Dear Creative, Do This When The Lies Come

Last night the Voices came.

You may have met them before, too. There is the Voice that says “hey, you… you are not enough.” His friend says ”you are a fraud and a fool.” Their other friend chimes in with “why are you even trying, this will never work, I mean, does it ever? Really? I mean, really?’ And they laugh. And for some unexplained reason, when they laugh, I find myself shaking my head. In agreement.

Somehow their laughter (or maybe it is my agreeing to their idiocy) seems to flip a switch. The air gets sucked from the room of your heart. You realize you are exhausted. You aren’t sure if it is your voice or one of the Lies hanging out around this particular dingy street corner of your mind that first whispers “Daryl… why even bother? You will fail. Because look at you mean, you are one, royal failure.”

And again with the shaking my head in agreement. Because I am a Failure. I will fail. I always do. Been there?

How many times have those words bounced around the inside of my mind? How many times have you heard them? I am well beyond being embarrassed at the number of times I have fallen for this Jedi mind trick I perform on myself. How many times have I held back from something awesome, missed out on the opportunity to meet the needs of others, or been unavailable to love my family or friends or strangers because I chose to listen to lies, because I chose to hear lies, because I chose a lie over truth, chose to live out of a place that believed the words “because you are a failure.”

How much have we lost, how many blessings have we been unable to give to others because we did not call that lie out. Those 21 tiny English letters jumbled together in that particular order have the ability to crush dreams, dispense of hope and conquer the best of spirits.

And we believe them. We let them in. Like I did last night.

That’s when their raggedy pimped out cousin Hopelessness came swaggering around the corner swinging that goofy cane and spreading despair across my soul.

Last night, I sat there surrounded by the ones I love but alone in my head, listening to these moronic liars that would… not… stop… flapping their lips and it was too much. Too freaking much. I scrunched my eyes closed, tight, until it hurt and white exploded behind my eyelids from the pressure. Fighting the desire to burrow deeper under the blanket, I stayed still, took a huge breath, and from the depths of my toes, from the very tips of every nerve ending in my body, and powered by the knowledge of who I really am, of who I was created to be, of who I was crafted with perfect precision to become in spite of myself, in spite of myself (In. Spite. Of. Myself.) three words churned from within some hidden place. Three words of such immense conquering power rushed through my body and erupted into that moment of lost hope. I released a scream forged in some place I still do not understand, a scream not born of me but given to me freely. I reached out and grabbed hold with all that I had left as that scream rushed up and freedom came. My freedom.

And I knew my place. I knew my worth, because I knew my name. In that moment the lies I have listened to for so many years, the lies that sneak in again and again and again, the lies I wage constant war with, sat up.

Because they know my name, too.

Hopelessness scurried back around the corner, out of sight. The other liars stared at me, their mouths open in awe because they know, too. They ran.

You have that, too. It is within you. In your darkness. In your mind. On your street corner. Down there in that place of hiding and isolation you go to when you think no one notices, down where the lies seem to boil up from as Hopelessness Disco dances on the wounded places of your spirit, I want you to hear me: you have everything you require, everything you could ever need, it is within you now, in this moment, this second, you have access to the very thing you require to take back the darkest recesses of your mind. To overcome. You have everything you require to stand up today, in Freedom.

You do.

That three word scream I let loose is my superpower. It is yours, too.

“I. Am. Grateful!”

Try it next time.