To keep your demons at bay, say this short little phrase, “I can’t hear you; I won’t fear you.”

Struggling with demons. We’ve all been there. We all have our ghosts that haunt our past. The ghosts that you think are only in the movies but in reality turn out to be right behind you, constantly. Ghosts are all around us whether you believe in them or not. And I’m not talking about ghosts like Casper or the ones in Ghostbusters; ghosts of our former selves, ghosts of former friends, ghosts of loved ones come and gone, ghosts of a flame that went out long ago. Ghosts both prohibit us from being who we are and who we want to be because the person we wanted to be seems to not be there anymore.

The first ghost is the most frightening of them all: The ghost of our former self.

The ghost of our former self scares us the most because we see a person that we once were. We see either a person with or without confidence. We see someone who was once proud and accomplished, now to be (look for word meaning not proud) and scared because of the events of the past. When we look in the mirror today we see a fragment of who we once were, a tiny sliver of our past self. The self that we desperately want to be. That self once lived and breathed the air of freedom and joy, but now is crumpled under the ashes of what once was your world.

The second ghost is a little less frightening: The ghosts of those past.

The ghost of those past are/is ghost(s) of loved ones, friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc.. who have gone before us who we hope to someday see again. We see their faces in pictures, in videos, and in our memories. We seem them before we go to bed, sometimes haunting us, wishing that we could have one more moment with them, but we never can.

The third ghost can be at times the most painful of them all: The ghosts of a past love.

Love is a short, one syllable word, but it is one of the most powerful words in every dictionary and language used around the world today. Love is thrown around alot and its meaning can sometimes be construed. Love is not something that you can buy, it is not something that you can make, rather, love is something that you cannot explain, it is unexplainable; it is contingent and can never be stopped, if it is true. If a love ends, it is not the end of the world, it is only the beginning. You may be haunted of love's former ghost, but all ghosts will finally be put to rest once the morning light shines bright through them.

Don’t let those ghosts stick around forever. They are only as powerful as you make them. Always stay proud and tall with a big smile on your face like I do. That's what they hate the most, your happiness. The more you allow them to be present in your life, the more they haunt. Ghosts may haunt you, but ghosts will come and go. You will rebuild yourself in due time and all of your problems will subside, and I believe in you. The only one that can truly put all of your ghosts, your demons, your spirits to rest, is you… So who are you going to call?