Gun Shy

From the desk of Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – There is a Strumbellas song that often gets lodged in my head for days, and it is the particularly violent but poignant song “Spirits.” The catchy ear-worm causing chorus – “I’ve got guns in my head and they won’t go” – is a metaphor for all the ways that we shoot ourselves down with our inner critic rattling away all day long.

I have read in many places the idea that the voice we hear in our head is a culmination of all kinds of criticisms and jabs that we have picked up over the years and then haul out like the good china for any special occasion at which we might be feeling confident or proud.  Like thinking – wow, I think I made a great first impression there – and then hearing the little gun in my head rattle… but they did not laugh at half my jokes so really probably not a good impression at all.

Or of course, the – I am feeling pretty confident walking into this room – and the gun rattles, yes but you probably have spinach stuck in your teeth.

I know that we could all fill in the blanks with a million harsh and critical internal quotes, but as the Strumbellas (an awesome band from my hometown of Lindsay) challenge us – we need to be alive while we are here. So, yes, we all have the guns in our head, a compilation album of all the criticisms we have fielded over time and always locked and loaded to bring us down.

So how do you snap on the silencer?  I guess we start by just acknowledging that this is old junk that is not true, it is a pattern that we can turn around and that in all things we are exactly who and where we are meant to be.

And then go so far as to say – I look good in spinach, always have – instantly all quiet on the front.

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