The Unwelcome Guest

Observe the thoughts and feelings and sensations flooding your mind right now.  Try and take a census of their voices.  Who are these characters, and what do they want?  What do they say they want?  Give them names that seem appropriate to you- they are not picky.  This may take some time, and practice. 

Now consider this. 

Your mind is treasure-house of masks.  Everything you have ever seen, or heard, or done, everything that remains, is a shell, hung on its respective hook.  The spirits take up these masks in order to speak.  The masks are all they have, their only means to make themselves visible to you.  They wear their costumes and play their roles, just as we play our various roles throughout the day.  Except that their performance takes place on the stage of your mind.  These characters perform your thoughts, your desires.  They are very convincing.  You must take the reins as the director of these performers.  You must tell them when to come in, and when to go off-stage.  They will try and take over the show, invariably.  Do not let them.  But let them feel heard and respected.  They will be much more cooperative this way. 

Suppose you have an unwelcome guest.  The guest tells you, you are worthless, stupid and ugly.  The guest tells you that you are not loved, and so would not be missed if you simply… disappeared.  Who invited in this reckless miscreant?  I am afraid to say that you did.  More bad news: you can’t get rid of him.  The good news is- this isn’t you.  You don’t have to take what he says as the truth.  It’s not even something you believe to be true, not really.  And yet that voice is there.  It is as if you carried around a small hammer or needle, and every few minutes you hit your thumb with the hammer, or pricked yourself with the needle.  Actually, that would be better than having to listen to this interminable internal monologue. 

The voice is a response to an event that no longer happened.  It did happen once, perhaps a number of times.  A thing happened, and the voice was your response, and perhaps was, in some roundabout way, correct.  But now the voice has taken on a life of its own.  The things you heard said are an image, an echo, a mask. They have been stored in the basement of your mind, and there they were found.  The mask has been inhabited by a spirit, and so we call it a demon, or mind-shadow.  As I say, the spirit isn’t going anywhere.  But could we persuade it to wear a different mask, and so play a different part?  Wouldn’t it be happier, too?  Dogs can chew up bones, or they can chew up your shoes.  What do they care?  But they like to see you happy.  You can give the dog a bone, and then he won’t miss the shoes.  Dogs are happy to be trained, but you have to be committed to training them.  Demons want to be housebroken.  Well, maybe sometimes they don’t.  But they do want a home.  They are willing to pay a price in order to stay.  But you will have to pay something as well.