Meet Bob – he lives in your head…

This post is a mix of inspirations from Michael Neill and Dr Aaron Turner and my personal interpretation of them (apologies if I’ve stretched this metaphor into something neither of them originally intended!).

Imagine there’s a board of directors in your head.

Claire’s well turned out, she’s a control freak, but you can tell she loves you, and she’s the chairwoman of the board.

Mary is the pessimistic one. She’s always got a ‘yeah but’ and she’ll point out the downside of any plan you might have. Usually around ‘there’s not enough time’

Stuart is the funny one, and can see the humour in any situation.

Lynne’s the crazy one. Only she thinks it’s everyone else that’s crazy so she spends most the time alternating between shaking her head at home crazy everyone else’s ideas are, and swearing mostly.

Kirsty’s the ‘buzzy one’ – you can hear the energy and passion in her voice  she’s the ‘go get ’em’ girl, she’s the cheerleader at the table  – she always says ‘yes, of course you can’ for any discussion you’ve brought to the table.

Silvio is the wise one. He doesn’t say a lot, but when he does, it’s normally profound.

And then you’ve got Bob.

Bob is the homeless guy who shows up at the board of directors meeting from time to time. He’s normally a bit pissed too, so when he turns up, he tends to rant.

“What a load of nonsense! You’re too fat to try that! Eat tinfoil! Why can’t you make more money? Then you could buy me more tinfoil! Why can everyone else do this thing you’re trying to do and you make it look so hard! Perhaps you should eat more tinfoil.” and similar crazy rantings.

Only some of the rants seem to sound true to you.

You can’t kick him off the board, Claire’s his aunt.

Thousands of NLP techniques have tried.

In fact the more you try to get rid of him the larger he appears and the louder he gets.

It’s the Special Brew.

We’ve all got Bob. He shows up and rants.

He thinks he’s at a party when you’ve got a thought storm going on.

Today he says to me: ‘You’re taking your daughter to Disney Land, are you mad? In fact did you forget you’re mad? You’ve had anxiety about leaving the HOUSE before and now you think you can go all the way to France on your own with her? What if you get a migraine? Who’s going to help you? Not enough tinfoil there to save you.’ And so on and so on.

The question is how seriously you take him.

Six years ago, I didn’t know Bob existed.

Two years ago, I learned about ‘gremlins’ which sound far scarier and more important to be got rid of than Bob.

Now I know it’s Bob, and I don’t give a sh*t if he turn up or not.

‘Oh hi Bob, I see you. Thanks for the advice.’

And let him continue to mutter into his beer can in the corner.

In fact you don’t need to take ANY of your board of directors seriously you’ve got access to something better than that.

But that’s for the next post….

So homework from this post: Just notice when Bob turns up. What rubbish has he got for you this week?

4 thoughts on “Meet Bob – he lives in your head…”

  1. An excellent metaphor Nicola! But poor Bob – having Noticed him so
    well, don’t we also need to
    love and understand him

    too, with kind self
    compassion….after all, he too is part of what is!

    1. You are right
      When you forgive Bob for what he is doing you have really gone to another level! I understand now that you have to accept and forgive everything there is inside. Even Bob. Cause Bob can’t do anything else. That’s the role he has to play in your life.
      The role that YOU gave him.

      However, you could change the script and let Bob play another role? Because you are tge director, producer of the film of your life aren’t you?

  2. Bob Fear
    That’s his name. I know him and he comes in different disguises. He never shows up in the same cloths. Bob is negative energy who often comes in the disguise of a problem. You can’t do that. You are not worth those clients. You have tried this before.

    The way I try to fix Bob is looking at his disguises and the forms he tries to enter the Board. Most of the time he enters through Fear, his last name.

    I wrote a piece about Bob Fear. Where I discovered that one way to conquer Bob Fear is through combining Hope, Courage and Action. Another one is by ignoring Bob. If you let him take control you are paralized. He will bring the mindstorm and take control of your mind and life.

    So next time check what disguise Bob Fear got this time. When you see Bob right in his eyes you will notice his is just a little boy who wants to rule your world and he keeps comming back all the time. He never gives up.

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