The Voices

 “Does everyone have voices in their head?”

“What do you think?”

The voices.  The voices can be so powerful.  I remember a few years ago, I was traveling for work in Brazil, and I couldn’t get a hold of Laurel.  As background, we had some text exchanges around our one dog Daisy, too many treats, and Daisy throwing up the night before.  The voices started:

“Laurel blames you for Daisy throwing up”

“Daisy is sick and had to go to the vet”

“Daisy is dead and Laurel doesn’t want to tell you”

“Laurel has been kidnapped”

“Laurel is dead”

Spoiler alert, none of these happened.  Yes, the voices are powerful.  I unfortunately had many instances like this when I was traveling a great deal, not sure if it was the lack of sleep, being away from home or what, but these stories were way too frequent.  Since I’ve been traveling less, these situations have lessened, but I’m pretty sure they will never quite go away. 

As many of you know, I’ve really come to enjoy yoga.  OK, that may be an understatement.  I enjoy yoga, yoga studios, yoga teachers, other yoga students, books about yoga….  I think you get my point, I’m hopeful it hasn’t become an obsession, but quite frankly, when Laurel introduced me to yoga four years ago, it started slowly, but eventually, I’ve grown to really love it and love what it’s done for me.

Having said all that, I’m still not the most graceful or beautiful yogi.  I have horrible flexibility, my strength isn’t great, I can’t balance to save my life, and I have the grace of a giraffe.  But, it really doesn’t bother me.  One of our teachers, Brooke, is always so supportive and positive, she’ll say in class when we’re doing a balancing pose, “You guys look awesome!  You look so great!”  I always laugh because I’m pretty sure she’s either not looking at me, or she’s just being incredibly nice.  I never really watch anyone in yoga, and I really don’t worry a whole lot about how I look, I’m virtually positive I don’t look great, but I’m OK with that.

Recently, I’ve been really working on Balancing Half Moon.  I could never do it, and it kind of bugged me that I couldn’t because, I just thought, I should be able to do this.  My issue is that you have to balance on one leg, and my quads are very tight and weak, so it’s difficult for me.  With Laurel’s help and coaching, I started to be able to do it.  Not great, but I was able to balance on my leg with one hand on a block.  I was really excited to be able to finally do this, at least my version.

“How much of what is happening in your head has to do with what’s happening in life, right here?” Baron Baptiste from “Perfectly Imperfect”

On Labor Day, we had an outdoor yoga class at a park.  I love outdoor yoga because I love the outdoors, and also because strangely, I can balance a lot better on an uneven surface compared to a flat surface.  It was a wonderful experience, we had a great time.  Then, the studio posted pictures of  the class, and I was devastated.  The picture was Balancing Half Moon, and as I looked at the picture, I saw three lovely roses, and one really ugly thorn.  Now to be fair, the three around me all are teachers, and their poses were beautiful.  Kim, Nicole and Laurel all had these beautiful variations of Balancing Half Moon, and there I was looking, well, like a really awkward giraffe.

And the voices started…

“You look awful”

“You should be embarrassed”

“What are you doing out there?”

“You should quit yoga”

I kept telling myself what I always tell myself, I’m a work in progress, I’m doing the best I can, and I may not look that great, but I’m on my mat, I’m working at it.  But the voices are powerful, and they were taking over.  On a walk the one day with Laurel, I started crying, and tried to explain to her what was going on.  I love yoga, I don’t want to quit, but I hate the way I look, I hate looking like an awkward old man, it’s embarrassing.  She, as I would expect, gave me the logical answer very similar to the logical answer I was giving myself, but I tried to explain to her, the voices are powerful.

It also took me to a bit of a different direction, but also pretty painful.  I don’t know about everyone else, but when I see a picture of myself, I really don’t have too much reaction.  I know I’m not the best looking guy in the world, and quite honestly, I think I’m looking more and more like Doc from “Back

to the Future” each day, but it really doesn’t bother me.  I started thinking about people I know, mostly women, who refuse to have their picture taken, and refuse to post pictures of themselves on Facebook or anywhere else, and I wondered, what are the voices in their heads telling them about how they look?  It hurt to think that while I hated to see what I looked like in a yoga pose, there are people that just in general hate what they look like, and the voices are telling them, they are ugly, or overweight, or whatever. 

I had a recent conversation with one of the wonderful young ladies I used to work with in Lawrenceville with WIKA.  She was telling me about her son at college, and the voices that are telling him all of those negative things that they sometimes say.  I could easily relate to what he is going through, it’s not easy when you are young, working through those social situations at college, trying to maintain your grades, and have those voices telling you all the things you aren’t good at.  It’s also extremely difficult to be a mother and not being able to do much to help, other than offer those positive comments to try to overcome those negative voices in his head.

While the voices may be powerful, I’ve grown and developed in my ability to deal with them.  The quote above from Baron Baptiste is from one of the chapters titled “The Cosmic Joke”, where he describes that so much of what we believe isn’t real but fabricated in our head.  It’s helped me realize, I’m not alone, there are others who create a new reality like I do.  Another way is this week I’ve been watching a video I found of Hillsong United singing “Break Every Chain” and hearing:

“There’s a power in the name of Jesus to break every chain”

Each morning, when I plank, I’ve been watching and listening to this song, and I hear that phrase over and over telling me about the power of the name of Jesus.  I do firmly believe that Jesus is much more powerful than any of the voices in my head that tell me I’m not good enough.  The voices will always be there, but I’ve been able to deal with them much better through prayer, through song, through reading, through therapy, and yes, through yoga. 

Going back to the comments from the beginning, that was an exchange the other night between Sarah, my therapist, and me.  I asked Sarah that question, and as is typical of a therapist, she turned it around on me (therapists are really sneaky that way).  I’m guessing everyone has some sort of voices in their head.  I’m guessing some are different than others.  I’m guessing some are really strong and persistent while others are those slow, subtle comments that are like a faucet dripping, eventually wearing you down. 

The other day in yoga, Amber started our class with little note cards she put in front of each of us.  The cards had many different messages like:

“You are worthy!”

“You have a light, it’s meant to shine!”

“You are loved!”

This is the one I got:

My hope and prayer is that many people have voices in their heads telling them messages like this.  I hope that when they look in a mirror, they see the light that they are to the world, they know they are loved, they see someone who is worthy.  I’m really hopeful that many out there don’t have those voices that tell them all the things they can’t do in life, but they have voices that tell them how amazing they are, how unique they are and how the world is a better place because of them being in it.

As Laurel and I drove home from that class, I talked again about the voices and what they were telling me.  Again, she reiterated the logical answer, and I said my typical response to the voices, I told her I’d just tell them:

“I’m baptized, so fuck off!”

She told me, maybe you should tell them:

“Brooke says I look great, so fuck off!”