There Is a Voice That Lies to You About You

It usually says one of two things. You are too much. Or you are not enough.

Sometimes it swaps between them in the same afternoon, which should be your first clue that it is not being honest with you, because both of those cannot be true at once.

I want to be careful and clear here. That voice is not you, and it is not telling you the truth, and you are allowed to not believe it.

You can tell it apart from an honest thought by one simple test. An honest thought about something you did wrong wants you to fix it, and then it lets you go. This other voice never proposes a fix. It just repeats. It has nothing to offer and it never stops offering it.

That is how you know.

And if it turns up tonight, you do not have to argue with it or win. You only have to notice what it is, which takes about a second and takes almost all of its power away.

The unkind voice is not the truth about you. It is just loud, and loud is not the same as right.