There was a demon on her shoulder, but she couldn’t see it.
It used her own voice so she believed what it said to be true.
It gorged on her doubts, her anxieties and her fears. She fed it every day.
It first appeared when she was young. Smaller than a ladybird it would whisper into her ear.
Now it was huge; its long black tendrils embracing, writhing, squeezing the life out of her.
It weighed nothing but was heavier than the world.
There was a demon on her shoulder, but she couldn’t see it.
I could see it.
But if I told her about it, it would cover her ears. If I pointed to it, it would turn her head the other way. If I drew her attention to its lies, it would get angry and make her cry, until I backed off.
When it was distracted I would feed her love to make her stronger.
And sometimes the demon would weaken and shrink.
But because she didn’t believe it was there, she didn’t recognise its voice that sounded oh so like hers.
And when I was distracted it would whisper into her ear and she would unknowingly start feeding it again.
So I was never able to defeat it.
There was a demon on her shoulder, but she couldn’t see it.
2 comments:
Anne Lamott once wrote, "pay attention when your soul leans in to listen" ...something about this post resonates with me..... : ( ...Sometimes I feel like I can see others' answers so clearly, but social mores being what they are, one would never just come out and say... but I think the reverse must be true, and wish others would tell me what they see clearly about me.....social mores or not......truth doesn't always make me comfortable, but it would make me free...
...and I want to be free.
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin
The problem with blind spots... is we're blind to them. Far easier to see what unknowingly drives other people than to see what drives us.
The biggest difficulty is we have a tendency to believe whatever thoughts come into our head as being authentic, real and worthy of consideration and mulling. This, I think, is the power of mindfulness and meditation - it teaches us to let go of the tyranny of the thought process.
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