Make Peace With Your Gremlins

One of the biggest energy drains in the world is the chorus of voices we all have in our heads.

Don’t pretend you don’t have them. We all do.

The great acting teacher Uta Hagen used to call them “trolls”. She’d tell her students the following: “You know every one of you has a little troll who sits on your shoulder and chatters away, saying you can’t act”. (She understood perfectly the insecurity of actors). “That little troll tells you, ‘You’re a fraud, and you’re gonna be found out any minute, and you have no business on a stage, who do you think you are anyway, you’re no actor!’ Every one of you has that little troll on your shoulder”, she’d continue. “It’s just the nature of being an actor”.

Then she’d go on: “Well you know that troll of yours? Here’s the bad news: He’s never going to go away. So the action isn’t in trying to get rid of him. That’s a hopeless task. But here’s what’s not hopeless: making peace slowly:

Finally she’d pause dramatically and deliver the punch line, slowly:

“You need to be able to say to him, ‘Thank you for sharing, little troll. You’re welcome to sit there on my shoulder, but if you wouldn’t mind, just keep quiet for a few minutes because I’m going out on that stage to act!”

MAKE PEACE WITH YOUR INNER CRITIC
Uta Hagen called them trolls, some people call them voices, and personally, I call them gremlins. No matter. Make peace with them, however you need to do it. Let them chatter way; they’re going to do it anyway. Remember, you can’t will yourself not to have a thought – it’s just there. You can’t make it go away. You can’t no think about a thought you’re having. It’d be like telling you, “Don’t think about a purple elephant”.

But here’s the good news: You don’t have to empower that energy-draining thought. You don’t have to act on that chatter. Listen to it, notice it, accept it as a part of your, which it is, but don’t give it any power. That’s he power you have in the world. You can’t make the gremlin disappear, but you can sure unplug him and take away his ability to hold you back.

We all have doubts and considerations and roadblocks. Even Mother Teresa questioned her faith, but it didn’t stop her from doing what she did. Embrace those energy-stealing gremlins just as surely as you embrace every other part of yourself- they’re part of your own truth.

Then thank those little guys for sharing, but don’t give them to power to bring you down. Quiet the voices of insecurity and self-doubt realize it’s just the mindless chatter of harmless little trolls – and instead, engage your energy.