The value of facing our Demons…

I want to start this article a little differently to how I would usually start a post. I want to start by sharing this funny video that captures my evolution with KPop Demon Hunters in 15 seconds. And if you don’t know what KPop Demon Hunters are, welcome to the movement. May it inspire you as much as it has inspired me.

If you are not a fan, that is totally fine too. I feel a little sad for you. And, you don’t need to a be fan, or even have watched the movie, to get value from this article. It’s just my starting point, and it doesn’t need to be yours. So, just hang in here with me for a little bit as I provide some background to why this movie, why this article, and why now?

Every now and then, I watch a movie that resonates with my soul, and that fundamentally changes how I see things, or how I see life. I never thought that K-Pop Demon Hunters would be one of those movies… And yet, here we are, I’m sharing life lessons learnt from watching this animated movie created by Maggie Kang. And it all started with my 9-year-old daughter who wanted to watch this movie…

I was apprehensive because of the title of the movie. Why are we talking about demons? Is this even age-appropriate for her to watch? What is she going to learn from watching this? Am I ready to have the conversations with her that will ensue from watching this movie?

In essence, the movie depicts our battle with our own inner demons – the voice inside that tells us we are not good enough and we are separate from others. The voice inside that has us doubting ourselves, second guessing ourselves, distrusting others, hiding our true feelings, longings, and desires, and working so hard to “be better”, hide the “bad parts” that we feel ashamed of, or get rid of our dark side and the parts of ourselves that we don’t like.

My 5-year-old son said it best when he said, “Mommy, we all let our demons out sometimes.” Yes, love, yes. We all let our demons out sometimes. We all let our demons run our lives, make important decisions about where we will focus our time and energy, make us feel unworthy of love, belonging, and connection, and let us swim around in shame…

And yet, our demons are just the parts of us that we have abandoned, because at some point we were rejected or judged for those parts, or they don’t fit into the ideal of how we want to see ourselves. All of us have a dark side that we have banished, and that we don’t want others to know about or see, because we fear rejection, ostracization, and/or abandonment. We fear that if people knew about the scars we hide, we will no longer be loved and accepted.

And yet, can your loved ones really know you if you hide parts of yourself from them? Can you really ever feel whole and alive if you have banished parts of yourself that you have deemed unfit of love and compassion?

Another series I’m currently watching – this one without the kids, for obvious reasons – is The Penguin. And I’m struck by the character Sophia Falcone who is subjected to 10-years of imprisonment in an insane asylum for crimes she never committed.  When she eventually is released and sets out to take revenge on her perpetrators, there is a part of me that feels that she is justified in her actions.

I’m also fascinated by the psychological impact of being punished for something you didn’t do, and then eventually becoming the very thing you did not want to become. Research also broadly supports the idea that rehabilitation, especially when it includes compassionate and supportive elements, is more effective at reducing reoffending (recidivism) than severe punishment alone. Severe, purely punitive measures may actually increase the likelihood of future criminal activity. In simple terms, compassion is required for true liberation from our demons, both real and imagined.

What this has meant for me, is that I had to stop running from the shame of my past. I had to reclaim the parts of me that I had banished, because I had judged those parts as unworthy of love. I had to heal the wounds that created those parts in the first place, and rebuild trust with the parts of me that I had banished or punished all these years. I have reclaimed a lot of lost parts, and I will say that I’m still having a hard time with some of my demons, and yet, I know from personal experience that the only thing that has brought me more peace, has been to learn to love the parts of me I didn’t want to be with, or believed I couldn’t love.

What has been most instrumental in this has been learning what true self-compassion is. I often encourage my clients to show themselves compassion, and yet recently, I realized that perhaps they don’t even know what that really entails.

If we had parents, teachers, and caregivers who were really hard on us, we may have grown up believing that there was no place for self-compassion. We might have a distorted perception of self-compassion. We might believe that self-compassion means we don’t hold ourselves or others accountable for actions that caused harm, or we “go easy on ourselves” and no longer take responsibility for our lives, our actions, our choices.

This is not what self-compassion means at all. Self-compassion isn’t a free pass to cause harm or no longer take responsibility for our actions and choices. In fact, it’s a way that we can see our choices from a more objective perspective, and make new choices that are more aligned with who we want to become.

The best resource I have come across that describes the impact and value of self-compassion is Kristen Neff’s book, Self-Compassion. In her book she shares that there are essentially three components to self-compassion and that to practice true self-compassion, we need to cultivate all three components.

The first component is to make the choice to view your own suffering through the lens of compassion. In other words, can you allow yourself to be moved by your own suffering? When we look at others with compassion, it means that we allow ourselves to be moved by their pain, and we sit with them in their pain as a way to comfort them, and have them feel seen and heard. A compassionate approach means that we don’t dismiss or try to fix the problem. We simply hold space for the person to share their pain, and we validate how they feel.

So, when we show ourselves compassion, we do what we would do for a good friend. We meet ourselves in our pain, and we try to understand instead of judge. We allow ourselves to be moved by our suffering, and we acknowledge to ourselves that we are having a hard time. This can sometimes be the hardest part – to acknowledge that we are not ok and that we are struggling. And this is was why I shared with you last week that It’s OK if you are not OK. Self-compassion starts with telling ourselves the truth, and meeting ourselves in the pain we are experiencing. Not meeting ourselves in the pain, is what amplifies our suffering.

The second component of self-compassion is to recognize our shared humanity and to recognize that even though you might feel alone, many other people have felt, or might currently be feeling similar pain to the pain you are experiencing. Pain is a universal truth about life. No human on this planet gets out of this life without experiencing pain. In fact, pain is part of the contract of life. When you take human form, you volunteer to experience pain. And all humans experience fear, anger, guilt, and shame – those things that make us feel awful about ourselves, but that we do not control.

Kristen Neff shares in her book that the research consistently shows that we lack the capacity to suppress or control our feelings. You do not control the thoughts that come into your head or the feelings that you feel. You do not even control learnt patterns of behaviour that are simply part of how your nervous system is wired. For example, if you are by nature more anxious or more easily aggravated than other people, you did not choose that, so why do you beat yourself up about it? Why do you judge yourself or make yourself wrong for having feelings of anxiety, or anger, or shame?

Recognizing that other humans have the same struggles, can be a way to neutralize our judgments in the moment when we might actually intensify our pain by judging ourselves.

Lastly, self-compassion requires mindfulness. It requires the willingness to notice our thoughts and feelings, and to pause. I’m reminded of Victor Frankl’s most famous quote: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” You cannot control whether you have certain thoughts or experience certain feelings, but you can choose to notice the activation inside. You can pause to create a space where you can choose whether you will respond to yourself with love and compassion, or with judgement. And in that small space within the pause, lies all your power, because the choice you make in that small space determines if you stay stuck in the same pattern, or whether you rewire for growth and freedom.

One of my clients said it best: “The key that has unlocked a door here is that the physical is unrelated to the mental. If I have a mean mindset or a kind mindset it is completely unrelated to how my body looks. The reflection in the mirror is distorted by what the mind is saying. I relate to this in the same way that anorexia works, the person is physically sickly thin, but their mind still tells them they are fat. Shifting the focus to my inner thoughts and feelings rather than trying to fix the physical was my big revelation.”

So, dear reader, I invite you to watch KPop Demon Hunters, but watch it from the perspective of what it means to be human and what happens when we judge ourselves instead of showing ourselves compassion. Watch and learn what happens when we can find a way to face our own scars and shame. Watch and learn what happens when we choose to be vulnerable and share our faults with others. Watch what happens when we choose to see our common humanity, when we forgive our flaws, and choose to come back to presence and awareness.

And even if you choose not to watch the movie, I invite you to sit with these questions:

1. What scars or parts of myself do I hide from others because I fear rejection and judgment?
2. How do I relate to the parts of me that I hide from others, and sometimes even from myself?
3. What would it be like to listen to one of the parts of me that I dislike or judge?
4. If this disliked part of me were a friend, what would I want to say to a friend facing this struggle?