Not every voice in your head, belongs to you. Not every thought in you mind is your own. That one voice that hates you, is not a part of you. It is an outsider who wants to hurt you. It is not to be trusted.

“That phrase you just said there, I could’ve sworn you sounded exactly like one of my demons.” Everything a human is, is the result of something the human learned at some point. A personality is a collection of traits. Traits are patterns in behavior. Behavior is learnt. Even the natural instincts that a human is born with, the human must first learn how to act upon. Even the subconscious is only lessons a human learned, before the long-term memory became developed enough to remember. Earlier learnings are most influential because they happened in a time when the mind could only process a few simple thoughts. Those thoughts commanded all the emotions the heart had to offer. As a human grows, his or her thoughts get more complex, and numerous. With the same amount of emotion to be shared, the emotional impact of each thought keeps getting smaller with time.

Moreover, it is not learnings Humans should worry about. It is mis-learnings, or demons as I like to call them. Devils would be much more appropriate, but Demons sounds catchier. Mis-learnings are instances where a human learns a wrong thing. This usually happens when a younger human lives through one significant traumatizing experience, or a series of abusive ones. The human experiences an unnatural amount of fear and desire, which are the two faces of the coin that is human instinct. Those two combined with a false thought become a demon. “My father left me, because I am not good enough to have a father and be happy.” The fear is of never seeing the father again, and of having to face the world alone. The desire is to retrieve the father by any means and at any price. The mis-leaning is that it is the child’s fault that the father left. The correct learning should have been that the father left because because of his own issues.

This demon then uses similar instances in a human’s life to reinforce the mis-learning and grow. The breakup at the end of a middle school fling is a rite of passage for any boy or girl, but to a child of abandonment, it is a “See. I told you!” from the demon. The demon continues to grow, using unfortunate incidents as ammunition until it is strong enough to influence behavior. At first it would say “I told you.” Which would release a cloud of negative emotions, on which it feeds. Then, when strong enough it starts saying trigger phrases that might not appear directly linked to abandonment, but which would provoke the same unnatural fear and desire that the abandonment did. “Look at how she keeps looking at him.” The demon then continues to provoke negative emotions in the human, and growing. The result of which is a human acting against his or her own interest, and sometimes, against his or her most basic survival instincts.

Interestingly enough, demons are very similar. Humans share similar fears and insecurities. As a matter of fact, their similarity works like a family tree. There is the first demon which all humans share, fear itself. Then there are fears that major groups of humans share. Then there are ones that few humans share. Then, finally, there are the ones that are unique to each individual human. It is said that Humans became humans as we know them when they developed the ability to consider future consequences. Animals only scare away from immediate dangers. They never fear future ones. Humans do.

Moreover, Demons hide behind their proverbial children. Their children hide behind their trigger phrase. Their trigger phases hide behind the unnatural fear or desire they provoke. The unnatural fear or desire hides behind the cloud of negative emotions it releases into the mind. Be it a cloud of rage, paranoia, or lust; logic has no chance of catching the falsity behind it all.

In order to defeat a demon, the human must find its name phrase. The original mis-learning from which it had sprung. He or she must first breath out the cloud of negative emotions. Then he or she must meditate through the unnatural fear or desire. After which, he or she would start questioning the trigger phrase. “Why?” like a child. The “why” questions will corner the demon and start to irritate it. If done correctly, and for long enough, the demon will get so irritated that it will yell out its own name phrase. “Because you don’t deserve to have a loved one!” after that it becomes easy to identify trigger phrases by linking them to the demon’s name phrase. Once they are identified as an external attack, and not as a trustworthy insider thought; they start losing their emotional impact. While they might be true, they come with malicious intent, and hence are not to be considered.

Furthermore, if the “why” questioning keeps going on after the demon has been named and defeated, the demon will give up the name of its parent demon. “Because you’re not good enough to be loved!” Then it will give up the name of its grandparent demon. “Because you’re not good enough to be happy!” It’s great grandparent demon. “Because you’re not good enough!” Unfortunately, at every stage of the fight, demons will use regrets, and personal failures as arguments for their case. Some of these arguments will be solid, but never valid. No failure, or regret, no matter how great, can make a person not good enough. Every trespass can be forgiven, every vice can be repented, and every sin can be redeemed. Once a person internalizes this belief, he or she can stand on top of the nocked out cold corpses of his or her demons. The fight then boils down to smacking down a demon whenever it tries to get up.

I remember the ferocious battle I had with my own demons, in the six months leading to my wedding. It was the first time I loved someone so much. Her love dove deeper into my heart than I thought was possible. Unfortunately, in its dive it shuffled up things, and shed the light on things I did not know existed in me. My main demon was called “You’re not Man enough.” It had two children, “You can’t satisfy your woman.” And “You can’t protect your woman.” I remember how they would say the most awful things to me. They would spit the most bone shaking scenarios into my mind. The worst of all, was a scenario where I would call her, and she would pick up while in bed with another man. My demons had me convinced that I deserved that to happen to me. Other scenarios involved her getting kidnapped and raped in front of my eyes. The scenarios would catch me off guard so bad, they would throw me into a panic attack. I would run out of breath, then keep hyper ventilating until I burst into tears. Sometimes, I had to punch the poison into a wall, until my knuckles started to bleed.

I had always known that I was messed up. My demons, however, had me believe that I was the most messed up person on earth, or at least the only one messed up like this. Then, things started to change when I started hearing my demons in other people’s words. I met a man once who had the same exact demon as I. I found out later that my wife and I share a parent demon. I started meeting people who shared a grandparent demon with me. It became easy to tell when a demon was talking through a human’s tongue. Self-deprecating comments, doubts, and unrealistic expectations are some examples, to name a few. Then I became able to distinguish which part of the family tree the demon belonged to. I started plotting the family tree. That was where it hit me. My mission in life is to help people defeat their demons.

If you can relate to any of this, if any of it sounds familiar, share your experience in the comments. Even if it is as simple as the voice that says, “You lost the argument, you should have said this, and that!” after an argument. Even if it is only a slight doubt in the success of an endeavor. Even if it is as mysterious as why a certain topic irritates you more than it does other people. Any thought that appears in you mind with no purpose but to produce negative emotions in you, is the work of a demon/ Mis-learning.