Bless My Inner Ogre
21 October 2025
Last week I fell into a big, open hole inside myself that I had not seen coming. I was feeling hopeless and starting to get down on myself again about my choices and habits. Getting down on myself is another old habit and some days it feels as if I have so many old (and not so helpful) habits, that I may never feel free of any of them. Thankfully, I have been working a lot on compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, celebrating, and loving myself for quite some time and it is beginning to shine through on it’s own lately!
So, I fell into this hole and found myself criticising my perceived failings again, seeing my Inner Child cower and quickly run for the inner sanctum before the ogre in me came fully into view. This ogre tends to tower over my inner universe and wreak havoc on everything it sets its grisly eye on. It re-acts from primitive/reptilian brain so it does not have the capacity to pull itself up, stop to think, or to have compassion for anything – it just gets started roaring and shooting it’s darts everywhere. My Inner Child fled and I somehow stayed to observe this time. I saw it all and stayed present.
After a few minutes of observing the onslaught and listening to all the same old tapes of how I have been shown what to do but I’m not doing any of it, about how I know how to make healthier choices but I don’t make any, of how I will never get anywhere because I just don’t try to, and of how I might as well give up trying to be healthy because I’m obviously not even serious about it anyway – I said: “Stop”.
I took a breath in and then breathed it out again. I saw this for the re-action that it was and I de-triggered. “I feel scared and it’s okay to feel into that feeling right here in my body, right now”. I imagined myself as energy and saw how that energy had been suddenly startled. That was enough to switch my compassion back on and parent myself again. I silently challenged the ogre with “none of that is true, it cannot be true that I have not made any changes at all because I have been eating fruit and I never used to. It can’t be true because I drink more water, and I exercise 1-2 hours 6 days every week now. It can’t be true because I take the stairs now and I and doing breathing exercises and yoga every day. There is no way that I have not done ANYthing and there is a mountain of evidence to prove I’m making a lot of changes. I’ve even been keeping a record through my watch and phone and journal so I cannot allow myself to believe what you’re saying at all.”
The ogre suddenly vanished and like a ray of sunshine, my Inner Child appeared from her hiding place inside. “I’m sorry.” I told her. “Let’s make a list together of all of the things I have changed since I got back from India in June.” I took her by the hand and went to my phone and began dictating the list with her. No sooner had we begun the list than a flood of things poured onto it and I began to feel so much better!
Here is the list that took about ten minutes to create:
Changes I’ve made since India Jun 2025
Changes I’ve made since India (June 2025)
I realised as I was doing this little exercise that it really can be as simple as challenging the ogre within sometimes. That Inner Ogre does not know any better, it is only able to re-act in old ways to what it perceives as old danger and for the Ogre, change is a danger. It gets so afraid when change happens and it goes into a terror-based tantrum to try and reclaim power over the situation and over the perceived threat – me. I want to remember now that when the ogre starts in on me, it’s because it is feeling afraid of me, of changes I’ve made. It’s not personal at all, it’s a natural instinct from fear.
The list is going on my fridge to remind me of all of the wonderful, healthful changes that I actually have made in just a few short months. I feel so thankful for falling into that hole again last week and I’m determined to be much more compassionate and observant for the wonderful ways in which even the ogre within can be such an inspiration and a blessing to me. See you next time…