Urban Dictionary defines your inner demon as: “personal struggles in your mind,
almost always a solo fight.”
When it comes time to ASK someone for anything: the sale, a meeting, a donation, help, a date… the inner demon seems to be right beside you
trying to talk you out of it. It will come up with any reason why you’re not good enough or it won’t work, or why you'll be told… NO. The inner demon has something to say for just about everything we do it seems.
That’s why we fell in love with a “comic sketch book” called ‘100 Demon Dialogues’ by artist Lucy Bellwood. Lucy is a freelance artist who completed a 100 day project – a challenge to do something creative for 100 days. And what she created was 100 cartoon sketches featuring her personal little demon. As it happens, he is a cute little pointy eared guy that tries to sabotage her at every turn. (And as you can see, we own a
plushy version of him too!) The sketches, featuring the dialogue between herself and her little demon are hilarious and so relatable.
Here are a couple of the comments she made at the end of the book… “What I’ve learned over the course of this project: that critical little demon cares about you. It’s got a screwy
way of showing it sometimes, but it tries to have your best interests at heart… The goal is not annihilation but acceptance. You’re allowed to be afraid, but you’re also allowed to be your own person – one who isn’t anxious or scared or driven by fear.”
I always thought the idea was to "silence" the inner demon - make him go away. Maybe that's not it at all. Maybe just like with 'go for no' instead of running from the thing we fear, we do more of it. Maybe it's about learning and understanding our inner demon. Embracing it so that when it speaks to us, we can appreciate it and then move forward that much faster and easier.
