Episode 110: The Voices In Your Head–The Monger
In today’s episode, I am talking about the Monger and how she is such an important part of understanding and managing our High Functioning Anxiety.
There is a voice in your head.
It is a horrible voice that tells you that you are a slow, stupid loser who will never succeed. It tells you that everyone but you has it figured out and that at any moment you are going to be found out for the fraud that you are.
That voice in your head? That is the voice of the Monger.
Everyone has a Monger, but those of us with High Functioning Anxiety have an exceptionally loud and nasty Monger.
Many of us aren't even aware of how much the Monger is talking to us. We know that we are feeling anxious or stressed, but are unaware that it is coming from an internal voice–a voice of belittling, name-calling, and just plain nastiness.
This voice can viciously chatter at us all day, every day, and we just push through.
There are other voices in your head–the BFF and the Biggest Fan–but of the 3 characters that are at the core of The Happier Approach, the Monger is the loudest of them all.
That is why we are starting this month's series about the voices in our head by talking at length about the Monger and how she is such an important part of understanding and managing our High Functioning Anxiety.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
Where does the Monger come from?
How the Monger is like a first responder whose mission is to keep us safe and how she uses shame, belittling, guilt, and negativity to complete that mission
How despite what we think, we don’t need the Monger’s shame and belittling to be successful
How the feeling of “enoughness” that we crave will never be found as long as we keep listing to the voice of the Monger
Why fighting back against the Monger on her terms doesn’t work and what to do instead
And how admitting that we don’t need the Monger’s shame is an important step toward moving past it
+ Read the Transcript
You walk into work feeling good. Your current project has been a little bumpy, but you feel on top of things now and know all will be well. As you pass your boss’ office, he calls you in. A little nervous, you sit down, and he explains to you that there is going to be a project meeting that morning, and you are responsible for leading it. The point of the meeting is to give a progress report on your project and help explain why it had been bumpy and where it is headed. You smile confidently and walk out of the office. As you walk down the hall, you feel your neck tense, you have pain in the pit of your stomach, and internally you immediately start freaking out.
Logically, you know you can do this presentation. Yes, there were bumps, but they are all explainable, and all have been dealt with. Logically, you know that no one really cares as long as the project keeps moving along and you hit the deadline. But logic is pointless because emotionally, you think, “I am a terrible project manager. I am going to suck at this presentation, they are going to nail me to the wall, and I am going to get fired right on the spot. I should never have gotten out of bed this morning”.
“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”
That voice? The one that tells you you’re a terrible project manager and you should have never gotten out of bed? That is the voice of the Monger.” That is the voice of the Monger. For the past five years, my work has been about helping people quiet their Monger.
I have talked about the Monger at length in previous episodes, but she is such an important part of High Functioning Anxiety I wanted to dive into her again.
Your Monger tells you that you are always behind.
Everyone else has it figured out but you.
They will see you are a fraud.
You are a slow, stupid loser who will never succeed.
Everyone has a Monger, but those of us with High Functioning Anxiety have an exceptionally loud and nasty Monger, and many of us aren’t even aware of how much she is talking to us. It can chat all day, every day, and many people are just unaware. They know they are feeling more anxious or stressed, but they are unaware that it is coming from an internal voice - a voice of belittling, name-calling, and just plain nastiness.
This Month we are talking about the three characters that chat at us throughout the day and are at the core of The Happier Approach. Today, we are going to start with the loudest of them all: your Monger.
A Monger, according to Merriam-Webster, is “Something that attempts to stir up or spread something that is usually petty or discreditable.”
That voice in our head is your Monger, and she is trying to stir shit up. Our Monger tells us how much we suck, that we are total failures, terrible parents, worthless employees, and all-around losers. (Sound a little harsh? Listen to yourself one of these days, and I bet you’ll see that I’m not too far off.)
It chimes at us throughout the day - creating doubt, anxiety, depression, insecurity, and overall “stuckness.”
Experts disagree on where this voice comes from. Theories range from it being your ego, your lizard brain, your limiting beliefs, even your parents limiting beliefs. You can call it your evil twin, gremlin, vampire, demon - or, as I like to say, your MONGER. Regardless of how you refer to it or where it came from, it’s THERE, and QUITE honestly, the bottom line is how she got there doesn’t really matter. How your Monger got there is not as important as what her behavior is and how her behavior affects you now.
Remember that scenario with your boss? He asked you to present your progress on the big project, explain the bumps in the road, and get everyone up to date on how things are moving forward. Simple enough, right?
Well, your subconscious treats this scenario like a house fire. Deep in your brain, the toaster has overheated, the drapes have caught on fire, and the smoke alarms are going off.
Your Monger is like the first responder, pulling up at the scene, sirens blazing. She arrives and springs into action, prepared to do whatever it takes to secure the scene. She will do whatever she thinks it takes to keep you safe and secure. Just not as lovingly as the fire department and paramedic first responders.
The truth is, like the real first responder, the Monger’s job is to keep us safe. Her sole mission is to scan the environment for any potential harm, risk, or danger and protect us from it. Her mission is to keep us safe from failing. That is a great mission. She is very helpful when we are walking down a dark street alone or preparing to do something scary. But in everyday life, we don’t need quite that much protection.
I have found that she has three main rules to help her complete this mission:
Don’t make a mistake. This is where your perfectionism comes into play. You, Monger, is vigilant that the only way to avoid criticism is to be perfect (a friendly reminder, this is impossible)
Don’t stand out. Your Monger loves for you to blend in; if you blend, you won’t get criticized. She encourages you to constantly compare yourself to others so you can make sure you aren’t too outside the norms.
Don’t be too vulnerable. Heaven forbid you share what is really going on. If people KNOW you are weak, then they can really criticize you.
If any of those rules are broken, she uses shame, belittling, guilt, and negativity to move us back in line. Ironic that she is helping you avoid criticism from the outside world when her criticism is 1000 times worse.
Going through our day-to-day world, we are going to break one of these rules and feel the consequences. But if you want to do something big? Stretch yourself out of your comfort zone? Well, that is when we get into REAL trouble. When we try something new or take a risk (no matter how small), our Monger gets scared and wants to keep us safe.
Unfortunately, your Monger has a perfect memory. She catalogs and recalls every failure, mistake, or doubt you ever had and isn’t afraid to use them against you on this mission to keep you safe. In an attempt to protect you from making a mistake, she will remind you of every failure you’ve ever made.
If we attack our Monger using her methods, it rarely works. If we tell our Monger to shut up, she will just fight back harder.
But what I want you to hear is that, yes, our Monger is harsh. Yes, she can be annoying, belittling, and downright nasty. And she is still a part of you. She is there to keep you safe. Her methods might be nasty, but her intent is a good one.
So telling a part of ourselves to “shut up” or “quit being a bitch” just doesn’t work. Fighting shame with shame never works.
The whole point of this work is that we need to be KIND to ourselves,
Just like the evil witch who locked Rapunzel in the castle to keep her innocence safe, your Monger convinces you that she is there to protect you. That you need her to keep you from looking stupid or failing. But really, this is all just a bunch of propaganda. Lies, pure lies! You don’t NEED her, AND you don’t need to be yelling at her either. I know it is a confusing idea. But shaming a bully doesn’t work. The only way to work with a bully is to not give it too much power.
The problem is WAY too many of us believe that we NEED our Monger to be successful. You don’t need to be shamed and belittled to be successful. This is the part that no one believes, so I will say it again: you don’t need to be shamed and belittled to be successful.
One of my favorite stories about this idea that we need the Monger comes from one of my best friends, you might have heard this one before. Years ago, I taught a class on the Monger and was sharing similar information as I am now, and after it was over, one of my best friends came up to so excited me and said, “I LOVE this information,” she beamed, and I did too because I KNEW she had a very loud Monger and then she said with a smile, “But I am not going to implement any of it, because I still need my Monger. I mean, I won’t get anything done if I don’t have my Monger.”
I laughed with her, and we joked around about eating bonbons and watching too much TV if she didn’t have her Monger. But the conversation stuck with me. Over the next few days, I realized that’s how I feel too. I secretly believe I won’t get anything done without my Monger. At the time, I didn’t realize this was my HFA talking.
And we laughed and joked around about how her Monger was helping her, blah, blah, blah. As I got home, I realized that’s kind of how I felt too, that I won’t get anything done without this Monger.
The truth was, even as I taught about the Monger and shared with people the dangers of this negative voice, I was secretly getting eaten alive by my own Monger. This was when I decided I needed to do something about this Monger thing. It needed to stop.
My friend and I weren’t alone, whenever I would speak about the Monger, I would always get pushback. They believed they needed their Monger to be successful. They believed that without their Monger criticizing them, they wouldn’t get out of bed to work out, stop at one drink, speak up at the meeting, or rush across town to make it to their kid’s soccer game.
Why are we listening to something that is causing us pain? Because growing up, we learned that at our core, we are useless human beings, and without the constant direction of our Monger, we would be lumps on the couch, bingeing on Netflix and doughnuts while our home and lives lay in ruins. But the problem runs deeper. It isn’t the voice itself; the problem is our belief that we need the voice to accomplish our goals in life.
Because we believe that we need the voice of the mean, shaming Monger, the idea of giving ourselves compassion and kindness is completely foreign. Our Monger convinces us that the one thing we need the most—kindness and compassion—is the thing that will keep us unsuccessful and unhappy.
Because your Monger believes she is there to keep you safe, protected, and successful, she acts like she is your friend. But in reality, she is making you miserable. She is constantly preying on your insecurities in order to keep you small and part of the status quo. She drives you to be perfect when perfection doesn’t actually exist (even though she is really good at convincing you it does).
You want to feel successful, fulfilled, and happier, yet you have this voice in your head chiming in all day long about how you missed the mark. You will never feel successful as long as you are listening to the Monger. She will always make you feel insecure. Your search for feeling “enough”—powerful enough, strong enough, happy enough, successful enough—will never be fulfilled as long as you are listening to her.
We wouldn’t do this to a child, would we? Take Joey, who enters second grade unable to read. Truth be told, there are lots of reasons and people to blame, but the bottom line is Joey can’t read. Joey’s teacher doesn’t say to him, “You are so stupid, how did you make it to second grade without learning how to read? Wow, your parents really failed you.” No, Joey’s teachers meet Joey where he is. Because he can’t read and they can admit that, they don’t waste time beating him up about that fact. They simply help him read. They help him get to the root of the problem (e.g., his fear or lack of desire or knowledge) in order to move past whatever is in his way.
If Joey’s teachers were critical of his inability to read, he might be motivated to learn simply to avoid their criticism, but he would dread school and not be excited about learning new things. But if they meet him where he is, accepts that he can’t read, and skip the part where they beat him up about it, he can learn a lot faster and develop a love of learning.
Admitting that we don’t need the Monger’s shame is an important step in moving past it. Because the truth is we can’t change anything until we own it. Our Monger keeps us stuck in blame and criticism. She never allows us to move past the shame so we can see what we need to do to move forward.
The bottom line is– and I know this now to the depth of my being– I don’t need my Monger to be successful, and neither do you. We are going to accomplish more by accepting ourselves where we are and working with what we have rather than constantly berating ourselves. I promise you will accomplish more without listening to your Monger. You will be happier, more successful, and sleep better.
When you notice the Monger blaming and criticizing you in an attempt to motivate you, try to remove the blame and criticism. Try to separate fact (what you need to own about the situation) from fiction (the shame and criticism).
Think of yourself as an eight-year-old child. What would you say to that eight-year-old who needed some motivation? Would you criticize her, or would you kindly offer solutions?
This idea of self-kindness is something I look at in detail in Episode 101; give it a listen. In upcoming episodes, as I unveil the other characters, I will be offering more tips for quieting your Monger.
If you don’t do it, who will? If you’re not hustling, pushing, and keeping it all together yourself, nothing will get done.
Look, you don’t need me to tell you that. You tell yourself every day. There’s that voice inside your head constantly pushing you to do more, be more, and get closer to perfect.
And there are all the people--your family, friends, and random people on the street--who congratulate you on how productive you are.
Mixed messages, am I right?
I know I’m right because I’ve dealt with high-functioning anxiety too. I know what it’s like to relish the accolades that come your way one minute and shame yourself for being so tired and overwhelmed the next.
And, I’ve been working with women like you living with hidden anxiety every day for over 20 years as a coach and counselor.
I wrote The Happier Approach to give you a framework for dealing with your anxiety and start living happier.
The Happier Approach will help you understand the voices in your head and what to do with them. It’s not another woo-woo self-help book that asks you to think positively and live your best life. It’s a practical guidebook for getting out of survival mode and finding a genuinely happy and productive life.
Know someone who has High Functioning Anxiety and a VERY LOUD Monger. The Happier Approach makes a great gift.
Find The Happier Approach on Amazon, Audible, or Barnes & Noble!