A fitting quote coined by Stephen King; it illustrates the human condition. When something horrific happens, we find it hard to comprehend how someone could have shot up a festival or school, or how this church going family man could have killed his wife. But the reality is, as humans, we are capable of anything. Some people are just wired wrong and commit horrendous acts of violence. Then there are regular people who have untreated mental issues or are on some serious medications that shouldn’t be combined and do things they could never imagine doing. These are more the outliers, but there are things inside all of us that are very real. We all have darkness and light. Let’s take a look at where this applies to most of us.
Ghosts and monsters of our past can haunt us for our entire life. We see this in how we interact with the world. Sometimes we keep replaying old tapes of how we were treated as kids, what we believe about ourselves or we’re still in survival mode as we replay a scary trauma that happened to us. These tapes are sneaky, too, because we don’t even realize how much they can dominate our thinking and world view until we’ve been doing it for years.
What causes us to stay stuck in this pattern is not integrating our traumas or our struggles. And we don’t integrate them because we simply don’t know how to do it. If you have been through a trauma, finding a therapist to help you sort out your feelings and integrate what happened is so important. There are many services that can help people with this, too, if going to a therapist is cost prohibitive.
When it comes to our ineffective ways of thinking, it comes down to being mindful of when you are thinking that way. Then you have to challenge that thought.
Here’s an example that I struggle with myself. I often feel like I need to take responsibility for other people and make sure they are okay, have what they need, etc. sometimes at the expense of myself. I’ve had to retrain my brain to slow things down and take a step back and say to myself, “Is this really my responsibility? If a friend told me this is their responsibility, what would I say?”. Sometimes I just keep going and take on the responsibility and don’t realize it fast enough. Other times I catch myself and tell myself that it is okay to not take on that responsibility because it isn’t mine to take. And if I don’t allow the other person to take responsibility for themselves then I am denying them the ability to gain mastery for themselves. And often I feel guilty about not taking on the responsibility, so I will literally unpack all the beliefs, one by one that make me feel guilty and question whether or not that is really fair. Would I think it is fair for my friend to feel this way about being responsible for something that is my responsibility? Of course not.
We all have ghost and little negative monsters that reside in us…but we also have the ability to evict them.
