You know those voices that tell you that you should, you ought to, you can’t, you need to…? The ones that like to boss you around, tell you how to do things, tell you what’s possible and what’s not, judge your abilities, determine your possibilities, establish your rules, announce when you’re doing it wrong? The ones that think they know what’s best for you, if only you would just listen / pay attention / try harder / give up already?
We all have them.
Will calls them gremlins. Laura prefers saboteurs. You might have a different name for them: demons, internal critics, the committee.
In our writing coaching, we consider learning to work with these voices to be fundamental. If you’ve worked with us, you know that we encourage you to disaggregate the lot — to take that internal critic apart into its constituent voices and to give each a name. Perhaps The Imposter, The Timekeeper, Nervous Nelly, Bob, Sally, whoever.
The point is that by spending some time getting to know your gremlins (rather than just covering your ears and running the other way whenever they show up), you can learn about them, befriend them, reassure them.
Will has devised a series of questions to enable you to do just that. We share them as a resource, a tool for your toolkit. These questions work at both the cognitive, emotional and somatic level depending how you want to engage.
When a voice gets particularly loud, pause and name it. Then spend some time working through these questions, one at a time.
First note for yourself – what do you gain my listening to it? Your first answer might be nothing. That won’t be true. You might need to keep watching what happens, how you react to the voice to find the answer.
Then, ask:
What assumptions is it making?
What is it believing?
Now take a step back and consider the possibility the Gremlin has the best intention, even if its message isn’t so helpful. And ask:
What is it worried about?
What is it trying to protect you from?
What does it really want for you?
With that in mind, you can turn this around.
What reassurance could you give it?
What alternative, helpful assumptions would you like it to make?
What alternative, helpful beliefs would you like it to hold?
Knowing she wants the best for you, what would you like it to say instead?
Finally, is there an object, image or word you might place by your desk to remind your gremlin what you need from it? Or indeed, can you start to look after it instead of it feeling the need to look after you?