Truth, Action and a Battle with the Bullyself

I Apologize… It’s been too long. Eight months. I don’t want to pinpoint the exact number of days.

I’d like to say that business and family obligations made it difficult to show up and write, that my life was too busy and I didn’t have enough time. Job, work, church, school, family, religious proselytes at my door, intrusions, interruptions, illness, trials, soccer, bills, cooking, cleaning, jury duty and the DMV.

I talked myself into believing that most of you could identify with excuses like these. Hopefully, enough to let me off the hook, forgive me, in a sense, and coddle me in my “self-reluctance”.

It would have been the easy way out. I mean, haven’t we all used some stupid, lame excuse in an attempt to hide our failures and weaknesses?

Thoughts like these gave me short-lived feelings of safety, a quiet place to hide when I didn’t want to face the truth.  And even though I knew that most people we care about can see through these lies, I still believed that they would cover me up and protect me; from what, I didn’t know. I just didn’t want to admit I was being manipulated by my own, limiting brain.

The truth is painful and embarrassing, especially putting it here.  I don’t like to admit, to either you or to me, that I have fulfilled the prophecies of the little voice inside me. I have succumbed to it’s chronical of my deficiencies… all the reasons, a guy like me, writing this blog, from a mind that hears and often accepts the Bully banter, was a stupid idea.

Multiple conversations, all in the privacy of my own mind, usually started before I ever sat down at a keyboard. They were two-sided communications that only I could participate in, only I could hear, only I could monitor.

Words between my “NobleMe” and the BullySelf.

My Bully is tough, everything he said was a punishing assertion that, “I am, just a simple guy, with a small business and no experience teaching these concepts, no formal training as a “therapist”, why would anyone listen to me?!?” 

I kept listening because I believed it… Of COURSE I believed it; I had thought it… so it had to be true! I couldn’t, “un-think it,”… because it really was TRUE! I had no tools to make it anything other than the truth. And this particular “truth” wasn’t setting me free!

Over and over again, I started. Over and over again, I quit, silenced by the voices in my head… I was arguing – “I have something to say” – they (my thoughts) were pointing out the truth of my shortcomings. How do you argue against truth? I needed a justification. An elusive bridge to get me from the reality of what is… to the reality of what could be.

We are sometimes held prisoner by the tiniest of threads… That’s truth. And another truth is that we can break these threads by breaking the train of thought that creates them.

The original plan for this BullySelf blog was to not only identify Self-Bullying, shine a light on it and expose it; but primarily, I hoped to research and find effective solutions and tools to help people out there who are like me. Not only do I want to rid myself of this internal nemesis, I want a place to share successes and failures, as a community. I wanted to create a forum to exchange tools, support and encouragement.

I know there are people who are as susceptible to this bullying-of-self as I am. I have been disappointed in the past by my own weakness; but even more so by the limits of the so-called help available.

Almost all of the “self-help” books, tapes, classes, therapies, and counseling sessions I have immersed myself in over the years, have given me a few cursory tools, mostly consisting of positive statements, thought-redirects, affirmations, etc. It has never been enough to keep me from getting wiped out.

This isn’t to say that they don’t help, I have learned MUCH.  I do find, however, that most treat this DEBILITATING, PARALYZING, PAINFUL, CRIPPLING issue in a single chapter or short, pithy segment and then they move on. It’s as if the author or counselor has never really been struck down by the power of the BULLYSELF or been completely overcome by its relentless waves of emotional brainwash.

I don’t know about YOU but when my BullySelf gets going, I can exhaust ALL tools, responses and affirmations in a few short minutes. I usually end up exhausted AND defeated, licking my own wounds as I sulk back to my preconceived boundaries. It’s internal hate-speech, plain and simple.

Here we go… I’m committing, once again, to dedicate time and energy to the exploration of what holds me back. To find simple things I can do in my life, to help me move beyond my doubts, fears and limiting beliefs. Things that allow me to take action against the thoughts that keep me from action, especially action toward my dreams… Realities that I know CAN be.

I’m going to share it all here. Not only the successes but the less than successful attempts as well. I am determined to let my desires win out over my fears. I’m going to beat this Bullying-self, thing.

I’m embarrassed that I’ve let him stifle my actions for so many years. I don’t like how I feel when I admit to you, that I let him shut me down over and over again.

Hopefully I’ll find effective tools that I can refine and share with you so we can all strengthen our nobilities, our “NobleMe’s”, together, and reduce the negative effects of the harmful, private, personal thoughts which we allow to have SO MUCH control over us, or that we sadly, use to beat our own selves down.

I’m convinced we can ALL live to the greatness within us. We need ammunition and stamina against negativity and dejection. Negativity and dejection are the products of our own thinking. Let’s decide that they don’t control us.

It’s easy to complete the things you put first.

Hey! It feels GOOD to be back!