The Janky Monkey Brain

Here we are it’s March, 2021, a full year after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, and everything shut down.  We all experienced very few places to go, and very few things to do.  My conversations with clients in therapy shifted to how to live in a pandemic. Most discussions centered around how to stay grounded, how to feel less overwhelmed, and mostly how to feel productive when our world was telling us to stay in one place.  

Several months into the pandemic while offering support to others, I made a goal that I would complete my website.  It  had been several years working in private practice, and it was time to consolidate the pile of random notes on my desk filled with ideas and thoughts as a therapist in my “future” blog. I felt excited, and was celebrating confidence.

Now fast forward, my website was finally completed weeks ago.  And as I sat down to write my first blog last week, the voice in my head started with a vengeance...“your writing won’t sound clear…”you don’t have enough training to even have this website”...”you are really not going to know what you are talking about”... “people will think you are trying to be a know-it-all and it will come across as completely snobbish, self involved, and useless.”

Brene Brown would likely say I was sitting and bathing in the swamp of shame. One of my closest friends and experienced therapist herself would say my inner voice was a Janky Monkey. And yes, I did look up the definition of “Janky,” it’s a slang term meaning unreliable.   And it was there that I started to write my blog.   

It’s about shame and fear.  We all struggle with both and in my experience have a hard time talking about the two. For many, feeling unworthy, and not good enough can come as quickly, and as hard as a wave crashing over us. I for sure share in that experience.  I have done a lot of personal work,  and accept that there have been many experiences throughout my life that have aided my inner critic. Like many of my clients, the inner critic has either prevented me from speaking up completely, or made me second guess myself if I do speak up..  For me, the practice is being aware in the moment when I hear that inner critic, naming it, acknowledging that it exists, still feeling fearful but taking the risk of stepping into feeling vulnerable because otherwise I could remain stuck. It’s not comfortable but no one said this work is easy.