[Michelle11]

Originally Posted by In Flux

Dear all, I've read several times about 'people facing their demons'. I never really grasped the meaning of that, but now it seems to become clear. I want to describe a dream I just had, but most of all, I wanted to ask you what 'facing your demons' meant to you, how you did it, and whether you had a certain strategy for it.

In my dream, if felt like I was building up towards facing my demons. It had a lot of silly plot lines that I think are not that interesting, and the first demon that appeared was in some kind of game I was playing. The demon was able to fly, and all it did was ask silly questions, but there was somehow a very dark presence or motivation behind those questions. I felt like it was capable of the worst, it had no inner drive to do good things (it was like it did not see any reason for goodness). I was really disgusted by it, and afraid, but at the same time, I realized that this demon was somehow a part of me.

When I just out-right rejected the existence of this demon (did not wish to deal with it), the dream changed and I dreamt about some kind of border patrol check (this seems to have a clear interpretation as 'checking what may come in or out'). This border patrol was supposed to check a party that included the 'president' (I vaguely imagined Trump), and also some people in his following. When thinking of his following, I imagined several (about 8) demons, who I 'saw' as deeply black and very ugly beings. They also felt to me as being really powerful. Again I realized that they represented parts of me, and I did not want to deal with them because I imagined that this interaction would be a hellish ordeal.

Already in the dream, I recognized that facing these demons is necessary. It feels like they are parts of me that need to be cleaned up. It's like we're living in the same house, and we're associating but I'm keeping it a big secret, and when I come accross them, I just avoid them in any way possible. At the same time, they *are* a part of me, and this is just unacceptable to me, I don't want anything like them to be a part of me. I see them as stains that need to be removed. I also know that they can be battled by facing them openly, daring to look at them (this is what people have described before as what it means to face your demons, I think I get it now, and I understand why it's a big deal).

You could try to remove the stain without facing it, but I have the impression that this would be much harder, because you can easily trick yourself into believing that the stain is not that bad (and so you avoid all the work and sabotage your own efforts). The dream is a special occasion where I relax my daily censor/filter and have a change to see that the demons are there in the first place.

But now the really important question: how do you face your demon? Do you try to mentally protect yourself by imagining some kind of shield, do you invoke love in some way, do you try to maintain some degree of separation from the demon while you look at it, or do you look at it without any effort to protect yourself? What happened when you did? I would prefer answers coming from personal experience (I don't really believe in theoretical answers at this point), but any input is welcome.

For me personally I had to become honest with myself. Totally, blatantly honest without apologizing for how I was feeling and what I was thinking. The thoughts were pretty dark but they had to be allowed a voice so I could challenge them and confront them as lies shifting them to something more compassionate and life affirming. Like you, I initially tried to pretend they weren't there. Turned a blind eye to it all, running from what I was feeling trying to keep it a secret from not just the world at large but myself especially. This is because my demon was rooted in self loathing and suicidal thoughts. There was a part of me that was out to get me and so it makes sense I would want to run from that aspect of my psyche. But it was only by confronting it, allowing myself to be honest with what I was feeling, was I able to begin to release and heal my shadow self and find a new way to define myself.

So from my perspective, our demons aren't just some negative entity that is attached to us but rather some negative thinking within our psyche that undermines our well being and sabotages our efforts creating bad feelings. These are usually thoughts and beliefs rooted in lies we picked up along the way about who we are and false ideas that lead us to identify who we are with the wrong things. These things can make us feel badly about ourselves and in an effort to not feel badly we avoid facing our thoughts and beliefs. We ignore the blatant signs and do our best to not pay attention and just cope. We can even go so far as to push past the bad feelings and force ourselves to feel good but until we weed out the source thoughts of why we feel bad in the first place we will remain vulnerable to those bad feelings coming back.

My impression of what you have stated is that you are attempting to avoid the feelings because it is unclear to you the actual source of the demon energy. Which makes sense, if we do not recognize what is causing the pain it is hard to truly clear it much like the stain analogy. It keeps coming back. The best way I have used to get in touch with what was feeding the bad feelings was to use Mindfulness to pay attention to my inner dialogue. the random thoughts that filter through our mind all day long really do tell the story of us but most of the time we just rush past them and/or don't notice at all. Over time those thoughts become habits that can be hard to break so ideally the goal is to try and pay attention to our inner voice and challenge anything negative or derogatory shifting it to something more life affirming. this is especially helpful when we feel triggered by something in life to feel bad. Our running dialogue will usually give us lots of clues to the false beliefs and ideas we have picked up along the way.

But if that still isn't too clear for you, I would ask before bed, what do you need to know about your demons. That is a really good place to start. It's important to identify what we believe to be true about ourselves and the world at large and then question whether those thoughts help us feel good or are thoughts that contribute to us feeling bad or as you say, contribute to sabotaging our efforts in life. Your demons are really just your shadow side and your shadow side are really just the aspects of your psyche that you are not aware of that undermine your happiness and well being. Shining a light on those things, the light of awareness helps us challenge and shift the lies for something more compassionate and life affirming. That's my perspective based on my personal experience. Hope it helps. Take care.

As a post note, I will add that if in your quest to confront your demons things get too much to handle or too dark there is no shame in seeking professional help. We can all use help sometimes. And sometimes confronting our demons is pretty intense so use your best judgment. You need not go it alone.