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They say that we talk more to ourselves than any other person on the planet. With so much jabbering, the voices of our unconscious mind can only hold so much value.
Before you deny having that voice, I want you to take a second to sit still with your thoughts. Try doing this for even two minutes without hearing the usual internal rants of, ‘Crap, I forgot to phone my mom back last night,’ or ‘Why am I reading this blog when I should be doing laundry?’
That voice is constantly blabbing to us, and most of the time it’s not even saying anything worth listening to. Of course, there are instances when the voice takes on that of Jiminy Cricket, swooping in as our moral guide in moments when we’re tempted by our vices. Other times, it’s our logic or our common sense. It speaks to us more like the Pixar owl, molding our decisions with wisdom and insight.
Sometimes, even, this voice praises us. Sometimes it tells us how ambitious we are or how good we’re starting to look naked after all those bicycle crunches. The sad truth, however, is that these positive thoughts get lost amid the hurricane of our repetitive, illogical, self-deprecating, and downright destructive thought patterns. In fact, according to Psychology Today, 80% of our thoughts are negative, and 95% are repetitive.
The mind can act like a broken record, replaying our greatest traumas and inventing obsessions and phobias simply because it’s looking for ways to stay preoccupied. But if we’re aware of our mind enough to step outside of it and observe it, then that can only mean one thing: We are not our mind, therefore, we are not our thoughts either.
The mind is notorious for playing tricks and manipulating in ways that we’d quickly tire of if it were coming from a friend or colleague. It morphs us into its trusty puppet, pulling at our strings without our knowing. It’s the reason why we surrender in tough situations or inflict unintended harm on ourselves.
I want you to think twice before you let that voice convince you your life holds no merit. I want you to know better than to trust it when it tells you to give up, and instead, listen carefully for the seven biggest lies it tries to tell you:
1. You can’t do it
This one is probably the most obvious, so we’ll start with it. How many times have you told yourself you couldn’t do something, and then you went and not only did it, but you mastered it?
Perhaps it was a job interview, a half marathon, or a blind date you never thought you’d make it to the end of. Every single day we’re tested and challenged to make ourselves do things that make us uncomfortable. This discomfort is what forces our evolution. Without it, we would remain stuck in place and unchanged.
But the mind will unconsciously hold us back, overanalyzing situations and magnifying our fears. It makes baby ocean waves look like tsunamis and direct paths look like a wild maze. It’s a warped perception, but that doesn’t make it the truth. Your fears are only as big as you allow them to be.
Imagine what you’d accomplish if you spent half as much time focusing on all that could go right. Telling ourselves we can’t is the worst lie we tell ourselves because it’s the one we most often believe.
Think of the mind as an illusionist that is specially trained to deceive. If you’re aware of its deception, you are already one step ahead. You’ve already proved it wrong countless times, so clearly, you’re more aware of your capabilities than you realize. Just be careful not to lose sight of this during the mind’s next magic act.
2. Everyone is judging you
Trust me when I say that no one is thinking about you nearly as much as you are.
Everyone is dealing with their own batshit crazy bosses, temperamental spouses, ungrateful kids, overpriced mortgages, or disobedient Labradoodles. And if they’re not, then they’re fretting about not having the job, the marriage, the kids, the house, and the dog.
If we’re not worried about what we have, we’re worried about what we don’t have. Either way, we’re too wrapped up in our own one-man show to be defaming one another in our diaries.
Remember that you will always be the star of your own movie, but to everyone else, you’re simply an extra.
I’m not saying that no one judges you, rather I’m suggesting that you’re not being scrutinized as badly as you imagine. Every thought another person has about you is simply about them. It’s another illusionist trick. We cannot see in others what does not exist in some form in ourselves. Therefore, anyone who’s judging you is actually judging themselves, so don’t take it personally if they are.
The same principle applies to you, in that your judgments of others are based on your own experiences and feelings about yourself. They say we are our own worst critic. So do yourself a favor and stop criticizing. If we all did that, perhaps we’d wipe our slates of judgment clean, too.
3. Relationships and material wealth will make you happy
I actually took an online course on this. The course was offered on Coursera through Yale University and was called The Science of Well-being. I was feeling hopelessly depressed at the beginning of the pandemic and figured I’d attempt to better myself rather than morph into a couch potato, courtesy of unemployment.
One of our very first lessons discussed the topic of material wealth and how little it actually does for our long-term happiness. Possessions will never fulfill us because they can always be taken away. Someone could always ransack your house and you could always misplace your favorite diamond earrings.
And even if you manage to keep your possessions close enough, it’s only a matter of time before you grow sick of them and seek replacements – the hottest and the latest editions. If you’ve ever upgraded your smartphone, you’ve absolutely been guilty of this.
We’ve become consumer addicts, and we start wanting things simply because of their exclusivity and mouthwatering promises to improve our lives. All it does is lead us further astray from the things that will bring us true joy.
We already have all the tools we need to make ourselves happy. There is no pursuit necessary. All the love we could ever need is in our throbbing hearts already. But when we feel a lack from within, we turn to external factors for a quick fix.
Similar to how a wild animal forgets how to fend for itself in the wilderness after living in captivity for many years, I believe we humans also forget how to fend for ourselves when we’re up to our neck in store-bought goods. We forget how to nourish our souls after eating a steady diet of overly-processed bullshit.
We neglect loving ourselves so that we can instead blindly hand an empty heart to someone else. Someone who will throw it away because they’re just as empty. Don’t let that be you. Fill yourself with everything you’ve expected the world to fill you with – compassion, gratitude, joy, tranquility, and love in its purest form. You have it all within you. We all do.
4. You’re so behind
We’ve all heard this tall tale before. Everyone else is getting promoted, buying property or even upsizing, and not only married but starting a family. Meanwhile, we’re still getting ass cramps in our cubicle and soon to be headed home to our studio apartment on the frugal side of town. Oh, and our closest companion is a tabby cat that hisses when we try to pet it.
We all have different versions of this sob story, but they all stem from the same lie – that we’re so behind. Timelines are another illusionist tactic based on perception. You are only as ahead or as behind as you say you are. Those people you compare yourself to are not giving you the whole picture. You don’t see their heated marital arguments just as they didn’t see your scarring childhood. Everyone is in this rat race with themselves, and the funny thing is, there’s not even a competition. Move at your own pace. Take your time. People rush right past life and never stop to exhale, never stop to admire the all-encompassing beauty of our world.
Be the person who slows down and savors every moment, and then maybe you’ll be the prototype everyone else tries to compare themselves to.
5. You’re not good enough
Or we’re undeserving of love, insignificant, an airhead, a waste of space, a failure, or some form of an abominable disgrace.
Want to know who name-calls? Children. Undeveloped children. If a five-year-old pointed a mischievous finger at you and called you a stupid head, would you collapse onto the floor in a puddle of your own tears? Would you abandon every thought you ever had about being intelligent simply because you were informed you were the opposite? Of course not. You wouldn’t because that’s such a childish insult. It’s hard to take offense when you look at the source.
Well, your mind can mimic the juvenile behaviors of a child any time it wants. It will inform you of how foolish or pathetic you are or how hideous your reflection is the morning after a night of bottomless mojitos. Treat that voice like the five-year-old calling you a stupid head. Smile, nod, and walk away.
These moments of self-doubt and insecurity are often fleeting, so allow them to visit but don’t spend too much time in their company. Doing so could send the wrong message – that they are welcome guests. And any person in the right mind who was being insulted by their guests on a regular basis would kick them out.
6. You can do it tomorrow
We tell ourselves this all the time, “I can’t follow my dreams today but I’ll try tomorrow, or maybe next year when I’ve lost some weight, have a classier wardrobe, and have taken a public speaking course.”
I want to share with you a secret: Tomorrow doesn’t exist. Not yet. Today, however, does.
We have no idea what tomorrow will bring or whether or not we’ll even be granted another sunrise, so why put your greatest aspirations on the back burner for an idealized moment that may never come?
Today is here, which means your dreams could be, too. Stop making excuses for why you can’t and just get started with what you can. Surely an imperfect outcome is better than a figment of your imagination.
Saying we’ll do something tomorrow is just another lie we tell ourselves.
If you procrastinate on your happiness, you may never get around to it.
7. You have little impact on the rest of the world
You’ve heard of The Butterfly Effect, haven’t you? About how one modest flutter of a butterfly’s wings on one side of the globe can cause a massive typhoon on the other? Meaning that one tiny incident can have a major impact on the future.
You may not realize it, but you are the wings in this scenario. You get to choose whether you want to cause storms or build shelters. The illusion in this scenario is separateness. The ego always tries to see itself as separate. But in truth, we are connected. And this connection means that even our most seemingly insignificant actions will impact the world in ways we can’t even begin to imagine.
For example, you could have performed some random act of kindness to a stranger who was on their way to jump off a bridge. Your kind gesture paired with your sincere smile could have made that person reconsider a reckless decision. But you’d never know it. To you, the exchange was ordinary. How many of these supposedly ordinary moments go unnoticed every single day? Perhaps most of them.
You get to decide on the meaning behind your existence. You get to decide how you connect with others and how you contribute to the glorious whole that you’re a part of.
If I haven’t managed to discredit your mind just yet, that means you’re probably in the midst of another grand illusion. That’s okay. Most of us will remain stuck in that illusion for the majority of our lives. But if you can manage to just step outside of it on occasion and be more self-aware, then you are already leaps ahead. As you fight the battle between mind and reality, just don’t forget that you’re the one who’s in control.
You get to decide how you perceive yourself, others, and the world around you. You choose how to respond to every situation and event. You create your own reality.
A puppet can no longer be a puppet when it finally becomes cognizant of its own strings.
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Photo by Pietro Tebaldi on Unsplash
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