I hear voices a lot....no, I know they are not actually voices (sound waves communicating through the air from another mind to mine). The voices I hear are competition among
old, internalized negative messages,
messages I have learned through years of trying to defeat the impact the old ones have on my self-worth,
and messages that come through prayer and loving conversations and spiritual reading (including scripture).
The negative messages are critical, full of nasty judgments: "You can't do that, you're a failure." "Why do you think you deserve ANY love?" "Give up, you'll never be happy." "Your needs don't matter, just take care of others." Ugh. That's more than enough of those here. I know these come from my mother, from generations of women taught these things, from society which has many messages that tell me women are inferior, less worthy, useful IF I meet the needs of others (especially men).
The replacement messages include mantras such as "Yes, I can." "That's not true." "I am worthy of love." "My work is valuable." "I'm worth the effort." Sometimes these have helped, although it takes an awful lot of repeating these to sometimes, for a little while, drown out the negative messages. But they have gotten me through, and I still use a number of them when the old messages warn me of failure, catastrophe (imagined but very vivid), reasons I should hate myself. But they don't take me very far beyond argument between "parts of me" that are each convinced "they" know the truth.
I have been seeking God for many years, and over the past few years, increasingly I find healing through prayer, letting in the love of others, and wisdom from the ages. The most important practices I am learning are: to Stay In The Moment, and in the moment to Accept Myself As I am. I've been living into the first one for a long time, and it is still challenging in a world of distractions and pressures to do more, move faster, try harder. But it has become one of my most important spiritual practices. Accepting myself is MUCH harder, because both the expectations of the world around me and my own perfectionist standards(which feed the negative messages) clamor at me that I'm not enough, I'm failing no matter how hard I try. And accepting myself in the moment means ceasing to berate myself for whatever "character flaw" or unwillingness to act or unhealthy attitude are getting in the way of being present to all that I am.
There are several ways I hear voices that are consistent with my (admittedly limited) understanding of God's love for me. I have compulsively sought in the wisdom of the ages for permission to love myself, and found many stories that help me learn to believe in God's love. I have begun to trust enough to believe people when they act or speak lovingly to me, and to love myself and others as a reflection of God's love for me. The deepest messages, however, come in silence, when I stop (for a specific amount of time) trying to tell God how I need God to change me. I release (as often as necessary) the thoughts that chase across the top of my brain. In the depth of silence (even when it's not "perfect" because of brain chatter), I experience a Presence in what feels like the depth of my being, utterly loving, extraordinarily gentle, consistent with but stretching what I have learned about the enormity of how much God loves all of creation, including me.
Once, as a weekend was ending, I was lying in bed fussing at God for not accomplishing the changes I had demanded be accomplished between Friday night and Monday morning. My fussing went on and on, and was very critical of what God was (not) doing in me. I fussed for long enough that I could hear how ridiculous my demands were. And then I got quiet and heard a deep, loving, even humorous "voice" say, "You know, it's MY job to create humans in My image." I'm still learning to get out of God's way and trust God to "do in me what is needed," rather than what I think God should be doing. When I do, amazing insights and incremental transformations occur. Maybe God knows what God is doing....
The article linked below, particularly this quote, brought this long-simmering trail of thoughts to a head:
In self-help programs that draw on religious or spiritual practices, the locus of control is largely externalized; the real power belongs to God (or a supreme being, a universal consciousness—whatever you care to call it). But these programs also posit a part of the self that is receptive to or one with that external force: an internal fragment of the divine that can triumph over human weakness.
http://nymag.com/health/self-help/2013/schulz-self-searching/index1.html#
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