This is a guest post from my good friend Donna Merrill who is a personal development expert and works with her psychic abilities with her clients.
So, over to her now…
These are always excuses that can keep you in fear. These excuses drip-feed into your subconscious through a little inner voice that seems to always be around, especially when you are on the verge of making a breakthrough in your progress. If you allow this little inner voice to take over in this negative way, it will always divert you from success, and usually just at the point that you thought “things will be different this time.”
So why does this Little Voice have such influence over the way things play out in our lives?
Case Study
Let me tell you a story to show you how this works.
I had a client that came to me, distraught that her long dreamed of fashion ecommerce site was just not happening. She had followed the blueprint to the “t”. She made all the right connections with people in her industry, set up a Facebook page to announce her undertaking, started blogging about it, got a lot of people interested, built a list of followers who were awaiting the announcement of her site going live. She did much more, and I won’t digress with the details.
The point to the story is that she kept getting stuck in neutral with the actual release of the site. She had technical problems. Her husband thought the project was a waste of time. She was spending more money on it that she intended, so she shelved it for a while. She was losing the interest of her followers because it was taking so long. Then she got depressed about it. Then she got angry. Then she blamed others. She went through all the emotional upheavals that come with perpetual disappointment in oneself.
The Breakdown
I told her she had learned her business, and had done all the right things. But she had not learned how to deal with that pesky “Little Voice.” In fact, her initial reaction to my suggestion of the Little Voice’s influence over her spoke volumes. “That’s crazy,” she protested. “I have no such little voice, I just couldn’t get the work done in time, and so now it’s all falling apart… as usual.”
Her argument pointed to all the reasons why she was a serial failure in trying to achieve her goal. Over time, I had gotten to know that this client never really thought that she could succeed in this venture, as well as any of the others she had undertaken.
She had a Little Voice that constantly told her, “sure, you can make some progress… but actually see it all the way through to success? Never.” She had great ideas, would be very excited to get things started, but always somewhere along the line, she was derailed by that little voice whispering “Who do you think you are? You can’t succeed.” Her denial of the very existence of the Little Voice told me why she couldn’t overcome it. If she didn’t recognize that it was there, how could she fight it?
You see, that’s the power of the Little Voice. It hides deep in your subconscious and influences you at the deepest level, with the most important things in your life. Meanwhile, you don’t even know it’s there. Yet, you carry it around throughout your life, and you just assume it is always telling you the truth.
“You can’t make it.”
“You’ll never succeed.”
“You’re not smart enough.”
The Fix
So, the fix in this case was pretty straightforward. I eventually got my client to take two critical steps in her thinking. These are the same steps that we all need to take if we’ve allowed the Little Voice to take control of our lives in a negative way.
1. Acknowledge that the subconscious mind plays a pivotal role in your thoughts and actions.
2. Know that you can change it.
It’s not usually too difficult to help someone go through their past experiences and realize that this Little Voice has, indeed, been around a long time. The greater a person’s resistance to exploring themselves from an interior perspective, the more difficult this is. This particular client was pretty quick to come to terms with her Little Voice, and was quite determined to deal with it.
So, we come to the trickier part of this business. How do we stop this Little Voice. The answer, really, is that we don’t. It has always been there, and always will. That’s because it has an important function in our psyche. It’s there to protect us from harm.
What?
That’s right, the Little Voice is there to make sure we don’t hurt ourselves. In this case, it always stopped my client from going too far into a success mode because it was convinced that it would end in failure, and therefore hurt her. Why? Because it had been trained through a lifetime of experiences and external influences that she truly could not succeed, so therefore, it was telling her to not even try. It was useless and ultimately harmful.
So there’s the naked truth about the Little Voice. It’s there and it’s not going away.
The good news is, once you know that, all you have to do is retrain to stop being negative, weak and self-defeating. There are many modalities to retrain the little voice that keeps you from achieving your goals, or feeling good about yourself, or having the self-confidence that would serve you so much better than perpetual self-doubt.
Self Actualization
Here’s a quick little exercise I used to help this particular client move forward in her quest to retrain the Little Voice. You can try it, too. It’s called systematic desensitization.
First, I want you to go into a relaxed state of mind in order to switch things around, and redirect what you Little Voice is telling you.
To do this, sit in a quiet, comfortable place with no disturbances. Unplug EVERYTHING. Take a deep breath and while you do that, breathe into your stomach to expand it. Hold that breath for a moment and exhale.
Take note of your body. Start from your head and feel the physical sensations of deeply relaxing. Feel its effect on your facial muscles, then your neck, shoulders, arms, stomach, thighs calves… all the way down to your feet and toes.
This will take a while, but believe me it will put you in a relaxed state. As you concentrate on your body’s physical reaction to the sensations of relaxing, try not to let any extraneous thoughts come into your mind.
Breathing
Take a deep breath that fills your belly. Hold it for 3 seconds and while you are holding it, say a positive message to yourself, then exhale.
Here are some messages you may want to say:
- I am good enough
- I deserve
- I am successful
- I am a perfect human being
- I am confident
- I am strong
- I am prosperous
- I am beautiful
- I am fearless
- I am social
These are just a few examples. My client, chose to tell herself: “I am capable.”
The point is, that once you acknowledge the negative power that Little Voice is having over you, you can choose to do this one exercise to confront it. It will begin the process of reprogramming your subconscious Little Voice from its habitual negative talk to positive affirmation of who you desire and are determined to be.
Self Talk
Yes, you must talk to yourself! If you have a thought that says “I’m not good enough for … (fill in the blank),”simply reverse that thought by saying to yourself – aloud if you wish – “I am good enough for …” Of course, your life won’t change overnight.
I instructed my client to repeat this exercise over and over again, twice a day for 30 days. She had a pretty fascinating breakthrough as a result. In fact, she tells me that she still does this exercise daily, going on two years, now!
I challenge you to start taking control of the Little Voice in your mind, not by passively wishing it would go away, but by adding this, or a similar, reprogramming exercise to your daily routine. Try it for 30 days and let me know how you make out with it.
Have you tried to take control of the Little Voice in your head? Did you even know it was there? Do you think it might have a grip on your life that you can’t fight? I’d love to hear what your experiences have been with your own Little Voice.
Please let me know in the comments below. And make sure to share this article on your social media sites!
Your turn now. Let me know your thoughts on that…
~ Donna Merrill
Hi Donna, and welcome to Sylviane’s blog 🙂
What a pleasant surprise to see you here, and with such a wonderful topic 🙂
You are SO right about the little voice, as you mentioned about it in your post, because that is your inner-voice or the voice of your subconscious, and if that turns negative – you really can’t go ahead and so anything positive.
I could so well relate to the example of the lady mentioned in the case study and the hurdles she underwent, and they are usually the reasons that pull people down, especially if they are the negative words from your own family because they don’t support you or your work. You gave her the right solution – to fight back those negative emotions and feelings raised by her little voice – to positive affirmations and self-talk that would boost her self-confidence and morale.
I liked the exercise mentioned too, and seems a lot like meditation and a combination of deep breathing to me, and this does work as it’s part of a few exercises practiced in yoga too. I’m sure if tried for 30 days as you mentioned, it will do wonders!
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead, both of you 🙂
Harleena Singh invites you to read..Domestic Violence: The Deadly Virus
Thank you Harleena!
That little voice is inside of us all! When it is the negative ones, we have to tackle them head on. Yes, it usually comes from childhood. It can be something that we had experienced or perceived. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. We cannot focus on where it came from sometimes. We just have to be aware. Once we are aware of this little voice that keeps us from growing, we can surely battle it.
As for that exercise, I’ve done it myself for 30 days. The breathing technique still gets me out of a negative thought till this day! I wouldn’t recommend anything I haven’t tied myself!
Thanks for the welcome!
-Donna
Donna Merrill invites you to read..Learn From Reading Blogs
Hi Harleena,
Thank you for coming and I’m so glad you enjoyed Donna’s post. It was certainly nice to have her over here and enjoyed the read too.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..Why Personal Development Is Not Taught In School – Five Fundamental Subjects That School Won’t Teach Your Child
I just want to say Thank You Sylviane for having me on your blog. It sure is an honor and pleasure to be here.
-Donna
Donna Merrill invites you to read..Learn From Reading Blogs
Hi Donna,
You’re welcome and thank YOU for being here. I just posted my own comment below. Wow, you really made my work load lighter this week we a great post!
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..How To Reprogram Your Inner Little Voice
Hi Donna, Hi Sylviane,
Wow – I really needed to read this today.
Truth be told, I’ve been going through a pretty tough time – for the reasons mentioned in this post. I can totally relate to your client.
And while I ‘know enough’ to be the observer of situations/ thoughts/ beliefs that I also interact with – sometimes it just feels easier said than done.
I had learned that we don’t actually backtrack – but run into things we thought we overcame to be able to look at them with an expanded perspective – as if to unpeel another layer of our inner-crap. This is what I keep in mind as my own ‘little voice’ comes back up to remind me of the fact that it’s still there…
Like with many of Sylviane’s other posts – the subject of this is so synchronistic for me. My most recent post is all about “I AM” statements – and here they are, being brought to my attention from another source.
Serendipity…
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate reading these words today. Thanks so much – to both of you – for literally making my morning 🙂
Dana invites you to read..The I AM Project
Hi Dana!
Well, I am so glad this helped you out. Awareness is the first step and you have it girl! This is but one little exercise you can do. But there are so many more….believe me…I’ve done them all he he.
It is so frustrating when you know but that voice keeps on coming in. I had that happen to me in an extreme case of being frightened by lightning. I knew it was transference from my abusive ex husband, but couldn’t shake it. I tried everything! Then I ran into EMDR Therapy and BOOM! That voice was turned around in just one session.
If those little voices are driving you nuts, Google EMDR Therapy…It may just help you shake those little voice cobwebs out of your head and be replaced by positive ones. Just a thought!
-Donna
Donna Merrill invites you to read..Learn From Reading Blogs
Hi Dana,
Yes, it’s easier to tell others about the little voice than being able to manage it ourselves at times. As Donna says in her post, it never really goes away, but it can get much better.
I still have that voice coming back in the background at times, and when things go wrong, as you said, it can even get louder, but I have succeeded in shutting it down quite a bit though 😉
Thank you for coming.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..Why Personal Development Is Not Taught In School – Five Fundamental Subjects That School Won’t Teach Your Child
Hi Donna,
I’m so glad you wrote this wonderful post about reprogramming that little voice inside that is not always doing a good job.
As you mentioned in your post, our subconscious is programmed to protect us, but that’s on the assumption that it’s programmed the right way. As we know because of the way we were raised and our background, our programming is far from perfect, so what’s supposed to be a protection, ends up being not a good thing for us.
It’s like programming a computer to do a certain task. Even if it’s a bad task that computer will do it over and over until we remove the command.
Thank you for telling us how to help that little inner voice get better. As you said, we will never totally get rid of it, but we can control it.
Thank, Donna and nice to have you here!
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..Why Personal Development Is Not Taught In School – Five Fundamental Subjects That School Won’t Teach Your Child
Hi Donna!
I remember doing an exercise like this in therapy and it did wonders. I’ll admit I haven’t practiced this in a while.
You’re right my little voice will not go away. I know she’s looking out for my best interest but I also recognized she’s stopped me from a lot of great opportunities.
I do practice talking to myself. I’m always reassuring myself that I am capable of anything. I also make sure to have positive energy around me. Music, candles, people, even people I follow on social media. I love reading positive messages some times they come at the perfect time. I figured there’s no room for negative stuff this way.
I can certainly relate to your client and I wish her all the best!
Hope you’re having a great Wednesday!
Corina Ramos invites you to read..Catch Me At Tackling Our Debt Today
HI Corina,
I’m sure Donna will come to reply to your comment herself soon, but in the meantime let me add my two cents.
It’s a good exercise to talk to yourself and tell yourself positive things, that really helps quiet down that negative voice. I do that too a lot 🙂
Of course, surrounding yourself by positive individuals is so important, actually more important than a lot of people think, because people around us do make us feel a certain way, whether we want it or not, even if we have built a strong shell. Just their presence can bring either good vibs or bad ones.
Thank you for your comment Corina.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..Why Personal Development Is Not Taught In School – Five Fundamental Subjects That School Won’t Teach Your Child
Hi Corina!
Self talk works so well. The more we do it the more we train our subconscious with positive thoughts.
As for surrounding yourself with positive people…Good for YOU! I had to learn that the hard way myself. I grew up with negative people. Now, I have strong boundaries. So strong that some people like family and friends just don’t like me anymore. But that’s a good thing.
Keep that positive energy and peeps around you Girl!
-Donna
Donna Merrill invites you to read..Learn From Reading Blogs
Well hey there Donna, great to see you here at Sylviane’s blog. What a pleasant surprise! Both of you gals together, winning combination here.
So I LOVE this message because I’ve been there and boy have I done that to myself. Like your client, when I came online I was literally scared to death. All of those voices in my head were telling me I wasn’t good enough and what the hell was I thinking. The more information I ran into the more overwhelmed I became and the worse it got.
I had to work with a spiritual life coach myself to even realize this is what I was doing. I had no clue, I hadn’t really studied personal development all that much so I didn’t know I was doing that to myself.
As soon as I understood what I was doing I was doing the happy dance because I knew I could reverse it. The hardest part is being aware of your own thoughts but eventually you do and then you reverse that self talk. It took me awhile I won’t lie but it works and I thought I was positive before, I’m annoying now! 😉
Thank you for sharing this Donna and you are so spot on. I love this message and thanks Sylviane for having her this week. Love this message.
See you gals tomorrow night.
~Adrienne
Adrienne invites you to read..7 Ways To Run An Unsuccessful Mobile Email Campaign
Hi Adrienne,
Yes, it was great to have Donna today, and she help me work less this week 🙂
I had that dam voice most of my life, but I don’t know what happened just as I turned 40, that’s when I stared to take less and less crap from everyone and including my own self. It’s because of that I always remember how Napoleon Hill said that we only come to full maturity at age 40. Well, that’s what happened to me.
As Donna says, the voice never goes completely away, but man did I quiet it down, and my self-confidence has gone to the roof. It feels so good not to give a you know what about so many things any more 🙂 I love it.
Thank you for coming, Adrienne 🙂
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..Why Personal Development Is Not Taught In School – Five Fundamental Subjects That School Won’t Teach Your Child
Hi Adrienne!
Thanks for your comment because so many people come online and are apprehensive about saying what they feel. The more they read, the more they can get intimidated by expressing themselves.
As you mentioned that self-talk really works! It does take time, but after a while, there is no fear!
I appreciate you sharing your feelings here Adrienne!
-Donna
Donna Merrill invites you to read..Learn From Reading Blogs
Hi Donna and Sylviane
Awesome awesome post Donna. I love this subject and it always intrigues me when someone is in denial of having “a little voice”.
Not sure if you are familiar with Blair SInger. Blair is one of Robert Kiyosaki ‘s best friends as well as working with Robert. He used to run workshops on this topic and it was one we promoted out here. So I have been in the room and then at the back of the room observing people.
Blair used to say to people who said they did not have one “it is the same voice that just said you didn’t have one”. But sometimes it takes time for people.
I love your suggestions here because even knowing this information does not result in us automatically eliminating the sabotaging self talk. I am quicker at catching myself.
When things are not going the way we want there is always something there we are doing.
Great advice and a great topic Donna.
Sue
Hi Sue,
Yes, it’s interesting that some people don’t have such voice, because we ALL do. It’s just that some of us are better able to recognize it and stop it in it’s track, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t have one.
Usually people saying they don’t is because they haven’t even come to the level of recognizing it yet.
Thank you for giving this great example.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read..How To Reprogram Your Inner Little Voice
Yes!!! Brilliant!!! That’s exactly how it works. I’ve added one little trick. Every time my little voice says something I do not like, and even every time I do something I do not like, I tell myself… “That’s not me. Cancel. Sebastian doesn’t act like that. Sebastian is more like this”.
You do that enough times and your little voice will get sick of doing the wrong things and getting cancelled.
Thanks for sharing!