gremlins, aka those voices in your head

This week in honor of Halloween, I’m tackling some scary subjects. First up, gremlins. Later this week, I’ll dive into parenting and then fear.

If you’re of a certain age, gremlins are those little fuzzy guys that you want to keep away from bright lights, water and late night snacks.  But more recently, gremlins is a term that’s become popular for those little voices in your head feeding your fears and telling you that you are not enough. Sometimes they’re called saboteurs or inner critics or superego. Or as Martha Beck calls them in this article, your Everybody Committee. As in Everyone thinks….

I guess I knew about gremlins, but I never realized what a huge role they were playing in my life. And it seems the more I was buying into them, the more they were steering the ship and the less I was getting anywhere.  Recently I had some help manifesting my gremlins so that I could sit down with them, have a chat and figure out how we’re going to live together.

Gremlins might show up as a parent, a teacher, a friend or another person with a lot of opinions about you and how you should be living your life. My gremlins are two different version of myself. Only proving that I really am my own worst enemy.

Let’s call them Angsty Kaly and Prissy Kaly.

Angsty Kaly is pissed. At the world. She’s cynical and jaded and and sarcastic and plain old mean. She is the meanest of mean girls. But not the popular, pretty mean girl. She’s the smoking, dressed in black, smarter than everyone else mean girl. She just doesn’t care. And she’ll say whatever it takes to shut you down.

Prissy Kaly is perfect. And she cares about everything. She is well mannered and on time and put together and really really worried about what everyone else will think. She doesn’t like hurt feelings or conflict or confrontation. She lives by Don’t rock the boat.

A conversation with my gremlins might go down like this:

Me: I’m going to start a blog. (With great conviction)

Angsty Kaly: And people care what you think because…

Me: Well, I’m not sure. But I know I have something to say. (With a little less conviction)

Angsty Kaly: It’s not like you’re an expert on anything. Your career has been pretty, how shall we say, sporadic? What’s the point?

Prissy Kaly: And people will definitely be rolling their eyes behind your back. Do you really think that they’ll have time to read something like that? I’m just not sure it’s a good idea.

Me: Yeah. Don’t know what I was thinking. (Conviction evaporated into thin air)

And you can really replace “start a blog” with just about anything. My gremlins have made every effort to shut me down in my tracks.

So what to do? I could continue to have these conversations with them getting absolutely nowhere. I could learn to block them out plugging up my ears and singing lalalalala I can’t hear you. I could show them empathy giving them a big hug and saying it’s going to be okay. I could let them speak their opinions and simply agree to disagree without judgement.  I could redirect them sending them off to do something else while I get on with my life.(Angsty Kaly always needs more smokes, why not send her to the store?. Prissy Kaly gets off on color coded jewelry organization, why not let her have at it?)

I’m actually employing all of these strategies. When I’m sitting at my desk agonizing over the publish or post button and I have a gremlin on each shoulder putting their two cents in, I try one of these tactics. Because I haven’t figured out how to get rid of them, I’ve learned to coexist without letting them completely take over.

Getting to know my gremlins has been one of my best gifts to myself, but I couldn’t have done it without the guidance of Tiffany Han and Stephanie Lee and their class You On Purpose. So do yourself a favor, after the last treat is handed out, take some time to think about how your gremlins are tricking you out of where you need to be. And whatever you do, don’t feed them after midnight.

Angsty Kaly: Here she comes, our very own life coach and expert with zero credentials except she talks to herself.

Prissy Kaly: Do you think that they’ll come back after they read this? What about the picture? It’s not really working. Maybe we should just scratch this all together and talk about something a little less personal like – leapord print is back!

Angsty Kaly: As if anyone made it to the end of this post.

Thanks guys. Thanks a lot.