To get down with your demons is crucial for your all round growth. You know that subtle yet menacing voice in your head that keeps reminding you how much of a worthless piece of crap you are, reminding you how lazy, dirty, unfortunate, ugly, or not good enough you are. I am sure this doesn’t just happen to me. Anyways if you hear that voice, those are your demons. Some of us listen to it louder than others, so we pick up self-destructive habits.
I have always had this thing of not having the same friend for long; what happens is that whenever I am getting too close to someone, the tiny voice in my head tells me that they won’t be there for long. So I start withdrawing, same as my love life, the little voice tells me things like; it won’t be long before he figures out how much of a freak you are and scram. I would always renege on every hangout; even if I convince myself to go out, I sit there, thinking of leaving.
People use different means to keep their demons at bay, such as; drinking, smoking, substance usage or even overworking. All these unhealthy habits can only do so much; you can’t be high, drunk, or busy all your life. It is impossible to ignore the demons; they would always be there lurking in the corner. The more you try to keep the lid over your demons covered, the more messed up our lives become.
We’ve had a battle with our demons unknowingly, at some point in our lives. You have felt anger, guilt or hated yourself for a reoccurring lousy behaviour that you have promised yourself on countless occasions you’d drop. You promised that you’d stop enabling that voice. I understand that our generation is under a lot of pressure but being high and drunk only brings our death day closer.
How To Get Down With Your Demons
Tsultrim Allione, in her book feeding your demons, mentioned an old Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice where you give that demon haunting you a face and identity. Then sit and feed them the same way you’d feed a guest at your party. Allione explains that it has a healing effect; you accept the worse part of yourself and love yourself regardless.
So I subscribed to her views, and it’s been so helpful so far. My demons tend to tell me I won’t excel in things I get a little bit of interest in, so I never go through with it. It limited me. We stop ourselves from being the best we can be when we don’t become familiar with our demons.
The best parts of us could also be the worse; hence we can’t acknowledge the best parts without also recognising the worse. Our worse parts are just a reflection of what we desire to be our best. We desperately fight to prove our demons wrong, which is impossible and if you give up, you are establishing your demon is right.
The flaws and our broken parts aren’t the problems; the problem is when we constantly try to detach ourselves from our weaknesses and broken pieces. The more we try to disassociate ourselves from our demons, the more we enable them.
What I do is I listen to the voices and try each day to make myself better; I am always open to learning because I could be too critical of myself. My demons motivate me to be better in all aspects of my life. So I urge you to stop trying to subdue your demons and accept them; they are part of you, so love all of you because darling, you are unique, gorgeous, intelligent, funny, intelligent, phenomenal, you kick ass, and most of all you are good enough.
