Pink-a-boo! – Boo! The Inner Ghoul…

It’s Halloween time, which always leads me to want to stop and ruminate on the spooky, the scary, and the evil that’s out to get us all! As my sister and I spent the last several days at our mom’s house, helping her mend from back surgery, we spent our evenings decompressing with ON DEMAND horror flicks. Yes, that’s right. When we need to forget about our life for a while, we turn to things like Human Centipede and Edy’s Slow Churned Ice Cream. We love to have the  you-know-what scared out of us. We even go so far as to  turn off all of the lights, lock the doors, and sit in complete darkness as the music begins to envelope us while the opening credits roll across the screen. Even as kids, we’d watch Halloween or Friday the 13^th over and over and over again, always jumping and screaming each time Michael or Jason emerged from the darkness, even though we’d seen it before many, many times. They came at us from behind couches, out of closets, and through doors and we empowered them to make us JUMP and grip the blanket near our chin and shout “get outta there, lady!” For a short bit of time, we allowed our brains to buy into the notion that it just might be true that there’s a killer out there that possesses super human powers and that WILL “get us.” For a short bit of time, we allowed our brains to wander into the irrational, the absurd, and the far stretches of imagination and BELIEVE, even though we knew it was not true. And it was all worth it—because those psycho boys of cinema, those kooky crazies, and those ghouls of ghastliness never let us down! When we surrendered to them, we were “taken away” and we submitted to all of the evil, the wickedness, and the malevolence as if we were experiencing it ourselves.

Of course, it’s all just fake and folly. We know that. But it’s okay because we also know that once the sex-crazed teens are sliced, the demented killer disappears, and the credits roll, the “scariness” has no more power over us. We move back into our sunny lives outside the theater of our minds. Movie over and–DONE. Back to reality.

We can do this with external ghouls, but why can’t we do this with the ghouls that reside within us?

The worst ghoul of all is the girl inside of us that torments, taunts, and triggers us to think things about ourselves and our lives that are downright frighteningly unhealthy, mad, and dangerous. She is the one who tells us that we are too fat, too short, too ugly, too lazy, too self-centered, too dumb, too poor, too black, too white, too arrogant, too indulgent, and too much. She is our INNER GHOUL (and if you say it fast enough and like you’ve got a bit of speech impediment, it sounds like “inner girl!”).

The girl inside–she’s the worst. She’s the one who sits (invisibly) on our shoulder and whispers in our ear. Sometimes she brings her friends along to wreck our party, our good feelings, our sense that we’re making progress in our lives that we’re actually attractive and sexy, that we CAN do whatever we want with our own sense of style and grace. More often than not, though, she shows up alone. We grant her power, just like we grant power to the psychos in the movies, and allow her to make us feel inferior, scared, and paralyzed with fear. She is more than annoying. She foils our best-laid plans.

But, alas, like all creepy characters in spooky scenes, this ghoul only has power because we give her power.

We anoint our inner ghoul as our queen. She possesses us with all sense of righteousness: “don’t even think for a second that they’ll actually hire someone like you.” And the minute we fight back “Why not? I’m educated, I’ve got experience. I am a good human with smarts and savvy,” she laughs, throws her head back and seethes “because you are YOU and you certainly aren’t as worthy as all of the rest of them. You’re not as smart, not as important, and not as worthy as the rest of them. You’re descended of white trash, you unsophisticated and clumsy, and you’re too fat to amount to anything. Why do you even bother trying?!?” We begin to run away and then deny it “No, no…I won’t listen to you anymore…NO MORE! I am WORTHY and I’m NOT those things you say.” and she just laughs more loudly, sinister and black, “You’ll never get away…it’s been this way your whole life, my precious piggy…you are under MY control ultimately! Try as you might, there is no escape!” As we get backed into the corner with her towering over us, our hands outstretched to shield our face, our bodies trembling with fear, we make one last-ditch effort to save ourselves by pulling off her cape and tearing free the scepter from her hands…and then she berates us when we even begin to uncloak her: Stop that you idiot! Who do you really think you are? You will always be fat. Your ugliness runs deep. There will always be someone smarter than you. You are not so clever, my dearie. Your ideas are not original, your jokes are stupid, and I don’t know why you think you can even begin to compete with the likes of the rest of the world. I will leave you for now, but you should know better than to try and rid your life of me! I will be back!” And poof! She’s gone…for a little while.

Ok. So maybe your demonesses, your ghoulesses, your inner voices aren’t as awful as this. Or maybe they are. Or maybe they’re worse. I don’t know. But here’s the thing I do know: we’ve all got them in one degree or another. And try as we might, getting rid of them is incredibly hard work. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes perseverance. It takes an emotional exorcism.

What’s an emotional exorcism? Sounds kinda scary. Not to worry. It will not make your head spin while you scream expletives at your mother and a local man of the cloth. An emotional exorcism is simply ridding yourself of your inner ghoul, of that negative self-talk that leads soooooo many of us otherwise strong, vibrant, and successful women down a path of self-doubt, self-recrimination, and self-destruction. It’s learning how to shed that nasty whispering voice and replacing it with the sweet, self-serving sounds of your fairy godmother. It seems so apparent, so straightforward, so logical…and so easy. Simply decide NOT to think that way and it shall happen. Period. Then why is it so hard in practice to shut down that DESTRUCTO-BITCH voice that lives inside our heads and hearts? Because we are humans and doing so involves change, something our homeostatic tendencies are not aligned with. So what are some ways we can cope with this saboteur that resides in all of us?

How do you stand up to that voice of destruction, that Desdemona of the darkness that’s inside? You begin by taking small steps:

• First, become aware of her voice. Pay attention when she speaks up. And once you can recognize her repeatedly (probably not hard to do), give her a name. Some of my favorites that my clients have given to their inner ghouls in the past include: Negative Nancy; Malicious Mommy; and Arianna Asshole. Good. How to spot her? 
• Second, think about what she looks like. She may be faceless and have no body. Or she may be like a Barbie doll (or some other such insidious but nonetheless beloved character) and you may costume her in some hideous dime-store make-up, dress her in paisley and plaid (or whatever you find utterly distasteful), and fit her head with some sort of ridiculous wig, hat, or plume of feathers. Does she have an accent to her voice? What kind of shoes does she wear? Is the texture of her skin smooth or soft? Perhaps she’s not even human? What does she eat? What does she read? What are her favorite shows on TV? Really give her a personality so you can be clear about WHO she is so you can SPOT HER when she shows up! 
• Third, armor up! When she smirks at you, you smile back. When she laughs at you, you coo in delight. When she raises her scepter, you raise your sword. You are a warrior princess. You will not be defeated. You must simply show her that she has no power. It may take time and many battles, but you can do it—and do it you MUST if you are going to make the changes you SAY you want in your life. It’s not easy. It may take days, months, years of non-stop talking back to her, ignoring her, and stopping her dead in her tracks! Over time, I promise you that you WILL learn to manage her and to “quiet her” when she talks back, shouts meanly, or disparages you, which she will. 
• Finally, CHOOSE to NOT listen to them. We are all comprised of many different inner voices and thoughts. The ones we LISTEN to are the ones that have POWER. The way to disempower those saboteurs is to unplug them—simply acknowledge their presence but choose NOT to follow their words of wisdom, sage advice, or friendly offerings. They are tricky little buggers but, in time, they will fade from the forefront of your life. Ultimately, our ghouls will always be a part of us—the trick (or treat!) is simply choosing whether and how hard to listen to them (or not!).