Full system scan...

Like millions of others around the globe, my computer just launched its regular system scan. Riffling through all its files and folders, it’s searching for things that don’t belong there. Things that have snuck in quietly through some vulnerability, and which could be doing damage.

I imagine you know where I’m going with this.

For computers aren’t the only entities exposed to viruses and malware. Some of our own internal programs can be pretty malicious, too. And we can pick them up from all sorts of places – some may have been travelling with us for years, and have perhaps even afflicted generations of our family.

The inner critic is one such ‘program’. It’s a tyrant that usually barks orders and reprimands us until we’re overcome with shame and reluctant to take a step in any direction in case we’re WRONG somehow (again).

Like computer viruses, these programs slow us down. They can interfere with what we want to do and who we might want to become. They can fill our system with other people’s stuff. They can hijack our dreams.

So it might be important, once in a while, to take a moment and do a system scan of your own. To just find a quiet space and go within, and see what’s there:

What habits do you have about the way that you see yourself?
Are there automatic ways you behave or react – and do you want to keep them that way?
Where might some of your internal programs have come from – when did you inherit them?
What other desires or emotions or relationships might they be impacting?

Though some of these things can be challenging to ‘quarantine’ or ‘delete’ from your system, even just knowing that they’re there is a meaningful step. For by becoming mindful of destructive programs or habits, already you have changed your relationship to them.

Just by noticing them, you've already started to free yourself.


(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010