My client H was very troubled by his worries today.

He came in wondering how he was able to be so happy in the past few days and to be so worried today.

“What is going on?”
“I am very stuck in my worries.”
“What is it about?”
“It’s about my future.”….

We discussed what really worried him and found out that he was struggling between two voices in his head: The Voice of Inner Critic and The Voice of Inner Worrier.

Inner Critic did not agree anything that he decided, “You could never do that!” “You will have some serious problems!” “Things would never work out for you!” “You are too weak for this!”, etc. It was basically telling him that “You are the problem! So you will screwed things up no matter what.”

On the other hand, Inner Worrier was on his back, “This is too hard for me.” “I don’t think I can deal with it.” “What if I get into serious problem?” “I might lose my safety forever.” It was generating overwhelming self-doubt, basically got him to belief that “I am too vulnerable to handle any challenges.”

The funny thing was, he clearly understood that neither his Inner Critic nor his Inner Worrier made any rational sense but did not seem to have any power to stop them from talking to him. (Aren’t we all familiar to this phenomenon?) He went on a bit explaining his struggle to me and was disappointed by his dilemma.

“I finally have progressed so much and felt so much more confident. I just want to have some adventure in my life. Why does life have to be so hard? ”

“Since you know that both your Inner Critic and Inner Worrier don’t make sense, if you push away your Inner Critic and Inner Worrier, what are you really saying? What is your real opinion?”
“I am more confident and want to some adventure.”

I saw a smile on his face. He realized the expression from his real voice. He was happy about it.

*****

Without all those noises in the head, what are we really saying? What is our true opinion? Our refection? And our  expression? Don’t mistake our noises with who we are. Try to quiet all the noises and listen. You might be surprised by what you really want to say. You might get to know who you are.