Whatever they are, we want bad feelings out! And in a hurry! Bad feelings can be like we have a monster inside us, throwing everything off, busting around the pieces of our internal puzzle that we’ve been carefully placing. The monster might add extra pieces throwing the whole thing off, squishing himself (please don’t get caught up on the monster’s gender) between pieces and making a whole mess of things. Nothing fits anymore.
To spell it out, that monster is whatever is bugging us and eating us inside.
Today, that’s what I want to read about: a book about the mayhem my inner-monster is creating inside me. I would want this book to be efficient, help me see how to fix this puzzle, make me feel better, have great tools and make peace with the monster inside – or remove it entirely 😉
LET’S DO THIS!
Let’s picture that our inner balance is a jigsaw puzzle. We spent our ENTIRE LIVES making this delicate puzzle that builds ourselves and our balance. We work at it every day and it’s a tricky process! One tip, one push, one squeeze and the whole thing can fall apart. Sometimes, it just feels off. We feel like things are getting disturbed, but we can’t easily see what. That’s when we have an internal monster inside.
I want to know how to fit all of the jigsaw puzzle of myself and keep the monster from throwing it off.
I think we can work through this in 2 steps: discover and flush.
STEP 1: Discover where/how do we feel off
Let’s lay things out flat (ie, full disclosure): Obviously, I am being extremely figurative in this process. I do this because I feel that when we’re faced with a basic question of “Why do we feel off?” or “What’s the matter?” we can come out empty handed and that’s not a great place to start the repairing process. By being more imaginary and personifying our issues, we can be better able to discover, understand, sympathize and work through our issues in order to work them out and feel them coming before the settle in for the future.*
Here are the basic Monster categories I have figured out:
- Anger & Frustration
- Sad & Disappointed
- Fear & Worry
- Stress & Anxiety
- Envy & Jealousy
- Distracted & Unfocused
- Overwhelm
- Shame, Guilt & Regret
- Confusion
- Suspicion
- Apathy, Neutral & Nothing
- Just plain bad
Spin the wheel and see what you get! By reflecting inwards, we can find our own monster. If you haven’t found yours, but you feel like there’s something inside, keep on reading and hopefully we’ll be able to get that illusive bugger out!
Why are they there and how did they get in?
Here’s my 5 basic ways for monsters to invade us:
- Generalized fear
- Attachment (holding on)
- Regret (focusing on the negative past)
- Unexpressed emotions (congestion)
- Insecurity (un-grounded)
FEAR
Fear weakens us and is the key to all negative feelings. I have heard seemingly countless times about fear opening the door to all the other negative emotions, and though I couldn’t see it at first, through years of observation, I find it to be true. Fear can be a negative feeling on its own as well as a doorway to so much more emotional pain.
Fear and Attachment work hand in hand. The more we have fear, the more we attach. The more we attach, the more we fear.
To get fear out: Sound does a great deal of good towards letting fear out. This means things such as singing, humming, chanting. Laughter is another great tool.
ATTACHMENT
Monsters often get in when we’re preoccupied getting attached to something working out a certain way and we held on rigidly. Perhaps we busted ourselves and tried to force the puzzle together ourselves. When we’re overly invested in how a process unfolds, we are investing OURSELVES (not “in ourselves”). We invest in a lot around us and we attach ourselves to the results, but we can’t control results.
To get attachment out: If we feel that attachment is the way the monster got in, freedom is the way to flush him out! Letting go of all the ties to what we tether ourselves to allows us to free ourselves. This can be a long process, but knowing what we attach ourselves to is essential so we can be more aware of it.
REGRET
Regret is probably one of the worst things we can feel because it’s the past trying to reach into the present like a cold and dried up zombie hand. We can’t change what happened in the past. It’s a done deal.
To get regret out: Writing is one of the best ways to get regret out. We often can re-address a past moment and others involved in a situation might have moved on. If we didn’t move on, we need to write it out and throw it away with every conviction that we have learned from that event and holding on to it is not serving us and is in fact harming us.
UNEXPRESSED FEELINGS
Keeping things in can be considered hoarding, right? When we’re not hoarding, we declutter what we don’t need and only keep what serves us and has a positive effect to our lives.
We might not know what we’re not releasing. After all, we’d probably take out the trash if we knew it was there! But this is the stuff rotting in the back of the refrigerator. Who knows what it once was! It’s now so weird and became something else! But what created it?!?
To get unexpressed feelings out: We might not know what it is or where it is, or where it comes from. Comforting, right? So, getting it out will need 2 things: 1) examining and listening & 2) generalized clearing. To achieve the first thing, we need to take time to listen to ourselves and our reactions. This can take some time. But while we’re doing that, we can do some generalized clearing through humming and reminding ourselves of our gratitudes. Making a list of what we are grateful for every day is a great way to work towards the future while shedding love on the Now.
INSECURITY
We might have a trembling feeling inside, feeling like we’re not on a steady ground. This feeling has us feeling ungrounded and unsafe. Insecurity can creep in a lot of ways. I once heard that “It’s not what they call you, it’s what you answer to that matters.” I wish I could give credit to the original author but many people are credited with this line.
Insecurity works in a similar way. People may attempt to weaken our sense of security, but it’s not what they say that matters, it’s how we let them affect us that does.
To get insecurity out: We start a practice of listing our strengths and understanding our weaknesses with compassion. We all have both. In my opinion, we all have an equal measure of qualities and faults that we are born with. However, it’s through the eyes of the perceiver that changes if a fault is a fault or a quality. Celebrate your strengths and love your weaknesses to allow them to heal.
Seeking to find what’s making us feel bad can feel like a walk through a jungle. Imagine walking through a jungle with no idea where you are going and what you will find. You don’t know when you’ve found what you’re looking for because all you know is that you’re looking for “something” and you don’t know what you’ll do when you find it.
Searching ourselves for what’s not going right is similar to this.
Full transparency, I have never walked in a jungle. I base all my inspiration on documentaries and movies for this one.
Found the monster or not, now we ditch it! Don’t worry about someone else catching it. If we truly get it out, it can’t live outside a host 😉
STEP 2: How to flush the monster out?
Not all Monsters have the same way to flush them out. They have a job to do, they all got in there in different ways. But they need to leave before they do more damage.
Our issues all come from somewhere. For whatever reason, but there is a reason, the monster made a home inside us. I say this because that reason deserves respect. You went through something. You are strong. But it’s time to feel better. You deserve that.
I listed a series of things we can do for each of the ways the bad feeling invades us in the section above. But I want to address a few more ways for us to face and evict the Monster Inside:
- Believe your Monster is there for a reason. Try not to judge it.
- Consider welcoming and making peace with the Monster, maybe even thanking him.
- Your Monster might be a guest who keeps coming back. Paying attention to what brings them back is a good way to find what harms us.
Joy, Happiness, Peace and Freedom
Over the past several years, I wanted to develop a simple series of words that we could easily repeat as a message to ourselves or a mantra, so to speak. I finally found the combination of Joy, Happiness, Peace and Freedom.
These are easy words to repeat to ourselves by thought or by spoken word. I have tested them myself and with others with great results. I welcome you to repeat these words with us.
Wishing you all the very best,
Karine
* I would like to take this time to remind you that I am not a psychologist and do not replace the need to seek proper certified and qualified help. Please know that finding the right professional for you can be a long process but it is worth every step. If you don’t feel you have the strength to find someone and you’re feeling without hope PLEASE TELL SOMEONE IN YOUR CIRCLE, EVEN YOUR BARISTA! ANYONE!! SPEAK UP!