason, problem solve and take joy and pride in our accomplishments. There is no negative b. in our ADULT. The struggle to develop this MEDIATOR to deal with the other negative b parts is affected by our experiences with others and self control of ourselves. If called upon to set limits when we seem to be attacked by the b. voices it uses the healthy strategies that have been developed
I. E. Reward, distraction, etc. Not easy but if we understand what is going on inside, it strengthens our adult. Humor is a good method to curb those b. voices. I gave you an example of rote activities you could use when the voices start in on you.
Well, that probably isn’t very profound and it is probably too long.
Wish you were closer so we could get together more often. My reference for this diatribe is Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis.