We all have dreams.

We all have hopes for the life we want to live.

Some of us came from homes where, for one reason or another, we didn’t learn self-respect or self-love.

A home where we didn’t learn self anything, especially to hear and to listen to ourselves.

We only heard what they said we were and who they said we will and should be.

We didn’t know that the self was real or that it mattered.

We walked around with a flicker of self, like a candle wick that doesn’t have enough air to be the full flame it was intended to be.

I believe that is because the air was stifled around us keeping the flame in us from fully becoming.

The movement was stifled by the words (or lack of words) as well as the attention and the nurturing that the flame—our soul and our self—needed.

The messages that we received told us that our self was stupid, crazy, or not to be trusted.

A common question I know many of us heard as children and teens from an adult was:

“What is wrong with you?”

So, that’s how it started. Feeling broken, some of us looked for someone outside of ourselves to save us, to fix us.

Some of us thought we found it in another person. Some of us also felt that we also could, in turn, help and fix that person’s pain and struggles.

We then would go on to create beings with the intention of giving them everything that we didn’t have: all the love, compassion, and understanding that we felt we needed and didn’t get.

Our intentions were good, but how do you give what you don’t have?

As we grow and evolve into adults, most of us know what is right and what is wrong.

Most of us have an inner voice (or a few) that whisper to us that the way to peace to less pain from the choices we make.

We all have different messages that play on repeat about who we were told we were. A different dialogue that we can get stuck on, and that keeps us from moving forward to what we know is best for us. Best for a life with less struggle and strife.

We all have a saboteur inside of us who carries an old message that was fed to us.

What if we named him or her?

Called them out on their high jinx?

Took control of ourselves and the goodness and light that we all hold?

So, I wrote a little poem for one saboteur:

Lenny is her name

For the one inside who hijacks my brain

she sabotages all my worth and work

Both big and small

She takes away my choice as she wants to control

it all

She is dark and makes a mess of all that I have cleaned

She touches things and moves around and makes nightmares of my dreams

I make movements to go through the things that kept me stuck

I make big changes in my life and clean up all the muck

Doing well and feeling strong, and then, Lenny comes along

She is reckless and cares not about the temple that is me

She woos me with the poison that her way will set me free

When I have had my fill and want no more, Lenny plays her same old drill

She sees me struggle with the choice of what I know is good

She tries to suffocate my voice with the darkness of her touch

But what Lenny hasn’t heard is that I have had enough 

I have a couple of cracks in me that let the airflow in

It dances around the flame and ignites my light within

I know what will make me grow and flourish in this life

So next time Lenny comes to town and wants to play around

I will shine my light on all her games and stand in what I know

What it took to get here

The changes I have made show me now that all Lenny has is shade.

What would you name the saboteur within you?