Many know me as a
quiet, reserved and shy person. I’m always calm, even when I’m mad, which I
rarely am. I’m never violent. I’ve only raised my voice a couple of times, and
most of those moments were because I was standing in the middle of the class
tasked by my professor to report on something. Other than that, I could count
on one hand the other times I have raised my voice out of anger. I am what they
would call calm, cool and collected, which is always adjacent to being called
as a happy person, right? Someone who always sees the positive in every
situation. Someone who does have problems but deals with them excellently.
Well, they are right. I handle my problems very well. And
by that I mean I don’t handle them at all. I don’t search for solutions. I
don’t classify them. I don’t address them, look at each angle, analyse, and
then formulate a perfect solution. No. What I do instead is face them head on.
I do not plan an attack. In the wise words of Ironman, I only have one plan;
attack. That’s it. I don’t think about them at all. I just go full on and face
them.
But the thing is, I attack them with kindness.
You see, these problems have souls. They come from one
thing. They emerge because of one thing. And every problem we have comes from
one place and one place only.
It’s
within us. And within us, there are demons. These demons have many names. They
can be called hate, jealousy, insecurity, anger, madness, craziness or just
total lack of humanity. Whatever we want to call them, they’re still one and the
same. And like us, they all have souls.
These demons have souls, and whether they are worthy of
saving, it’s upon us to decide.
If we incarcerate them or destroy them so they won’t ever
come back, we’re right. But if we talk to them, help them and know where
they’re coming from, we are giving them the chance to reform and change. And if
we do that, we’re also right.
Either way, we are right. Either way we choose, we have
to fight. Right? Isn’t that what humans do, we fight an endless stream of demons?
And we’ve been doing so since the beginning of times.
But if you ask me, I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of
destroying. I’m tired of being mad; a person filled with utter hatred blinded
by fear and cowardice. I am tired of that me. I’ve been tired of that for quite
some time now. So what I’m doing, instead, whenever I have problems, whenever I
am in the brink of anger and the only way I could get that out of my system is
to destroy something—I try with all my might to calm myself down, cry if I need
to, and then sit down then…talk to myself.
I talk to the demons I have inside me. I sit with them
with a cup of coffee in hand and ask them how they’ve become what they are. I
get into their minds, their souls. I get inside their heads and know them. I relate
myself to them. I ask them why, how and when. I figure them out.
And once I get them to talk back, to pour their heart out
in me, once I have their attention and I got their trust—well, it’s easier to
listen to them, understand them and tell them that nothing will ever come out
of what they’re letting me do but total self-destruction. And since they’re
inside of me, if I destroy myself, they’ll be destroyed too.
Demons don’t want that. They want to live. They’re
parasites. They feed off from someone’s fears; from the seven deadly sins, so
to say. They do everything just so they could destroy you. But if you do
something as little but as unexpected as to listen to them and talk to them,
you’d be surprised that these demons—your inner demons—are not so bad at all as
long as you fought the urge to succumb to them.
Once
you’re at peace with yourself and accept the fact that everyone has demons
inside of them, you don’t allow them anymore to have the power to take you
over. They can instead be your companion, a constant reminder that you are not
a saint, that you are not meant to be unless that’s your calling, that you are
a human being and human beings are not perfect, that you are not perfect and
that it’s okay to not be okay all the time. If you start being that kind of
person, then you’ve won.
These
demons that used to haunt you will now serve as your long lost friends. They
will always be there, hanging inside your head, hanging around your heart, but
you don’t give them a single ounce of power. Because you talk to them and you
get to know them and their story and why they are there. Once you know their
soul, you’ll know yours. Believe me, it’s freeing to accept ones inner demons.
You have them and you alone control them. You don’t allow it to control you.
Never again. Not anymore.
So,
befriending your inner demons will never be easy. Those who are only brave
enough to accept their faults are the only ones who survive.
So
if you have problems now and you’re still standing, kudos to you. You’re not
bowing down to your inner demons. You’re fighting them back in a way you only
know how. And whatever ways you choose, like I said, you are right.
I
only chose this way because I’m tired of the angst. It’s stressful to get
angry. I feel much better when I talk to them. I still get mad and insecure and
confused and sometimes, I lose myself. What take me back to myself are,
ironically, my demons too. By just the sheer knowledge that they’re there
allows me to take my sight back and know my purpose.
To
talk to them and befriend them, and then reform them if you can because you know,
even demons deserve attention. And it should come from you.
