Listen, but ignore...

Sometimes we have that conversation in our head that can go on for days... you try to tune it out, push it out, turn it off... but it goes on anyway. It's a scene from our past, a woulda shoulda coulda moment, it's a conversation we want to have or one that we might have had. It's kind of harmless, it can help to organize your thoughts, help you to see things from a different perspective... but that doesn't make it reality.

The gnawing doubts or the insecurities, the petty jealousies, the imagined, or real slights, the way that you are treated or feel that you have been treated, they are there, safe in your mind. Turn them over, figure them out, learn from them in ways to make yourself better. Don't respond to them as if they really happened. Don't believe everything you think.

Things are safe in your mind, you need to take your own counsel sometimes - that does not mean that everything that goes on there is the undisputed truth. You need to feel and believe and to be your best friend... someone has to stick up for you. You have to be passionate on your own behalf - but that does not mean that everyone will care about every single morsel of thought and discussion that went on inside you. It's important to you, but need not go beyond you, yourself and well, you.

Loneliness, fatigue, insecurity, an overactive imagination... all can take places at the table when these discussion groups meet inside your head. Let them have free rein. Just don't publish the minutes, and for God's sake don't feel compelled to have to act on their recommendations.