The subconscious works in very mysterious ways; it never forgets anything. The subconscious keeps a record of all interactions, much like a videotape of your life. The subconscious is also the referee who monitors that the game of life is played fairly. The most important information that is documented by the subconscious is data pertaining to your feelings. When your feelings get hurt, it is recorded. When you feel ignored or abandoned, it is documented. When you let yourself down, the subconscious keeps a ledger of checks and balances to ensure that all is fair and just.
There is a myth in the world that hurt feelings dissipate and disappear. The expression, “time heals all wounds” represents this myth. The truth of the matter is that the subconscious vindicates all wrongdoings. After recording the scenario, noting the wrongdoings and positive experiences as well, the internal device builds a case amassing information in order to balance the score. So you may say, “It doesn’t matter,” “I don’t care,” or “It’s no big deal,” in order to save face and appear aloof. You may be severing your feelings one more time in order to camouflage your real inner truth. The subconscious knows, and will take care of it in due time. Ignored feelings will eventually demand to be recognized.
All addictive behavior is motivated
by either the pursuit of or the avoidance of a feeling!
Feelings: Allow them, discover them, connect with them, experience them, express them, and manage them so that they work for you is critical to the Negaholic recovery process. If you are disconnected from your feelings and automatically pursue mood enhancers, then you encourage Negaholic behavior. Remember, all addictive behavior is motivated by either the pursuit of or the avoidance of a feeling. All addictions are geared to relieving, avoiding, or anesthetizing a feeling. So being aware and monitoring your feelings is fundamental to the recovery process.
Since people infrequently discuss feelings, they are often at a loss as to the labels to assign to what they are experiencing. This list of feelings is geared to help you sort out and label what you are feeling.
Once you’ve found your feelings, then it is time to manage the voices in your head.
abandoned
adequate
adamant
affectionate
organized
alienated ambivalent
angry
annoyed
anxious
apathetic
astounded
awed
awkward
bad
beautiful
betrayed
bitchy
bitter
blissful
bold
brave
burdened
bored
calm
capable
captivated
challenged
charmed
cheated
cheerful
childish
clever
combating
competitive
condemned
confused
conspicuous
contented
contrite
cruel
crushed
culpable
deceitful
defeated
delighted
desirous
despairing
destructive
determined
different
diffident
diminished
discounted
disgusted
distracted
distraught
disturbed
divided
dominated
dubious
eager
ecstatic
electrified
empty
enchanted
energetic
enjoyment
envious
evil
exasperated
excited
exhausted
exhilarated
fascinated
fearful
flustered
foolish
frantic
freaked out
free
frightened
frustrated
full
furious
gay
glad
good
gratified
great
greedy
guilty
gullible
happy
hateful
heavenly
helpful
helpless
high
homesick
horrible
hostile
hurt
hysterical
ignored
immortal
imposed upon
impressed
inadequate
honored
inferior
infatuated
infuriated
inspired
intimidated
isolated
jealous
joyous
jumpy
kind
lazy
lecherous
left out
lonely
longing
loving (love)
low
lustful
mad
mean
melancholy
miserable
mystical
naughty
nervous
nutty
obnoxious
obsessed
obsolete
odd
outraged
overlooked
overwhelmed
pain
panicked
Peaceful
persecuted
petrified
pity
pleased
pressured
prim
prissy
proud quarrelsome
rageful
rapture
refreshed
rejected
relaxed
relieved
remorse
resentful
restless
reverent
rewarded
righteous
sad
satisfied
scared
servile
settled
sexy
shocked
sick
silly
skeptical
sleepy
sneaky
solemn
sorrowful
spiteful
spoiled
startled
stingy
stuffed
stunned
stupefied
stupid
suffering
sure
sympathetic
talkative
tempted
tenacious
tenuous
tense
tentative
terrible
threatened
thwarted
tired
trapped
troubled
ugly
uncomfortable
uneasy
unimportant
unloved
unsettled
used
vehement
vital
vivacious
voluptuous
vulnerable
violent
warm
weepy
weird
wicked
wonderful
worried
worthless
zany
FEELING WORDS
5
The Voices Within
Have you heard voices in your head? Ask yourself if you have heard a voice chattering in your head. It could either be when you need to make an important decision and the voices are weighing the pros and cons in your mind. It could also be a Negattack, as previously addressed, when you didn’t live up to the expectations that yo
u or others established for you. Recall a dialogue that was either commenting about you or others. If you can remember voices in your head, you’re not alone. The vast majority of adults experience inner voices.
What Are The Voices?
The voices can be monologues or dialogues, but most often they simply chatter at you. Some people haven’t differentiated between their thoughts, their intuition, their inner “messages” and “their voices.” There is a distinct difference between them. If you are going to stop being a Negaholic, then you must be able to tell the difference between these various communication centers.
Thoughts are rational ideas that originate in the left side of the brain and involve cognition, analysis, logic, evaluation, understanding, deliberation, consideration, reasoning, and speculation.
Intuition is an immediate insight or an inner-knowing without relying on reason or rational processes.
The voices of the mind are involuntary chatterings that use data from life experiences in a logical, rational, and reasonable manner. They tend to talk to you or at you in either a benign or hostile manner. They can advise, direct, guide, criticize, or attack you depending on whether they are managed or not.
Inner messages are inner imperatives that tell us to do something out of the blue. They are irrational, illogical, and unreasonable, don’t fit in with our rational plans and usually appear to be an inconvenience. Messages are spiritual DNA that we are born with to guide and direct our lives. Messages are also the Spiritual GPS on our journey through life. These messages embody important information and guide us to do something that requires a risk. The messages can come from our higher selves, from angels, spirit guides, souls who have crossed over, or from whomever you refer to as “almighty”.
You may or may not be connected to your “Messages,” but regardless you still have them. People may doubt that they have messages, since the voices of the mind are much louder than their inner whispers. Just as you might not be connected to your physical DNA, you still have it inside your genes. It is undeniable even though you may have never seen it under a microscope in a lab.
The voices of the mind sometimes grow so strong and become so loud that they dominate the subtler whispers of the inner messages. The voices are most often a composite of parents, teachers, and authority figures who were in charge of you to:
• Motivate you to produce results
• Protect you from hurt, failure, or rejection
• Promote remorse or guilt so you would atone
• Instill values so that you would become a good person
The voices in your head can take a variety of different forms. If you have Negaholic tendencies, they may criticize, judge, invalidate, find fault, and dwell on the negative. If you are free from the Negaholic inclination, then the voices of the mind could be positive, supportive, encouraging, validating, and enthusiastic.
If you are ready to deal with these voices of the mind, then it is time to identify and manage them.
Identifying Internal Voices
The process of identifying your internal voices is not terribly complicated, but it does have some very specific and necessary steps. You must be willing to take each step and follow the directions to completion in order to quiet the voices, make choices about them, and make them your allies.
In order to turn your voices into allies, you must first know what you are dealing with. To do so, follow this four-step process:
1. Listen closely to the voices in your mind
2. Write down what they are saying
or
3. Talk the voices into the voice recorder on your phone
4. Describe a visual image you create for the voices. Close your eyes and picture what or who is saying the words to you. Use your imagination and be creative in depicting the creature(s) inside your head.
Children are excellent at using their imaginations to conjure up pictures. They are inventive at naming and interacting with fantasy creatures emanating from their imaginations. Remember your childhood, and recall how your creativity enabled you to invent whatever you wanted. That child inside you with the vivid imagination is still there within you. That child is still as fanciful, whimsical, and creative as you were back then. Over the years you have learned very effectively how to be an adult, and in certain respects you may have relegated your child within to a closet deep inside yourself. It is time to let your creative child out to play. Give your creative child the opportunity to name the voices, to describe the characters, their style, their tone, their objective, and when they surface in your life.
Your Choice:
Train, Negotiate, or Evict
After you have acknowledged the existence of your inner voices and given them an identity, you have choices: you can 1) train them, 2) negotiate with them, or 3) evict them. Imagine that a long-lost cousin came to visit you for the holidays and never went home. The question is not whether you like your cousin or not; the question is really whether you have chosen them as a housemate.
You may very well have miscellaneous relatives dwelling within your head who are unwanted guests. You may have been putting up with them because you’re a nice person who wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone. You may not want to upset your cousin, or have them get angry with you. Maybe you, tolerate, stifle your feelings, are polite, accommodating, and charming to those unwanted “mental houseguests.” Well, it may be time to clean house. Not that you are required to actually evict anyone from your mental domicile, you have three options: 1) train, 2) negotiate, or 3) evict.
If the inhabitant is your cousin, you may want to consider negotiating so that you have a win-win outcome. If all else fails, rather than suffering in silence you may want to consider eviction.
You have a choice about who lives in your head, what they say to you, in what tone, how often, and for what purpose. Just because these characters are in your head does not mean that they are wanted, or permanent residents. They may just be ghosts from the past who have become permanent fixtures in your head. Maybe they became comfortable, and decided to stay…indefinitely. It is time for you to take stock of who is inhabiting your internal domain.
Perhaps one or more of your voices has been running the show and you have been sitting back, watching. You may feel like a prisoner, trapped in a chamber from which you can’t escape. The reality is that you were not born this way. No baby is ever born a Negaholic! You are ultimately in charge, and rather than you looking for an escape, you are the CEO of your life. You have the right to say who stays and who goes.
This is your own head. You are the head of your life and you get to choose. Your head accompanies you everywhere you go, every day of your life. You get to choose who inhabits your head and what they say to you.
Elena, the Workaholic
A client of mine was extremely articulate in verbalizing her internal voices. She was aware of the voices, found it relatively easy to visualize them, and was willing to discuss them openly with me. Her mental images, as well as her descriptions of the roles these characters played, were so graphic that I felt it would be helpful to examine her process.
LISTENING
Elena, a particularly successful workaholic, was driving herself crazy. As she explained, “I know that my situation is self-imposed, but I am trapped in my own patterns. In other words, I know I am doing all of this to myself, but I don’t know how to undo it!”
When we got to the specifics, she told me that she had approximately two free hours for herself per week. Her life was filled with teaching, class preparation, clients, writing, family, and research. She had no free time and was feeling squeezed and claustrophobic. I asked her if she wanted to tackle this in terms of time management, and schedules, or address her internal patterns. She replied that she wanted to look within herself, that she wanted to get beyond the symptom and focus on the core of the issue.
I asked her to share with me what her voices were saying. She said one voice is constantly driving her, and is relentless abou
t accomplishing tasks, so that she can justify her existence. Each day she had to accomplish enough tasks to prove that she had a right to be here. She never had a clue when enough was enough to satisfy the inner driver. I asked her to name the voice. She called this voice Laurel. I then asked her to describe Laurel to me.
LAUREL
“Laurel is perfect. She always does everything right. Her hair is pulled back in a bun, she wears high collars, and longer-than-average skirts. She wears a little makeup no jewelry, and horn-rimmed glasses sit on her nose. She is righteous and knows she is better than everyone else. Laurel is named Laurel because she receives all the laurel wreaths, gets more done than anyone else in the world, and prides herself on that. She does not tolerate laziness, indecision, or excuses. She is ruthless in her management of herself. She runs the show with an iron hand, and always meets her deadlines.”
I asked Elena how she felt with Laurel at the helm.
“Whipped, beaten, driven, and frantic inside.”
I then asked, “Is Laurel the only voice you are aware of?”
“No, there is a playful voice, too, which loves to have fun.”
I asked for more information on this second voice.
“This voice wants to go dancing, go to the beach, go for coffee, hang out, and play. She is scantily dressed, and likes to change clothes with her mood. Sometimes she is in shorts and a tank top, other times she wears a red, skintight, fringed dress; other times she will prance about in a negligee. This voice likes to be frivolous, spend money, have a good time, and go shopping! This voice likes to wear sexy clothes and flirt with men. She wants to laugh, and sing, and make love all night long with no thought of tomorrow. This is the voice that could really get me into trouble. Both Laurel and I are afraid of her.”
I asked her what she could call this voice. Without hesitation she replied, “Rosie!”
“How do Laurel and Rosie get along?”
Elena replied, “Laurel has to keep Rosie out of sight and under wraps. Rosie is an embarrassment to Laurel. Laurel has spent a lot of time building a reputation, establishing credibility, and creating a track record. If Rosie came out of the closet she would ruin everything for Laurel. So Laurel is compelled to keep Rosie silenced and out of sight.”
Negaholics Page 10