Inner Naysayers

We all have our inner naysayers. We generally prefer not to talk about these harassing little daemons, though it can help us when we do. By “daemon,” I am not referring to some objective evil or the devil; I mean something akin to a computer virus, or a bacterium that can dis-ease our bodies.

Healthy as well as unhealthy persons have potential disease generating “beasties” dwelling in hidden recesses of their bodies. As long as we remain healthy and strong, we do not get sick from whatever virus or bacteria exists within us. But if we get overly tired or stressed or weakened, up springs this previously latent disease to attack us – right when we have become vulnerable. It seems unfair, but that is the way it is. Call it survival of the fittest.

As the body has its viruses and bacteria, which it seeks to hold in check, just so the soul has its inner negative voices, which can harass and plague us. Examples of negative inner players and their tormenting words, with which I am personally familiar: self-doubt (“You are worthless; you’ll never succeed”), inadequacy (“You are not good enough; others are better than you”), nihilism (“It’s all for nothing; it’s useless”), depression (“Things will not get better; you’ll never get out of your pit”), and anxiety (“You are going to go off the deep end; you won’t be able to keep things together”).

Almost paradoxically, it seems that the more we take on and attempt to fight off these personal doubters, the stronger they tend to resist. They love attention, as it were, and seem to seek all of ours. As the poet Gibran says, we live in half-embrace with what we most dread.

Psychologist Rollo May offers another way to grasp personal daemons. He says that a daemon is any natural function capable to taking over a whole personality – at least for a time. An example would be anger: when you are in a rage, your perceptions alter and you are not really yourself. The anger can seem to possess you; you temporarily lose the freedom not to be angry. And whenever you deal with the daemonic, you are dealing with the loss of freedom, the onslaught of psychic bondage. Just look at addiction and the demon of alcohol.

Other examples of natural functions which can lead to our becoming “dis-eased,” are lust, greed, envy, jealously, pride, sloth, and fear. Who among us has not at times been harassed by fear? FDR was right when he said, as WWII commenced: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

The really good news about these horrendous inner dialogues with our own personal negativity is that we do not have to engage with them. You do not have to begin walking down the path toward inner discord. You can say, “Hush!” or “Be quiet!” to these inner tormentors, then you can turn the other way, move your mind elsewhere, find something more positive on which to focus. You do have that power. And when you practice it, you find it gets easier. The quicker you learn to say “Stop!” the better off you will be. It is easier to get back onto the right path after taking just one as opposed to twenty steps off course.

We will always have both inner promoters and detractors, offering comforting encouragement or defeating doubt. Which is the truth? Both and neither. Your life will be what you make of it. Choose well to whom you listen.