Gremlins

You hear this word (Gremlins) and think of a televised creature with green skin and sharp teeth. Good. You are not far off.

These invisible creatures live in our heads. Like an ear worm, they make their way into the thinking parts of our Universe.

We hardly notice them at first.

They bore down into the core of our consciousness while we are busy doing other things.

Eroding the walls of our resolve

Chewing at the structure of our confidence

Weakening the foundation of our belief

Nibbling away at the heart of our gratitude

What do they leave in place of everything that they take?

Crippling self doubt

Anxiety and fear over irrational things

Nerve centers that are no longer bolstered enough to endure a small and subtle lie told to the self without taking it on as a new belief system.

And the absence of Joy left in the wake of their destruction.

Because feeling takes on the lies they leave.

Feeling anything outside of numbness has the shape of the creature eating everything hollow inside.

Numbness is all that is left to feel

And that is a prelude into the next painful, raw, emotional turmoil that electrifies the nerves as they chew their way through each good feeling and joyful experience

Feeling is tainted by their poisonous whisperings

The magic is dulled to grey

Subtle is the slow destruction of a whole self

Gremlins who feed us lies while eating our ears to deafen us to the truth

Gremlins that tear a hole in our heart and stuff it with their blackness to give the illusion that it is filled

Gremlins that crawl out of our mouths and chastise anyone close enough with sharp-tongued, twisted words

Dreary is the landscape of their illusory lenses that we wear like glasses we can’t take off

They’re in there.

It’s all happening in our own head anyway.

It’s all playing out in our mind, and spilling out all over our life, and pouring like rain on everyone we interact with. While we smile.

It’s all there.

In our own head.

If people could see the battles we all fight, would they stand by and do nothing?

If the Gremlins were eating our body from the outside, would anyone notice?

Because they can’t see it right now even though it's freshly behind our eyes.

They wriggle behind our eyelids, camouflaged by our friendly smile and upbeat attitude.

And where is the path back?

How do we root them out and eradicate the infestation before it ends us?

Where are the sacred places left in the mind that know the answers?

Who has the elixir of life that will blind and deafen THEM, so that we can once again feel what is real and whole and good?

Why is it so difficult to remove their claws from around our neck so we can take in a deep breath of life again?

When will we stand up against them, with enough resolve to dislodge them from the nests they have built in our willpower?

The path back is dependent on our willpower and resolve.

It is the light, not at the end of the tunnel, but shining from the hole the Gremlins bore within us that burns brightly the fire of our true selves.

The power of that is limitless.

We stand only to gain, by reaching in and gripping our strength with such tenacity that we can do nothing but win.

we are the will, and the way and they know it. That’s why they lie to us.

They cannot compete with our powerful self, so they make us small with their illusions and lies.

We are the path back.

We are the way

We are the truth

Each of us, who experiences this and rises above them.

It is a choice.

The Gremlins or the Joy.

The Gremlins or the Joy.

That is all there really is.