Dear Nikkole:

Your questions are fine  with me. My answer: there  is no easy or fast way to go about it. At times this or that will work for a while, and  you may think you  got it, but no, these well established pathways  in the  brain will get reactivated sooner than later. It takes months and years to insert new pathways into the old so to change the pathway- map of the brain. It takes  years of extreme patience and  persistence of doing  the work over a long, long time, not just when relatively calm, but while being  distressed.

CBT, Cognitive  Behavioral Therapy, is a lot of that work. I started with a book of the  for-dummies series,  called  Cognitive  Behavioral Therapy for Dummies. It includes  a workbook with CBT exercises that are helpful in that re-mapping of the  brain. One  CBT basic exercise is challenging our thoughts (those  voices), evaluating if they are  true to reality, and if not, changing to thoughts that are true  to reality. Because  these  thoughts are connected to emotions, when we correct distorted (and distressing) thoughts, we  feel calmer.

Mindfulness is another  very  important practice and I am sure  there  are  workbooks on the  matter, definitely lots of literature, including  on the  home page  of  this website under  Blogs.

We can  communicate about  the above two items over time if you want.

You wrote about your argumentative thoughts: “Mine  are extremely judgmental of others and  myself and  I always feel less than other people or that people think I’m less than them”- I mentioned earlier the concept of the  inner critic. The inner critic is me  criticizing myself and the  outer critic is me criticizing others. The two go together, people who criticize themselves a lot also criticize  others a lot.

I too felt less than others, a very  painful feeling  to live  with. And  I  imagined  others knew I was less than them, and that made me very angry. So I relate to what you wrote: “there’s a lot of anger, like it’s rageful”. You wrote that  you can’t pinpoint why you feel this anger. I can because I found out the reason: I am not less than. If I was less than others in reality, I wouldn’t be angry about it. When you are as worthy and valuable as others but… doomed to  behave as less than, that  brings  about rage!

I remember the surprise, my surprise when I first entertained the thought-and-emotion that I was  not less than, that there was  nothing  wrong with me.

There  is a difference between knowing on the intellectual/ superficial level and knowing on the intellectual and emotional/ deep level.

So I remember my surprise, I had no idea that I was not less than others, emotionally I didn’t know. It took a lot of time and work following that realization in 2014 to actually talk to people and not feel less than them. The old less-than pathway still exists and still sends its vibrations of distress, but it  doesn’t  feel as intense, doesn’t lead to overthinking, I figure its the pathway reactivated and I repeat to myself the thoughts that are true to reality.

anita