Inner180

Sometimes I forget that I’m a joy dieter and have total responsibility for my thoughts and feelings. In fact, sometimes I hear stressful voices in my head, and I don’t go to Truth, I don’t become my own Compassionate Witness, I don’t find the painful story I am telling myself and substitute a story that allows me to feel better.  Nope, sometimes I have imaginary conversations, even entire debates, with people who aren’t there. And sucker myself into believing every scary, mean, outrageous, guilt-producing thing they tell me.  Oh, I do it way less than I used to, but sometimes, something will just creep right under my skin, lodge itself like a fat splinter, and I forget I’m on the joy diet.  And, I’ll justify, defend, argue, wheedle, hedge, barter, bandy, and split hairs with a figment of my imagination.  And feel awful.

It helps to realize I’m not the only one who does this.  In Bird by Bird, Ann Lamott outlines a method of quieting her mind when she converses with imaginary foes:

“Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up.  Then isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse.  Pick it up by the tail and drop into a mason jar.  Then isolate another voice, pick it up by the tail, drop it in the jar.   And so on.   Drop in any high-maintenance parental units, drop in any contractors, lawyers, colleagues, children, anyone who is whining in your head.  Then put the lid on, and watch all these mouse people clawing at the glass, jabbering away, trying to make you feel like shit because you won’t do what they want—won’t give them more money, won’t be more successful, won’t see them more often.  Then imagine that there is a volume-control button on the bottle.  Turn it all the way up for a minute, and listen to the stream of angry, neglected, guilt-mongering voices.  Then turn it all the way down and watch the frantic mice lunge at the glass, trying to get to you.  Leave it down, and get back to your [work].

A writer friend of mine suggests opening the jar and shooting them all in the head.  But I think he’s a little angry, and I’m sure nothing like this would ever occur to you.”

I suppose we should add this method to our stillness reportoire.