I recently had a revelation about a voice* that has haunted me since high school telling me if I don’t acheive certain goals such as passing exams, staying in paid work, fulfilling a role in society, my life is worthless and I don’t deserve to be here.

Mental health-wise I have been much better over the past year as a result of strength training and yoga and working on my spiritual development with my mentor Jayne Johnson. A few months ago for the first time I heard my healthy body saying ‘I want to live’ and this has helped me to combat the negative voice.

Yet I went through a difficult time after my attempt to write a novel for Gwyn failed and I realised I must truly give up my ambition to be a professional author (as I promised Him over ten years ago!). I ended up back at the Abyss with the choice between three gates – to live as I was, to die, or to change. I took the third gate.

During a period of prayer I discerned what to do next – return to outdoor work in horticulture and become a shamanic practitioner. So I started working towards those goals. I began studying for my RHS Level 2 in Horticulture and volunteering with Let’s Grow Preston. I applied for the Sacred Trust’s three year shamanic practitioner training and was over the moon when I was offered a place. However, the downside is the course and the train fares to Devon will cost all my savings and then some. 

The negative voice returned as I began to struggle with concerns about finding paid work in horticulture before my savings run out. Long term I am planning to start a nature-friendly gardening business but I am aware it will take a while to complete my training, set up, find clients and start earning. So I started applying for any outdoor work from plant nurseries and garden centres to grounds maintenance and also cleaning (which Gwyn advised me against). 

That week, the more jobs I applied for, the more I panicked, the louder the voice grew. Telling me I’m a fool to spend so much money on a course which is my soul’s calling but isn’t likely to help me earn much. Preventing me from meditating and journeying saying instead I should be applying for jobs. 

The afternoon before I attended a Radical Embodiment workshop** with Jayne and Alex Walker I had a terrible interview for a cleaning job. I arrived at the workshop scatty with the voice shouting loudly at me telling me the practices were pointless and worthless and wouldn’t help me find paid work.

I spent the first half, in the morning, battling against the voice. Then, in the afternoon, when I was more relaxed and present and connected with other bodies the voice stopped. When finally we came to dancing our insights I decided to have it out with the voice once and for all but found it had vanished.

I then received the gnosis – ‘It’s not my voice’. 

This was one of the most significant revelations of my life. For decades I thought it was a part of me, an inner critic, formed from my internalisation of the capitalist work ethic. A little like the inner Sheriff of Nottingham Nicola Smalley describes in The Path to Forgotten Freedom only a whole lot nastier.

Then, finally, it struck me, no part of my psyche would tell me I was worthless or want me dead. This voice differs from my true inner critic who, of course, is critical, can be harsh and judgemental, but is looking after my integrity.

I realised any voice inimical to my life is not my voice.

Then what is it? I began to wonder. I intuited it must be a malevolent entity. When I asked Gwyn He told me it was not one of the spirits of Annwn. I sensed it wasn’t from the underworld or any of the lower worlds but was bound up with the middleworld. Unlike the spirits of Annwn / ‘fairies’ who live in a reciprocal relationship with Thisworld but have their own independent world and reality it could not survive without parasitising upon human emotions.

Names that came to my mind were ‘liar’ and ‘deceiver’ which I remembered are applied to Satan ‘the Father of Lies’. Was I being tormented by the Devil?

When I asked one of my spiritual ancestors she replied that it was a malicious spirit, an ysbryd drygioni. Christians have blown such beings up into one big Devil in the same way they have raised Jahweh into one big God.

I asked whether I needed to hunt it down and destroy it (like Ged does the gebbeth in The Wizard of Earthsea – my experience reminded me of that story). My guide replied, ‘No’, as such beings feed on our attention and negative emotions. The best defences against it are to do the things it tells me not do because they will not help me gain a job and earn money – prayer, meditation, journeywork, sitting still in nature (which I really struggle with), being with other bodies, dancing, play and fun (which I never allow myself). 

Realising this voice isn’t mine and hearing how to defend myself from it are huge steps I am hoping will help me move forward towards earning a living in a way that allows me to stay physically and mentally well and fulfil my vocation.

I’d be interested to hear whether anyone else has had similar experiences. How do you tell the difference between inner and outer voices? I’m hoping to get to grips with such discernment processes better towards the end of my shamanic practitioner training when we approach practices such as depossession.

*Here I’m referring to intrusive thoughts not to auditory hallucinations.
**A development from embodied relational therapy.