Listen To The Voices

I was “writing,” the other day, and I tried to make a play on the cards but it wasn’t allowed.

“Damn!” I thought. “Damn, damn, damn!”

“It’s not damned,” one of the voices told me cheerfully. “It’s only a game.”

“Why, you’re right!” I exclaimed. “It is only a game—I’m so happy. Thank you!”

I was very welcome. What a gracious voice I had—how wonderful that she was looking out for me. I hope that voice comes by to visit again soon. All my other ones are just so negative. This one makes me happy.

I think we all hear voices, if we listen. Most people pretend to be deaf, and they think you’re demented if you open up your ears and allow yourself to hear them. This one was telling me not to cuss so much. Cussing is negative; I should try to be positive.

The greatest problem I have had in my life is fear. The form has changed as I’ve grown older, but it’s still there, usually when I think I ought to do something but don’t want to. My fear made me fail my driving license test four times, and prevents me from taking a fifth test. But then, I don’t like to drive. Funny, isn’t it?

The other night I was lying in bed, trying to go to sleep in spite of the horrible knot in the pit of my stomach. I would not sleep well, I knew it, and I would likely cry myself to sleep. I tried to think of the feelings techniques I read in self-help books, so I asked my fear how long it planned on staying. I didn’t expect a response, it was more of a joke. But surprisingly it came, right away and instinctual. It was so clear. “Until you’re safe,” it said.

Instantly I was overcome with gratitude. My fear wasn’t the enemy! It was looking out for me! All these years I thought it had hated me, and I blamed it for making me miss out on everything, for making me uncomfortable when I shouldn’t have been.

But what had this voice, this fear, been trying to tell me all along? Perhaps it had saved me from situations I wasn’t equipped to handle yet, or that weren’t in my best interest. For years I had fought it, doing hundreds of things I didn’t want to do, with people that made me uncomfortable, all in the name of family. And I hated myself for being afraid. But I wasn’t crazy, it turns out. Nothing was wrong with me. If anything, here was something right about me.

When my fear talked to me, it also helped take the edge off. It didn’t feel like terror so much anymore. I was grateful to my fear. My fear would guide me tomorrow. It would look out for me and my well-being. I didn’t feel so alone anymore. I slept better that night than I had in months.

Now I have different ways of dealing with my new friend. Instead of cursing it, hating it and myself, I ask what message it’s trying to give me. Am I doing something that is not in my best interest, even self-destructive? Do I really want to do that? Does that person make me uncomfortable? If so, then maybe being around them isn’t very good for me, is toxic.

“I love you, fear,” I said to it, hugging my new friend in my mind. “You’re a part of me, and you’re looking out for me. Thank you so much. You’re so good. I love you.”

Humans are often self-destructive, but also self-healing. We have other personalities, other voices, to guide us, but we often hate them. We yell and hit them. We criticize and cuss them. But we don’t realize that they are a part of us, that we are really punishing ourselves. So we become anxious and have low self-esteem, because somebody important to us hates us. No wonder society is so screwed up.

But then, sometimes, we stumble across these hated alter-egos, and we realize that they have feelings too, that their feelings are our feelings. And these feelings are killing us. So we try to make peace with the voices, wondering if it’s too late to change a lifetime of habits.

But, to our surprise, we heal. We have peace now. We’re happy. And it feels damn good.