20220128 - The Inner Trojka

You know the voices inside that says "you are bad" and "you should..." and sets an impossible bar to live up too. I'll try and present a way of understanding them as "The Inner Trojka", which is an understanding that comes from my teacher, Kåre Landfald. The inner Trojka is the inner Critic, the inner Pusher and the inner Perfectionist. They can be experienced as voices in our head, but often we are not directly aware about them. Instead we mostly experience the effect they have on us as shame, guilt and depression. And even when we are aware of the voices, we identify with them and think they are us. The inner perfectionist - "This is the lowest possible bar for Good." - Sets up the impossible standard which you are compared against in all areas of life. - Examples: "This is good persons body looks like", "this is how a good person acts", "this is how popular a good person is", "this is how successful a good person is", "this is the number of minutes a good person meditates", "this is what a good person eats", ... And on and on and on it goes. The inner pusher - "You must / should be Good." - This is the voice that constantly pushes you to live up to the standard set by the inner perfectionist. - Whenever you hear the words "Should" and "Must", you know that it's the inner pusher that is talking. - It can come as "you should...", but as we are very often identified with the inner pusher it often comes as "I should" / "I must". The inner critic - "If you are not Good you are worthless." - When we fail to live up to the standards set by the inner perfectionist, the inner critic wakes up. - This is the voice that tells you "you are not good enough", "you suck", "you are ugly", "no one wants you", "you are bad at your job", or if we are identified with this voice it comes as "I" statements. "I am worthless", "No one loves me", "I'm a horrible person", "I'm disgusting and stupid". - It can range from a vague tone of critisism to extremely aggressive and mean and it can really feel like being under attack. What is really important to understand is that THOSE VOICES ARE NOT THE TRUTH. They might have some content of truth. For example if my inner pusher tells me "you should exercise more", it might be true that exercising more would be beneficial for me, but there is no truth in "you should". The energy of the statement is not true. So why are they there? As we grow up we internalise that "a good boy/girl" receives love, belonging, connection, safety, etc, which is essential for our survival, so "being good" is really really important for us. We also internalise what "a good boy/girl" is. Most of this inner conditioning comes from our care-takers, for example it is not uncommon to hear those voices as the voice of once mother or father. They are strategies to receive love! So fundamentally those voices try to protect us. They want what is best for us. The problem is that their strategies are really harmful and not supportive at all. When we disengage from the inner Trojka there is often a sense of relief and space, like we are suddenly free to be ourselves. Today we will practise becoming more aware of those voices.