Disarm your destructive voices

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Jack Kornfield has been one of my greatest teachers.  I was recently listening to one of his audiobooks and he reminded me of this lesson from the Buddha:

“No one can hurt you as much as your own mind, untrained. No one can help you as much as your own mind, well-trained.”

In my last newsletter I shared something that takes our happiness away: Our Destructive Self. If you missed this newsletter, you can find it here.

Our Destructive Self has many voices.  The voices speak from fear, insecurity, jealousy, anxiety.  Many of you have told me how you have been able to catch your Destructive voices speaking to you and through you.  Great job! 

Now, I may have some disappointing news.  Often, our Destructive Self never goes away (unless of course you become an enlightened master…I’m still working on that and will let you know if it ever happens!).  The only thing we can do with this Destructive Self is manage and disarm it.  There are many ways to manage and disempower your Destructive Self, some of which are meditation, mindfulness, and inquiry.  I will share a bit about these in the future. Today, I want to share my fast-acting, no-fail, secret weapon that manages and disarms my Destructive Self: Gratitude.

Your Destructive Self cannot survive when you are Grateful.  Gratitude overpowers it and makes your Destructive Self shrink into a pipsqueak voice.  Gratitude is like calling forth the big boss, the big kahuna, the head honcho, and you do it when you are serious about shutting up your Destructive Self.

Recently, I’ve felt the intense pull in opposite directions of my many responsibilities.  My business, my 4 month old baby, my marriage, my extended family, my friends, and my self-care, all want 100% of my attention.  You can imagine that my Destructive Voices have been quite loud!

In these moments, this is what I do: I ask myself, “What can I be grateful for about this situation?”  The answer has come immediately: “Look at how beautifully FULL your life is; many dream to have so many beautiful aspects of life. You are blessed.” BOOM. Destructive Voice is disarmed into a pipsqueak. True Self is ready to get creative and brainstorm ways to manage all.  Done.

What can YOU do TODAY:

  • Identify a moment when your Destructive Self took control.
  • Embody that moment.  How did you feel? What did you think? What did you do?
  • Acknowledge something you can be grateful for.  Anything.
  • Embody the gratitude. This is key. How does gratitude feel in your body? What does it make you think of? What does it make you want to do? What does it remind you of?
  • Say thank you (out loud if you are by yourself).

I would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment or question below.  If you enjoyed this post, I would be honored if you share it with your friends, family, and community.

Lots of love,

Judith