Over the weekend, a friend of mine was making a big decision and she seemed, well, distraught. She said she feels as though no choice was going to be right because every answer seemed to come with a prong of pain or dissatisfaction - to the point where she was in paralyzing anxiety.
Sound familiar? Ever have a decision that none of the options feel right?
She also said, "I want to make changes in myself, but I feel like there are so many different voices in my head. How do I know which is really my best interest when they all seem to result in fear, or anger, or feeling like a martyr?"
Internal conflict happens. If you are like me and my friend, it happens often. A simple question like 'what should I do today?' can result in many different answers, which feel like many different types of voices.
- Voice 1: Oooh we could have a self-care day - we need one of those!
- Voice 2: Don't be silly. We could get ahead on those awesome projects for your business that you want to start.
- Voice 3: It would be a great day to put together a care package and visit that friend who is on bed rest.
- Voice 4: We really need to catch up on housework. We can't live in such a mess.
- Voice 5: I want to read a book. Why don't we ever get time to read a book?
- Voice 6: Don't be ridiculous. We have a list for every day. We can't take a day off of that or we'll have to make up the list tomorrow.
There's more, but you get the drift.
While this is a minor example, internal conflict can happen with small or huge decisions - and the bigger and longer the impact of the decision - often the more voices and harder it becomes to make.
So what do we do about it?
Our internal conflict comes from the conflicting desires within us. Yes, we want to be responsible and forward-thinking and nostalgic and magical and practical and fierce and compassionate and loving and strong and protective and giving and more - all at once. We want balance or harmony between these very conflicting desires. One way I've learned to do that is with archetypes.
Archetypes help me to:
- Identify the owners of all those internal voices
- Get clear on what each really wants
- Be more connected with my own truth
- Discern what stories are true and which are not
- Understand what I authentically desire
- Make choices that align with what I truly want
- Use my intuition rather than emotions
Which makes making decisions so much easier.
So what did my friend do?
I sat her down for a visualization. I let her mingle with her archetypes, getting to know each one and their thoughts on her upcoming decision. They let her know what they wanted and why. From there, she was able to see all of her truths around it and a lot of non-truths in the forms of fear stories. She was able to get in touch with her intuition which popped right out once she understood where all the voices were coming from.
She found truth. The archetypes can help us uncover it within ourselves.
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