Dear Brave Soul, take a deep breath. Ahhhh…. Thank you.
I believe in the power of meeting our Monkeys, e.g. self-talk, inner parts, characters, critics, demons, gremlins, and saboteurs. Although inner meanies can stop us from authentic expression, they truly want to help. And they can help us grow more whole.
I’m so grateful to chat with lovely
, high priestess of mystic storytelling magic, about our inner characters! What a joy to share secrets of our characters, belly laughs, and spontaneous songs. A few highlights (video replay):5:42 Christine-ahh’s graphic novel, “Meet Your Monkeys.” It’s the monkey mind, but with different flavors. Characters.
6:26 Marianna’s Inner Predators, especially “Madame Fraude,” an old Victorian lady who probably came from her father.
24:47 “The Inspector of Fun” - “You’re not allowed to have fun!”
26:55 “Cruella de Ville” - characters from movies can reflect parts of us.
30:02 Demanders like “Good Girl” say “you should.” Hear her theme song.
57:00 Meet “Rascal,” an escape artist who trespasses and climbs trees.
55:00: Marianna’s Creative Practice: grab paper, scribble a little. Imagine a voice. How does it move? Smells, sounds, colors, costume. What’s this character? It will just come. And it’s so good.
Here’s a bit more about our characters…
Christine: Here’s what I really want to say to you, Ms. Perfect.
I’m all about loving your whole self, blah blah blah, which is real. But if I’m honest, Ms. Perfect, I despise how you make me work so effing hard!
You can’t let me rest until everything I make, write, or create is spotless. WTF? I hate to clean. My car is a haven for orange peels and crusty envelopes from the DMV. My fingernails aren’t great. Why does my work need to be perfect?
Plus, what do we love most in creative work? Isn’t it the spots? The messy bits that shout, “look at me! I’m weird!” Imperfect stuff breaks the pattern. That’s what we love. So STOP making me fix, edit, tweak, go back in and put it the way it was before, etc. If you make me click that edit button one more time, I’m gonna screeeeeeam!
PS: you care far too much what people think of us, AND we do care about creating good experiences for others. That’s different. That’s loving them. We don’t have to be afraid.
Ok, Hungry Girl, let’s talk. I see what’s happening lately.
I see you – the one who creeps to the kitchen to grab the gluten-free crackers. The whole bag. You show up when things get uncomfortable, like now when I’m editing my scary novel about that one year when I abandoned my young self to predators! Yikes. You were desperate for love and attention. It’s normal to fill that void – and you’ve tried it all: crackers, drugs, sex, alcohol, work, now it’s Substack! Clicks…!
Yes, our mother was not a healthy person. Yes, our father was an asshole. Yes, we didn’t get what we needed. But still – we’ve been working on this healing thing for years! We’re surrounded by love. We’re swimming in it daily. I want you to trust that. So please stop believing you don’t deserve it, or you gotta do headstands to get it. We can feel that old energy in my body. We can regulate this gosh-darn self (ahh.…) and find the love, strength, compassion, kindness, and courage you need. So let’s do that.
PS: it’s OK to have a cracker.
Dear Monkeys, I adore you. You’ve been my companions forever. It’s way better now that I know you, instead of hiding in the shadows and jerking me around like a freakin’ puppet. We can do this, together. Soften, feel the now, breathe, and reset.
ALSO, I adore how more humans are leaning into inner critics, critters, characters. I met mine through a fairy tale. I’m grateful for Internal Family Systems (IFS). Now we’re naming the parts, listening, loving and. Take another deep breath: Ahhh…
Marianna: Ok. My turn! Come on, let’s gather around the inner council fire:
Let’s go, Madam Fraud. You again.
There you are… dressed like an exiled governess from the 1800s with opinions about my words and my publishing schedule. I know, you never shout, you just clear your throat and make me doubt everything I've ever created. I see you, babes. You make me add seventeen disclaimers to one sentence. You call it “refinement”, but we both know it’s fear in a corset.
But here’s the thing, darling. I’m not thirteen. I don’t need your protection anymore. The bullies cannot scare me into shame.
Yes, I will publish the messy thing.
No, I won’t, can’t, shan’t make it sound smarter.
Yes, someone might misunderstand me. But no, I will not apologize for having a voice.
And here comes The Great Empath.
Sweetheart, you need to sit down.
You, who can hear a change in someone’s breathing from two countries away.
You, who takes on other people’s sadness like it’s a full-time job with no pay and terrible hours.
I love you. I do. You’re the reason people feel safe around me. You’re how I learned to guide and help and soothe and empower others.
But we both know what happens when you’re in charge for too long… we forget what we need. We forget we’re allowed to take up space. We forget that empathy without boundaries is just spiritual self-harm.
So now, we’re doing it differently.
You can keep your gift.
But we’re building a damn moat around it.
But we are not turning you into what we all know is your other side…The Great Ripper.
You, who kicks down the door the moment something gets too intimate. You, who cannot stand any more boundary crossing the other one erased.
You’ve got a knife in one hand and a suitcase in the other, ready to burn it all down because “f* you, I’m leaving”.
I know why you came.
You were the only one who knew how to get us out when things got unbearable.
You knew how to make endings when I didn’t know how to ask for change.
But babes, we’re not surviving anymore. We’re living.
And living doesn’t always mean being left out in the cold.
Sometimes it’s staying with the discomfort. Sometimes it’s getting what’s good and leaving only what’s not.
And that doesn’t mean we’re stuck or abused.
It means we can safe in ourselves.
So drop the match, love. We’re staying in this softness a while.
To all of you: Fraud, Empath, Ripper, Hungry Girl, Ms. Perfect, all you ridiculous holy beings inside of us...
You’ve kept us alive… now let us live.
We’re not cutting you off. We’re just giving you names and learning your jobs (and maybe taking them away from you).
So breathe.
Take your hands off the wheel.
There’s a poem at the door.
You can rest now.
A Blessing for all of us:
May the monkeys grow quiet and curl up in your lap like small, silly children who just needed a snack and a little love.
May the meanies lose their grip,
And your Madam Fraud slip into a long nap, her lipstick smudged and her lies fading in the sun.
May your breath deepen,
May your fingers forget the urge to scroll,
And may your heart, that brave, humming compass, speak louder than the noise.
You are not behind. You are not alone. You are not broken. There is nothing wrong with you.
You are here. And here is sacred.
We adore people who get it!
Looking at you,
See you in the comments 💗 THANK YOU for your inspiring co-writing session!🗣️ Got an inner meanie, part, or character? Do they have a name? What do you really want to say to them? Let’s chat!
Thank you for being brave and adding to our conversation. This weekly love letter is for brave souls who want to create freely from the heart. If you enjoy this, please subscribe, support this work, buy me a dirty chai. Thank you!
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