Ending Your Inner Argument

One of the reasons I am so dedicated to bringing The Empowerment Dynamic® to the world is that this framework has helped me recognize a common conflict I experience within myself.

I am a thinker. What I mean by that is I tend to default to thinking about how to fix, improve, and change life for the better. Frankly, I like the fact that I care about improving life and myself, most of the time. The trouble I get into is that I can go round and round, arguing with myself about what to do when situations arise.

When something happens and I think, “This shouldn’t be happening,” the deeper message is almost always, “I shouldn’t be feeling this.” My resistance to that feeling generates even more mental anguish.

To escape the discomfort, my first impulse is to stay busy, so I don’t have to feel it. Picking up my phone, checking the news, or scrolling social media used to be frequent distractions, although I have become much more conscious of how those habits increase my inner agitation.

I have other strategies for avoiding discomfort as well: binge-watching shows, overworking, sweets or pouring an extra glass of wine. Some of these habits are more harmful than others, but they serve the same purpose—to numb, distract, or bypass my inner conflict.

These moments are often subtle. They do not usually take me over completely. I am a relatively healthy, high-functioning woman. Nonetheless, this low-grade pressure can hum in the background of my mind, quietly draining my energy. I’ve come to see that it is not the event itself creating the suffering. It is my resistance to the feelings I have about the event.

What a predicament.

The cost is that I push myself—sometimes to exhaustion —trying to think my way into feeling confident about my approach to a particular problem while the deeper reaction lies unresolved. I keep searching for the right approach that will satisfy both the reasoning mind and the emotional response.

The mind’s job is to make sense of life. It is constantly scanning, sorting, comparing, and evaluating. Ending the inner argument does not mean stopping my mind from thinking. My mind will always think, judge, compare, plan, and project. That is what minds do.

When left unchecked, the divided mind becomes locked in a battle with itself. It creates opposing positions, prosecutes both sides, and then becomes a Victim of its own thinking.

Over time, I have come to realize that feelings are not the problem. Yes, I may feel anxiety, disappointment, sadness, or fear. I may feel a tight knot in my stomach because of the story I have created about a situation.

But feelings are simply waves of energy moving through us. They seek acknowledgment, not resistance. When I suppress my feelings, they do not disappear. They simply go underground and often emerge later in unexpected ways.

The shift begins when I can meet my feelings with curiosity rather than judgment. When I stop treating my emotions as the enemy, I begin to see that the real struggle is not the feeling itself but my resistance to it.

As I soften my resistance, I gain greater clarity about the narrative I have constructed around the situation. The story begins to loosen its grip and options for dealing with it begin to appear. This is the soft pause that I wrote about in a previous blog.

In those moments, I find myself standing at a threshold. Will I continue resisting what I feel, distracting myself, and investing my identity in the story I’ve created about those feelings? Or will I choose a different path?

I can collapse into Victim consciousness and continue arguing with myself or I can surrender, sit with discomfort, and become genuinely curious about what is unfolding.

This choice does not instantly remove the discomfort. Instead, it creates space. The judgment begins to soften, and I can feel my body settle. What felt like a tight emotional knot gradually loosens. When I experience this shift, I feel relief from my inner argument.

Many wisdom traditions, as well as Alcoholics Anonymous, describe this as surrender. Surrendering is not a sign of weakness. It is the willingness to stop fighting reality and accept what is true in the moment.

For me, what is often true is not that the situation is unbearable or cannot be resolved, but rather that I argue with myself about the feelings from the story I make up about the situation. I tell myself I should not feel what I feel which of course impedes resolution and growth. The moment I acknowledge and allow the feeling; something begins to change. My Creator essence has space to emerge and neutralize the inner argument.

I cannot say that my inner arguments have disappeared entirely, but they are fewer as I become better at recognizing and accepting the underlying cause of my inner conflict.

Until next time, here’s to the Creator in you,

Donna