Quiet that mean little voice.

You know that little voice in your head that seems to hate you? You know the one that is so critical of you?  It doesn't let you forget all the times you've screwed up and reminds you of how you've disappointed others and will most likely do it again and probably every time you have the opportunity.

Well, that little voice can go to hell.  If you'll let it.  I'm sure it'll be hard to say goodbye at first since it's always been there and you've gotten pretty used it giving constant narration to your life.  But really, let's be honest here, it's not helping things.  It's really making things must worse and keeping you from being happy.  So, maybe it's time to tell that little voice to go to hell.

When you're ready to send it packing, then you'll need to work on how to get it to move out and stay gone.  It WILL NOT go easily.  It likes the power it has over you.  That little voice is powerful and is controlling you.  It's keeping you from feeling happy, joy, success, intimacy, connection, courage.  I'll take those feelings over feeling like a failure, lonely, miserable and weak any day.

That little voice has convinced you that you don't deserve to be happy.  It's convinced you that others will not accept you or love you or that you will not be successful and that you'll probably just screw up again.

You can take the power away from this little voice.  Whenever you hear that little voice spouting off its junk, you can stop it by doing two things. First is to become aware that it's talking- you'd be surprised how often that little voice is talking and you just accept it and don't even notice. Second is to replace those negative messages with supportive and positive messages- be kind to yourself, you deserve to feel happiness, simply because you are alive.  This is called practicing self-compassion.  Begin to practice being kind to yourself, take back the power from that mean little voice and practice being kind to yourself.  You'll feel so much happier and powerful.

With peace and love,

 Kelly

Why the Blame Game?

I am continuing down the list of the 15 Things You Should Give Up to be Happy created by the authors at The Purpose Fairy.  Today is about giving up blaming others.  I'm sure we've all worked with someone who blamed others or have family members who won't take responsibility for their actions; maybe you are quick to point a finger or give an excuse for a bad decision.  In my house these are often referred to as "reasons".  What I to discuss is the "why" we blame.  What purpose does it serve?  Maybe if we can learn a little about why we do it, we can make in-roads to making changes.

There are actually several reasons for why we blame others. We blame others so that we that we are perceived by others to be in a higher social standing. We blame to project the negative or bad feelings on to someone else so that we don't have to own them. We blame so that there is a cause. There is a justification or "reason".  This allows us to avoid and deny personal responsibility. We blame others as a way to defend (if it wasn't really our fault) or as a way to deflect (avoiding responsibility). We blame others because we hold grudges.  I'm sure there are lots of other reasons as well.  There seems to me to be a common theme of all of these- a need for power, an upper hand as a way to avoid vulnerability.  It's intolerable to be seen by others as having made a bad choice or mistake.  There is too much at risk to been seen as fallible.  Others may see us as not perfect; we may see ourselves as not perfect. The illusion of confidence, perfection and superior vanishes when we allow ourselves to admit our mistake and not blame others.  But, our inner ego is too fragile to risk that kind of vulnerability. So we blame others to keep up the illusion of power and control.

We are so wrapped up in the blame game; we are unable to allow true connection with others. We can't experience true happiness if we are alienating others around us.  If we can accept ourselves as fallible then we will never really love ourselves. Happiness will remain elusive.