Meet Your Biggest Fan
For me, a game-changer in quieting the Monger is listening to the voice of my Biggest Fan.
We all have countless voices playing in our heads all day, but we have three voices for the most part. One of them is our Monger. It's constantly telling us how terrible we are and how much improvement we need, etc.
The other voice is our BFF's voice. That's usually the voice we're encouraged to channel when working on self-compassion or liking ourselves. We're encouraged to channel that loving, kind BFF voice. What I've found in my work is that sometimes the BFF's voice gets us in trouble in a different way. That voice tends to be an enabler, encouraging us to do whatever we want without shame or guilt, which is awesome but not always in our best interest.
That Biggest Fan voice is the voice in the middle there. It's kind and compassionate, has our best interest at heart, and wants us to keep moving forward. It's not the best friend voice because a lot of times, the BFF's voice can also be the same voice that's like, "Go ahead. Have that extra glass of wine. Go ahead. Have that extra cookie". It's the Biggest Fan voice that is the one saying, "Really, if we have another glass of wine, we're going to be hungover tomorrow, or you're just going to get silly if you have another glass of wine. Let's pay attention to what's best for us right now."
Our Biggest Fan has our back and wants us to do what's best for us. For those of us who have lived in the Monger's world, where the Monger is constantly hammering us so this channeling the Biggest Fan is really kind of a new idea. What would my Biggest Fan even say to me? How does this even work? What does that voice even sound like?
Here are some tips I have for channeling the Biggest Fan:
The best tip for channeling the Biggest Fan is to Pay attention. This sounds simple, but it isn't easy. Frequently these voices go unchecked. So pay attention to the dialogue in your head. Who has the most control? Your Monger or Your Biggest Fan. But paying attention is challenging
Black and White Thinking. Our Monger tend to live in a world of all or nothing. You are WRONG or RIGHT. When you notice yourself thinking this way, ask yourself, where is the gray here? Your Biggest Fan tends to see the gray in life. For example, you are exhausted, and yet you promised to make cookies for the bake sale. Your Monger will tell you that there is a right way and a wrong way. The right way is to make cookies from scratch, and the wrong way is to buy them from the store. A good person makes them from scratch. A bad person buys them from the grocery store. Your Biggest Fan will live in the gray. She will know there are other options, you can buy them from the store and add something to them (icing, decorations, etc.), or you can buy a box mix and make them that way or better yet, she will know that cookies do not show someone's worth as a person.
What would your Biggest Fan say? Post this message around your house. And at random times, ask yourself. What Would My Biggest Fan Say? You can start generating and strengthening that voice. We all have a Biggest Fan, but I think that voice just gets diminished for most of us.
Procrastinating tends to happen when we are stuck in the world of the Monger. Sometimes we procrastinate because our Monger tells us one thing, and our Biggest Fan tells us another, and we aren't yet strong enough/don't want to do what the Biggest Fan is telling us. When you are procrastinating, pull out a piece of paper and make two columns in one column, write what your Monger is telling you, and in the other column, write what your Biggest Fan is saying. Most of the time, when we listen to our Biggest Fan, she can help us find the baby step that will help us move past procrastination.
Wiggle. Yep sounds crazy, but the best way to channel your Biggest Fan is to get out of your head and into your body. When your Monger is running the show, wiggle your body, it literally shakes things up and is just zany enough that it pulls you out of your head into your body, and you can ask, ok, what would my Biggest Fan say right now?
Our Monger will always be with us. They are hard-wired to protect us from making any changes, hurting ourselves. AND they keep us stuck. But we can learn to quiet them, and the number one way to do that is to Channel Your Biggest Fan.