Making Friends with Your Demons

Caution: This post will require “Vulnerability”

There are times when I don’t embrace (and manage) my life as well as I would like. Surprised? Don’t be.

I believe that life is, in fact, unmanageable—except when you proactively and super-consciously make an “effort” to manage and embrace it. Sound contradictory? That’s because it is contradictory. You see I also believe in Paradox, Ambiguity, and the Mutual Co-Existence of Opposites.

Crazy???

The truth is, personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love the craziness of it all. I guess I’ve become so accustomed to various degrees of this kind of insanity that “normal” would be boring for åme.

In several posts I’ve alluded to the fact that I’m crazy. Well, most often it’s just a fun expression of my willingness to experience new and exciting and sometimes “different” things. But the fact is, that I am certifiably… well “off kilter at times.” Thank God for meds! I have “issues.”

I have this funny feeling that many of you deal with your own “issues.” You’re a difference-maker and difference-makers are not normal. We know the darkness of life so well that we are driven to make life better for ourselves and others. We “feel” it when others hurt and when the world hurts.

Where My Demons Dwell

I want to let you in on a “secret” that all my friends know: there are truly two “Me’s.” One is the optimistic, adventurous, hungrily in search of meaning, and devoutly desiring awe Charlie. The other Charlie? Oh my, the other Charlie. That’s where my demons dwell—dark, unattached, wildly experimental, willing to try almost anything… all in a misguided attempt to simply be OKAY. My demons don’t speak; they scream. Like Homer’s Sirens, they call me to the shores of my own destruction.

My demons love to tell me what a screwed up person I am—unworthy, unloved, unaccepted and just about every other negative “un” you can imagine. I think they must have snuck into my conscious when I was still in the crib and have matured right alongside the healthy “me” all my life.

I will never rid myself of them. But doggone it, I don’t have to relinquish control to them. I HAVE learned to manage the little monsters. And so I can truly embrace my whole self—good and dark.

You can do the same. Honestly!

“Name” Your Demons

I’ve discovered the very first step is to “Acknowledge” my demons and ”Name” them. By naming them I have taken away a whole bunch of their control because they work best “undercover.” Like little secret agents (double agents) they pretend to be the real and whole me. But when I put a name on them I take away the bulk of their power.

Getting vulnerable here, the leaders of my demons are named Unaccepted, Unworthy, and Unlovable. Their minions are Fear, Doubt, Cynicism, and Failure. That’s only a few of them. There are dozens (or more).

Making Friends with Your Demons

Then came a great “Aha!” I was lunching with one of my dearest of friends, Jennifer, when she blurted out, “You know Charlie, we just need to make friends with our demons!” Huh? Another friend, Mark, says that not only do we make friends with them, but we can “use” them to help us regain control and sanity.

Mark suggests that we actually ask them for advice.” Really!! At first I thought that was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Until I tried it. I asked the demon named “Unaccepted” why I felt so unaccepted and he laughed at me as he told me I wasn’t really unaccepted, but that it was just him trying to convince me that I was unaccepted—EVEN THOUGH I WASN’T.

This is what it means to make friends with them.

I know I’m sounding weird, but it works. As a friend, my demon actually became a truth-teller and offered a solution to his temporary demise. I also asked God for assistance. I now had “specifics” to bring to His attention. In my belief system, God’s spirit cleansed me and erased all of those lies I was haunted by.

Grab hold of this truth: Don’t fear your demons. Fearing them is their goal and it screws you up. Instead, approach them as a long-term companion. Ask them for the truth and I’ve discovered they will tell you. Weird stuff. But it works!

*****

So yea, this is a very different kind of post. I want us to be friends. I can’t guide you (as a Sherpa) unless you know me and trust me. I think it’s important for you to know that I “feel” many of the same things you do.

I have to be honest. I want you to know the whole man behind these posts. I am successful. I’m gifted with an unusually great family—married almost 30 years with a son who is a professional athlete. I’ve helped a gazillion people. Gee, I managed a youth baseball team ranked #1 in the US and winner of 6 state championships.

But the other me. OMG. He is one dark and self-destructive SOB.

I Get Your Dark Side

I write this because I know that you have your own demons. Some of yours are not as bad as mine and others make mine look like little mice. So, when you get in that place where you feel “oh that’s easy for Charlie to say, he doesn’t understand what I go through.” Hold on. I understand a lot of it. I AM a lot of it. I DO get it.

But no matter, you can move from insecure to significant, You CAN be a real, honest to goodness difference-maker. You definitely can experience meaning and adventure and awe. All it takes is for you to manage the unmanageable.

Take Control of Your Own Inner Life

Embrace life and make friends with your demons.

Let’s review how:

1. 1, Acknowledge and Name your demons.
2. Dig deep and understand them.
3. Ask them for advice on how to manage them.
4. Take it all to your Greater Power and simply say you need help.
5. Then be crazy—the good kind—and go for it!

You are a much better person than you think. You do deserve a Life of Meaning, Adventure and Awe.

 And our world needs YOU.

 Boldly go where no haunted person has ever gone before!