Embrace Your Demon

My inspiration for this post came from an artist who I randomly encountered myself with on twitter and it’s called Polly Nor. Her illustrations were very relatable and funny to me. How everyday there’s always that demon following you around. And then suddenly, or how it’s properly called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon (when you learn something and you suddenly see it everywhere) I find myself listening to one of Amy Poehler’s Yes Please! Chapters that talks about that little demon who follows you around and how we can control it.

All the artwork from the entire post belongs to Polly Nor, who has become one of my favorite artists. 

How do you embrace your demon?

I for once know my demon is a little voice inside of me who is constantly making me anxious about everything. The one who constantly repeats and reminds me that my worth resides on my looks; That my constant obsession with beauty is a representation of how much I dislike myself. I’m afraid of my demon because I’m afraid someone will be able to identify it, to see right through me and say its name out loud! For my demon to have a voice and tell the whole world what keeps me up at night and the reasons why I isolate myself because I’m unsure and uncomfortable.

Maybe this is cathartic, saying my demon will expose it and eventually it will stop becoming a threat because it’s already out there. If people know, how can they hold it against me if I have already embraced it? This probably doesn’t make any sense.  

Maybe I could make fun of my demon. Maybe I could tell it you might have won the battle, but you will never win the war. It may join me in every circumstance of my life, but I will choose to ignore it, because it is the only one holding power over me–nobody else does. Nobody else makes me feel as shitty as it, I can’t run away from it, and I can’t block it or roll my eyes to it because how can you run away from yourself? It’s really hard.

Maybe I’m oversensitive because my demon is responsible of making me twist everyone’s words and actions. It’s making me care too much about other’s silly thoughts. It’s making me waste my time on stupidity so I can feel worthless.

My demons is obsessed with my worth. It changes my price every day, fooling me on those days where I think I can’t be bought and others when I’m on clearance.  It will bid me to the highest bidder and then it turns out the bidder is an impostor: “There’s no bidder, you fool! You aren’t even worth a nickel! Who in their right mind will look at you? HA! YOU’VE BEEN FOOLED AGAIN. #sucker”.

A fact I can flaunt is that it is not as strong as it used to be. It used to be big and muscular, body builder type; Now, it barely has muscles. Luckily for it, it hasn’t lost its wit, and luckily for me I grew smarter.

How will I destroy its force? By calling out what it does to me every day. It is there to remind me I’m too fat, or too ugly, and that’s why people don’t like me. It’s there to tell me I can’t do this or achieve that because I’m inconsistent. That I haven’t achieved anything because apparently I am too lazy or not driven enough. It makes me feel dumb and not smart enough. It makes me doubt myself twice in every decision I make. It tells me that people would like me better if I lost weight and get rid of my cellulite. And it is telling me right now that I’m writing this for people to pity me. I’m writing all of these to showcase my struggles or insecurities, and If I do that it can’t hold it against me anymore because it’s out there! I’ve embraced it.

Being vulnerable makes me stronger. Because if I say what my insecurities are to the world, people won’t have to figure them out or use them against me because I’ve already said them. After saying them, it makes them have cero value. And if my insecurities have no value anymore, it means I have outgrown them and they’ll probably won’t bother me as much. Now, there’s nothing to dig within me or to shame me for. You know what “bothers” me because I told you, it’s not you guessing a way to diminish me. I did the work for you and now you can’t use it because… well, it’s unoriginal and lame.

Of course, nobody gets rids of their insecurities as easily. When insecurities stop being insecurities, new ones arise. Now I have weaker demon who won’t know what to do, as for now, because I’m doing the job for it. Now who’s the fool?  

Back to answering our main question: How can you embrace your demon? by saying its name.

My inspiration for this post came from an artist who I randomly encountered myself with on twitter and it’s called Polly Nor. Her illustrations were very relatable and funny to me. How everyday there’s always that demon following you around. And then suddenly, or how it’s properly called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon (when you learn something and you suddenly see it everywhere) I find myself listening to one of Amy Poehler’s Yes Please! Chapters that talks about that little demon who follows you around and how we can control it.

All the artwork from the entire post belongs to Polly Nor, who has become one of my favorite artists. 

How do you embrace your demon?

I for once know my demon is a little voice inside of me who is constantly making me anxious about everything. The one who constantly repeats and reminds me that my worth resides on my looks; That my constant obsession with beauty is a representation of how much I dislike myself. I’m afraid of my demon because I’m afraid someone will be able to identify it, to see right through me and say its name out loud! For my demon to have a voice and tell the whole world what keeps me up at night and the reasons why I isolate myself because I’m unsure and uncomfortable.

Maybe this is cathartic, saying my demon will expose it and eventually it will stop becoming a threat because it’s already out there. If people know, how can they hold it against me if I have already embraced it? This probably doesn’t make any sense.  

Maybe I could make fun of my demon. Maybe I could tell it you might have won the battle, but you will never win the war. It may join me in every circumstance of my life, but I will choose to ignore it, because it is the only one holding power over me–nobody else does. Nobody else makes me feel as shitty as it, I can’t run away from it, and I can’t block it or roll my eyes to it because how can you run away from yourself? It’s really hard.

Maybe I’m oversensitive because my demon is responsible of making me twist everyone’s words and actions. It’s making me care too much about other’s silly thoughts. It’s making me waste my time on stupidity so I can feel worthless.

My demons is obsessed with my worth. It changes my price every day, fooling me on those days where I think I can’t be bought and others when I’m on clearance.  It will bid me to the highest bidder and then it turns out the bidder is an impostor: “There’s no bidder, you fool! You aren’t even worth a nickel! Who in their right mind will look at you? HA! YOU’VE BEEN FOOLED AGAIN. #sucker”.

A fact I can flaunt is that it is not as strong as it used to be. It used to be big and muscular, body builder type; Now, it barely has muscles. Luckily for it, it hasn’t lost its wit, and luckily for me I grew smarter.

How will I destroy its force? By calling out what it does to me every day. It is there to remind me I’m too fat, or too ugly, and that’s why people don’t like me. It’s there to tell me I can’t do this or achieve that because I’m inconsistent. That I haven’t achieved anything because apparently I am too lazy or not driven enough. It makes me feel dumb and not smart enough. It makes me doubt myself twice in every decision I make. It tells me that people would like me better if I lost weight and get rid of my cellulite. And it is telling me right now that I’m writing this for people to pity me. I’m writing all of these to showcase my struggles or insecurities, and If I do that it can’t hold it against me anymore because it’s out there! I’ve embraced it.

Being vulnerable makes me stronger. Because if I say what my insecurities are to the world, people won’t have to figure them out or use them against me because I’ve already said them. After saying them, it makes them have cero value. And if my insecurities have no value anymore, it means I have outgrown them and they’ll probably won’t bother me as much. Now, there’s nothing to dig within me or to shame me for. You know what “bothers” me because I told you, it’s not you guessing a way to diminish me. I did the work for you and now you can’t use it because… well, it’s unoriginal and lame.

Of course, nobody gets rids of their insecurities as easily. When insecurities stop being insecurities, new ones arise. Now I have weaker demon who won’t know what to do, as for now, because I’m doing the job for it. Now who’s the fool?  

Back to answering our main question: How can you embrace your demon? by saying its name.