In the dark recesses of your mind the sabotuers hide…
One my first major recent breakthroughs was the recognition that not all the voices I heard giving me advice wanted me to succeed. They actually had different agendas and feelings towards the tasks at hand masked behind the curtain of my subconscious. As one becomes more self-aware and more-connected to the inner emotional minds one can begin to recognize the subtle flavors of emotion intermingling just below your conscious mind. A cesspool of unresolved and unprocessed memories and mindstates that linger back there and slowly seep into your thinking processes changing the values you place on certain thoughts and priorities until you find yourself saying and doing things completely antithetical to your stated goals.
They laugh when you cry…
I first recognized a saboteur I’ll call wormtongue, during an argument with my spouse. I was being particularly stubborn and angry during that conversation and my spouse could tell nothing was getting through. I was full of self-rightous hurt and was not about to be proven wrong no matter what insane logic I had to put forward to make it so. My spouse had enough and made clear something had to change as this method of communication was untenable. As I heard her, my mind became frantic as I realized I had stepped off the deep end. Voices scrambled to and fro trying to backpeddle to trying to find what went wrong in the train of thought that lead us to here. All shout and searched, except for one who stayed back. One who stayed quiet and just smiled. One my newer tools, the nascent emotional self-reflection, noticed the smiling lurker and sounded the alarm. Suddenly I was angry and turned on wormtongue as would any outsider who sought to sabotage me. As I turned him away I found myself thinking clearer, logic making more sense, and avenues of change opening up.
Their whispers don’t always sound the same…
As I got better at self-reflection I began to recognize Wormtongue’s voice and was able to filter out his suggestions I thought I was finally getting free of the saboteurs. But then one day I noticed myself getting irritated and emotionally disconnected from my spouse for no discernible reason. I questioned my thoughts? Did I have something on my mind? Yes work, but that was not it. A list of errands to run? Yes, but that was not it either. My own hobbies falling to the wayside? Yes, but that wasn’t it either. The emotional of irritation was not connected to any of those. It was a vague feeling of entitlement combine with lack of appreciation. Why did I feel unappreciated? My spouse has always been very appreciative, was continuing to be so of late, so why. I search that entitled dissatisfaction and there I found wormtongue again. Rather than make subtle suggestions during arguments to cause me to derail myself in twisted logic, he switched tactics and began to feed feelings of entitlement to lead to sense of general dissatisfaction. It went from a gnarled voice of whispers to a petulant background whining.
Maybe we just give in…
As I learn that so much of my subconscious is ruled by unresolved mindstates I sought to actually take the time to listen to wormtongue and try to resolve his goals. It was not as resolving as I hoped. At first it seemed he just wanted my relationships to end. To end the discomfort of dealing with emotion, something I was not, admittedly, well equipped to handle. But I asked “what then?”
“Then we end work to end the discomfort of toil.”
“And then?”
“Then we end hobbies to end the discomfort of longing.”
“And then?”
“Then we end us to put an end to any further suffering.”
“Well that doesn’t sound like a good route”
It seemed that wormtongue was almost of a personification of extreme nihilism. and from there I decided he had nothing to offer.
But I can sense there are others and one must be wary for those suggestions, that might feel right in the moment, may the wrong ones for our long term goals.