Episode 080: Random Observations about Our Inner Dialogue
In this episode, I talk about 3 random observations about our inner dialogue, what causes our Monger to get fired up, why we have a love-hate relationship with her, and what we HAVE to do to quiet her.
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Hey everyone, excited to back here on a Sunday. Yay, I am back on track on my commitment to doing this once a week and having them released on Sundays. So this weeks' episode is Episode 80. I can't believe that we've done 80 episodes of these little Happiness Hacks podcasts, and today we're going to talk about some random observations I've found about the Monger and our inner dialogue. I was thinking about doing each one as an individual thing, and they might show up individually as I flush them out. But I just wanted to touch on them today as a summary episode.
And so there are three of them, three random observations. Okay, so the first one I want to talk about is the idea that our Monger tends to get chattier when we are taking risks that mean more to us. And so I want to give an illustration of that that comes from a client. She is a performer by nature, actress, and her Monger is very chatty when she's applying for different acting gigs and very, you know, telling her how much she's going to suck or who does she think she is, etc., etc., etc. Not surprising.
So the more she wants a part, the louder her Monger is, and I think that is the illustration of what I'm talking about because the more we are in line with what it is we want to be doing and where our heart's desire is, the louder our Monger's going to get. So this was illustrated clearly when she, on a whim, decided to apply to be in the pit orchestra for a performance. She was going to play her instrument, and she played the instrument in high school as she had experienced. It wasn't like she was a total novice, but she didn't have a ton of experience, and there were people that had more experience with her that were playing next to her. But the performance just needed band members. They didn't care. You didn't have to try out. It was pretty easy to become a member of the pit orchestra.
And she joined it, and she loved it. She had a great time, and her Monger was practically silent the entire time. Like, even though she knew she wasn't good and she knew she wasn't hitting the right notes all the time, she just had a great time. Her Monger was not a player in that activity.
So, it was interesting that we realized that here that activity brought her great joy, but it wasn't really what she wants to be doing. She doesn't want to be playing in the orchestra. It's a fun activity, but it's not one that she is tied to. It's interesting to observe that when your Monger is getting loud, it usually means you're on to something. To pay attention to those times that your Monger's talking up and getting loud.
And I know for me, doing this book, my Monger has been very loud. My husband jokes I don't have a monger, I have a demon because she's been particularly loud. I think my next book will be something about that topic because here I wrote a book on finding your Monger as my Monger has gotten even louder, but I think that is because I'm on to something.
Other people I know are putting themselves out there with their artwork, and they're exploring that particular vein of their work. Their Monger's super loud, and that's what happens. The closer we get to what it is we want to do, the louder our Monger gets. That was random observation number one.
Then random observation number two is as we learn to quiet our mongers and bring in our biggest fans, there is going to be a gap where we kind of miss the Monger. I know this sounds crazy and a little counterintuitive because why would we miss this voice that's totally shaming us all the time. But we miss that voice because that voice brings us drama. It brings us something to do. It brings us something to mull over and think on and obsess about. All of that activity that our brain does, it kind of occupies us, is stimulating and dramatic and kind of fun in a weird way. It's comfortable.
So, once we learn how to get rid of that constant obsessing, there's an empty vacuum that is created where there's like, wait a minute, I have just spent a long time, many years of my life being in this drama place, and now I got to learn how to function without that. So just to pay attention as you're doing this work of that concept, and sometimes we will go into the Monger just to get that drama because it is comfortable. You know, it goes back to that sweater analogy I always use that we put on the sweater of the Monger, and initially, the sweater is comfortable. It's familiar. We know what it's like to obsess and to worry and to constantly be playing all the different scenarios and kind of figuring out the right way, and that feels good.
Then, over time the sweater gets itchy because it's like I don't want to be obsessing about this so much. I don't want to be stressing all the time. I don't want to be checking everything off my to-do list. I want to be living my life. So, the sweater gets itchy, and we have to take the sweater off.
That's the concept of the Monger is that it's not all evil, and we don't want the Monger. We know it's bad for us, and yet part of it is comfortable. It's just like a glass of wine. We know that alcohol has no real redeeming value, and yet we drink it because it makes us feel good. Until we have too much, and then it makes us feel bad, just like the Monger. The Monger initially makes us feel good. It makes us feel safe. It makes us feel protected. It makes us feel comfortable until it doesn't, and then it starts to make us feel bad.
So I want to open up that conversation a little bit in your brain and make some space for that because until we can admit that we need our Monger and that we find it comfortable, it's really hard to quiet it. If we're constantly pushing it away like some evil demon, we won't integrate it into our whole being, and we need to integrate the Monger. It's one of the voices there, and if we learn how to live with that voice and integrate it into the biggest fan, then we can start making some real changes.
That random idea is that the Monger is comfortable, and that's okay, but it still hurts us, and we need to figure out a way around it.
Then the last random observation I have is the concept of intellectualizing versus practice. I think for a lot of us that have this monger work, we're used to intellectualizing. We intellectualize our feelings. We intellectualize a problem. We're problem solvers. We're constantly trying to come up with the next solution. When it comes to the workaround quieting your Monger and bringing in your biggest fan, there's a level of practice that has to happen. It's not just reading about it. It's not just reading all these books and getting all these 'ahas' which is wonderful and awesome.
You have to practice. You have to practice ASK. You have to sit down and acknowledge your feelings. You have to slow down and get into your body. You have to kindly pull back and see the big picture. You have to take it all the way through. And so that idea that it's not just intellectualizing, it's not just sitting there being like, oh I got to practice ASK and not actually practicing it. Or, there's my Monger again, but not actually doing anything about it. That's where we get in trouble.
And so, it's just like sitting around. If we're reading all these books on working out and stretching and how to stretch and the perfect yoga poses, and the great way to eight-minute abs and we weren't doing the workouts, it doesn't do any good. It's the same thing when it comes to our mongers. We have to do the work that is involved in quieting them. That's where the glitch comes from because, for a lot of us we don't want to do that work, and I get it.
Even after knowing that I need to do the work, I still am resistant to it. Earlier this week, I was pushing myself hard, and I had a bunch of deadlines I was trying to hit, and I was just manic in my jumping from task to task to task. It took all I had to step back from the computer, slow down, get into my body. I turned on some music. I did a little dance party in my office. And then I felt a thousand times better.
When I came back to my desk, my mind was clear. I was able to focus; I could get the task done. That's random fact number three, is that I need you not to be intellectualizing this process. I need you to be practicing this process and then bringing that practice and the questions you have around that practice up to the forefront. So then you can figure out new ways around them.
Okay, that's the show.