I once heard someone say, “I beat myself up about beating myself up.” I related right away. There’s no forbidden territory to the inner bully, the part of yourself that mocks you scathingly one minute and scolds you condescendingly the next. It will even attack you for listening to its attacks. A big revelation for me was the realization that my own inner bully was me - I was attacking myself. Right afterwards I got on my case for that.

Fighting the bully feels good sometimes, but it’s as close as you can get to fighting your own shadow - it accomplishes nothing and you end up running in circles. Every attempt to get the upper hand results in the shadow deploying a new tactic, as it knows you inside and out. What’s more, it’s fueled by your own fear, your own uncertainty. It fights as long as you do, because that’s just what you’re doing.

What happens when you allow your fear to just be so? And not just fear, but any feeling that you wish you did not have, feelings of weakness, shame, and doubt? To be imperfect, scared, hurt, uncertain, confused, undecided, and not judge yourself is incredibly difficult. But it is the only way to end the conflict.