Leaving the Sock Puppets Behind

I have a large, loud committee of sock puppets in my head. Some of them look like my family members. Some of them look like teachers I had in school, old bosses, former colleagues, old friends, current acquaintances. But all of them tell me things that

a) reinforce some interpretation of life that I have and

b) have only a tangential relationship to how the actual person thinks, feels or behaves toward me.

I call them sock puppets because their little mouths only move thanks to various parts of the belief structure my brain created over time in response to my experience of life, especially childhood.

I have spent a lot of time in the last few years practicing saying to my friends, colleagues and loved ones: "My brain is telling me that you're upset. Is my brain right about that?" or "In this moment, my brain thinks you're angry and disappointed and I'm feeling bad about that. Can I check in with you about what you really think before I go down a dark tunnel?" This is one of the ways I build little cages around the sock puppets in my head--to check in with the real people before my head runs away with pointless worry and fear.

But checking in with people about what they think in relation to me only goes so far. After all, one of the reasons I have so many sock puppets in my head is that my brain loves to imagine what other people think of me INSTEAD of gathering information and support for creating beauty, love and service in the world.

Over the last few months, I've done a lot of work to become more aware of my sock puppets--what they do to me and what they do for me. We already see that they tend to disconnect me from reality and give me permission to say mean things to myself. But in terms of what they do for me? Well, the truth is, they keep me company.

Keep you company, Nora?

Well, yeah. When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time feeling alone and ignored. I didn't like living in the present moment because the present moment felt really lonely. So I replayed experiences of interacting with people in my head. Or I made up little fantasies (both positive and negative) of what it MIGHT be like to interact with them in the future. These thought escapes helped me make it through some rough times as a kid and I'm glad I was resourceful enough to discover them. But now, I find, that they really get in the way of experiencing the life I've been so blessed to create for myself with the clarity, love and support of so many wonderful people.

A few weeks ago, I got to a point where I realized that my brain was plugging into little fantasies and memories EVEN WHEN I WANTED TO STAY PRESENT. No matter what I did or said, those little scenes of other people's faces and voices were like a little quicksand pit that kept sucking my thoughts in without my consent.

I talked to a whole bunch of friends about it who all shared their own experience with similar voices which really helped lessen the pressure of it all. Then, just the other day, something shifted. Getting into bed, the thought occurred to me: I'm all alone in here.

And it hit me--there's no one in my head but me. This sounds obvious, I'm sure. But the truth is it was both reassuring and dislocating. Reassuring because it gives me so many more choices about my beliefs and thoughts than I realized I had (even with all the self-examination I was already engaged in). Dislocating because it means that there's no person, place or thing that will ever be CAPABLE of joining me inside this container of self and identity to ease my load and lessen my pain.

The good news is that there are still plenty of real, flesh-and-blood people who can offer me support and compassion. But the fantasy from childhood was that somehow someone could actually get inside my heart to make it all better. And the truth is no one can do that.

The disappointment that my inner child felt in response to this realization was immense. But luckily, it was my inner adult who knew to reach out for support from loving people who celebrated this new awareness with me. Why? Because the opportunity now is to fall in love with the real live experience of being the only one inside my head (except for the constant company of my Higher Power of course).

So, here we go...wait, no...there's only me in here. So...here I go. I've got a lot of living to do!