This is not a misspelled title but a play on words (with an alliteration thrown in) which I’ll explain in a minute.

When I first learned about the voice in my head, I was aware of only one voice. And I assumed it was me speaking.

After a while, I realized that there were two voices. Usually, they had opposing views regarding some issue. “Yes” and “No”. “Do it” and “Don’t”.

It took me a while to recognize that one was the voice of my ego and the other was the voice of my Higher Self or Spirit. For a time, I struggled to tell them apart until I learned to notice the feeling of each voice.

My ego mostly spoke with a fearful voice; strong, demanding, threatening, insistent. Always certain that its opinion is RIGHT!

The voice of Spirit, on the other hand, is always gentle and loving. It gives advice or suggestions rather than orders. Sometimes, it takes more intentional listening to hear it over ego’s shouting. The best way to describe this voice is that It sounds like It already knows “the rest of the story”. It’s very comforting and reassuring, especially in comparison to ego’s voice yelling: “No, NO, don’t do that. Not that!!”

After listening to these two voices for a while, I noticed that the voice of my ego was actually a chorus of different voices. But a chorus sings together in harmony. This was a bunch of solos and they were definitely disharmonious, a cast of characters, real characters.

I began to give them names so I could converse with them. I am fond of alliterations so I gave them all names starting with “G”. Now I refer to them as my Gast of Garacters. And they often leave me aghast.

Before I introduce you to this motley crew, I’d like to explain the value this has had for me.

Working with Gremlins and Ghouls?

The most valuable lesson from this process has been a deepening realization that the ‘voice in my head’ is NOT me. I was first exposed to this idea a long time ago when someone asked: “If you think that voice in your head is you, then who is it that is listening?”

Turns out that those thoughts running through my head were just that, thoughts running through my head. I was the listener who could choose to listen to them or not. When I was clear that those were not “my” thoughts, but just thoughts, it was easier to avoid getting hooked. It’s like listening to talk radio. Since those voices are not mine, if I really don’t like what I am hearing, I can switch stations. Unlike a radio station, I can’t just turn this off for more than 10 or 15 seconds. That’s a start.

Now when one of these voices tells me something and I reply to them by name, it is absolutely clear that it was not my thinking, it was a thought from somewhere/someone other than me.

Given the clarity that those thoughts didn’t come from me (they came to me), I have a much wider range of options about how to respond. I can tell the garacter to “shut up”. (Actually I choose not to argue with them since arguing implies that they have some power over me.) I can just ignore their comments. I can respond with something like: “Oh, you’re so silly”, or “Let me think about that” (even though I have no intention of thinking about it any more), or “No, I don’t like that idea. I prefer _________ (fill in the blank with a positive version).”

Since it’s not “my” thought, I can respond as if this was suggested by someone I know but don’t feel obliged to pay attention to or someone I don’t even know.

Now that I have explained the value of this exercise, allow me introduce you to the gast of garacters:

(NOTE: I am using ‘cute’ little monster cartoon characters to represent these voices. I am doing this to get your attention and to encourage you to think more about this. JUST BE CLEAR, these voices are NOT cute. They are monsters of a sort. They are robbing you and me of our peace of mind, our success in all areas of life, and, because of the stress they cause, they are robbing us of our vitality and even our life. That is NOT cute.)

Gremlin

This was my first garacter and one of the most persistent. He suggests all sorts of nasty experiences that might happen to me. These range from annoyances and inconveniences to serious injuries and even death. Most of the things he comes up with have very little, if any, basis in reality.

For example, I’m driving on the freeway and someone pulls in front of me “too close”. Gremlin suggests that I should pull around him and return the favor and that he will then hit my car and push it off the road and come back and mug me. The whole scenario pops up in a few seconds, less time than it took for the guy to pull in front of me.

If I take these ideas seriously, they are scary and very distracting. They rob me of my peace, if I don’t realize the source. He can create a lot of stress in my life.

My preferred way of responding to this and is to tell Gremlin: “Boy you came up with that story fast. In the future I may write some novels and your creativity will be really valuable to imagine some challenges for the characters in these stories. Right now, though, I’m going to ignore it.”

Then, there is Grinch.

Grinch

Like the famous cartoon character, my Grinch is very mean-spirited. He loves to point out the flaws in others. Doesn’t matter whether they are physical flaws, fashion flaws, intellectual flaws, or just not doing things the way Grinch thinks they should be done.

He can criticize anyone and if I give him free rein, he will.

If I take him seriously, if I believe that the critical voice in my head is me issuing all those critiques, it separates me from everyone. No one is good enough for me to embrace and really get to know them.

It’s important to remind myself that that’s just good old Grinch doing his thing. It’s an insecure part of myself finding a way to avoid looking at my own flaws by pointing out the flaws in others.

Grinch’s cousin is Growler.

Growler

As Grinch criticizes others, Growler loves to find fault with me and beat me up, defeating me before I even get started.

Like Grinch, he can find a serious fault in any and all aspects of my life, past and present. Since he knows me much better than Grinch knows those other people, he has an unlimited supply of things to growl about.

Once again, if I believe what he tells me, Growler can really ruin my day, my week, or my whole life.

The best take on this aspect of my psyche is that it is trying to help me be a better person by pointing out ways for me to improve.

The most healing way for me to respond to this is to recall some positive traits I have and some successes I have experienced that are related to the issue that Growler is growling about.

One of Growler’s favorite things to snarl at me about is my weight which is the result of his good friend’s work. That would be Glutton.

Glutton

Glutton has been with me for a long time. He is constantly suggesting the most delicious and fattening thing for me to eat. There are times when I can hear him going over my plans for the next day and planning where I can get a tasty, fattening meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He can have me go miles out of my way to get some tasty treat.

As a result of his persistent efforts I am seriously overweight. I want to lose about 70 pounds. I’ve released 20 pounds and still have 50 more to go.

It is very clear that there will be lots of benefits for me when I lose this weight. And yet Glutton will sneak up on me and suggest some tasty morsel, or two, or three, … and an hour later I remember that’s not what I decided to do.

One way to deal with Glutton is to plan ahead what I will eat and not deviate. Another is to enlist Glutton and put him to work figuring out what will be the most nutritious, healthy and satisfying thing I can eat throughout the day.

Glutton is successful because he has a partner who distracts me from my goals. His name is Grovel, aka Goofoff. But that’s enough for this post.

Now What?

Now that you’ve met the first four of my gast of garacters, it might be appropriate for you to really pay attention to the voice(s) in your head. For the next several days, listen carefully. Pay attention to the feelings associated with each comment, statement, or idea you hear. Who or what do they remind you of? Maybe someone you know? Maybe some type of animal? Or cartoon characters similar to mine.

Take some notes that you can refer back to later.

Be patient with yourself as this is a new venture for you. Do not assume that you need to have the same number or type of voices that I do. I suspect that each of us will be unique in this regard.

Do you hear a ‘nice/loving’ voice similar to my Voice of Spirit/Love? Or are yours just mean? Listen carefully, the Voice of Love does not compete with the other voices, It just speaks Its quiet Truth.

Part two of this post will be here in a day or two. There you will meet the rest of my gast of garacters. There are four more altogether. In that post, I will have some more suggestions for how we can deal with this issue. But that will require you to have some familiarity with what you are dealing with.

May Love and Peace Fill Your Days!