Everyone has internal dialog that questions motivations and such. We berate ourselves for not being as confident and self-assured as we ‘pretend’ to be. (in stories this is often symbolized by the evil step mother – instead of nurturing our selves we put ourselves down which can become a unhelpful habit even a addiction)

On my latest employment review, I was giving high scores for remaining calm in difficult situations. I could only smile as inwardly I feel I’m often in a state of panic. Begs the question what is real – the ‘negative internal dialog’ or my outer actions? Who am I?

Both are real in that I experience them however neither are me. I find Buddhist thought helpful here as the self as we tend to imagine it to be is always changing and so does not exist as a fixed ‘thing’. I am not my thoughts, I am not my memories, I am not my actions…  ‘I am’

I’m trying to express a similar idea behind fear and courage. Courage and fear are related is that we exercise courage when we overcome fear. No fear, no courage required.  If we define ourselves by our thoughts we might say we are full of fear if we measure ourselves by our actions we might say we are courageous.

Someone who practices mindfulness and meditation might say such labeling is unskillful and stop asking the question. It is enough that we can act even when afraid, and for those time we can’t forgive ourselves and work to do better.

I don’t want to go down the rabbit hole here, however I hope you can see that our inner dialog does not always match how we are in the world and that’s a good thing. So give yourself a break.

Much of the anxiety your experiencing comes from the tension your creating between labeling yourself based on a negative internal dialog and the how you act in the world – your persona.  Because the labels seem to contradict each other you label your actions fake, a facade, you’re only pretending… Faking it till you make it (which is what we all do) however you can’t acknowledge when you make it because you labeled it as a facade.

In the words of Yoda ‘there is no try only do’ You aren’t faking it your doing the best you can with what you have despite the negative self talk.  Its clear from your post that you work really hard to do better when you learn better. What more would you ask of anyone.

Work on avoiding labeling yourself base on negative self talk. Pay more attention to how you actually are relating to others. Be honest and become a master of your stories – vice letting your stories master you.