Awakening and Deepening: Voice in the Head
/By Marcia Wolff, M.A.
“Silence and winter have brought me to this otherness”
I remember becoming aware of the loud voice in my head. I was quite run by it, identified with it. I reacted to it like one would react to someone attacking me verbally; it gives orders, criticizes, shames, and drives me to take an action in a hurry-hurry way. But there was no one, just the voice in the head.
Are you crazy, you have a voice in your head? Are you hallucinating? Are you a little whacko? Well, not certifiably. However, when one begins to become aware of it, it really is a gift. Everyone has a voice in their head, but it does require taking notice of it. It can be so fast and one can react equally as fast that it goes unnoticed as it has been the Master of your actions, beliefs and attitudes for a long while. If you had a really happy, upbeat compassionate and loving childhood, it may not be so disturbing, but still it may not be authentically you. But if you have had a harsh, neglectful, abusive experience, your conditioned self (the ego) has stepped heavily in as a Guide and Master to steer you in, what it considers the right direction. Is it working for you?
It is a gift to recognize how this has become an abusive and invasive aspect in your life. It carries in it imprints from childhood, culture, and religion, gender and media. While a young infant, child and adolescent these beliefs have formed a potpourri of attitudes beliefs, conclusions about yourself, others and life itself and actions you take based on this internal environment. Until now, they have not been observed. But as you witness how it feels, how it speaks to you about you and others, you begin to see how asleep to it you have been, as we all have. Now this is a gift and a gift is something you receive with gratitude and hopefully you are ready for it.
It is also a gift, because as you begin to observe it, you begin to get distance from it, little by little. And this is a good thing. As you get distance from it, you begin to develop a little space. This space gives you time to listen within to a more appropriate response, something that is more authentic, more genuine and truer to who you are, something that is not a reaction on autopilot, something that quietly arises in you. It is sometimes called “the still, small voice.”
What do I mean by listening within? It means at first that you listen to the stillness behind the loud voice. How can you listen behind the voice? While meditation can be helpful, this silence and stillness is always there. When you wash the dishes, drive the car, even shopping for groceries, there is stillness within you. But, to cultivate this awareness of stillness, it helps to slow life down a little by not filling it with so much activity: not always having a phone in your ear, not having a television in your face, and not having music playing, not even reading a book, and not dawdling on the internet. Yikes! It might mean we allow for some unplanned space in our life. What would it be like to cut out so much input?
Maybe it sounds scary to listen within. Are we empty? Or would we have to hear the voice in our head? What if we hear judgments, criticism and other kinds of attacks? Our busyness may be trying to avoid it. Or our overeating and excessive drinking might be stuffing down some feelings and information we might need to know. While these learned outer actions can ultimately be self destructive, it does not mean we are immoral, weak or ignorant. It means we figured out a way, some time ago, to NOT hear them. Until now!
On my refrigerator I have two cartoons from the New Yorker magazine. One cartoon is a man walking his dog on a leash on a typical wide sidewalk in an urban downtown area, with large glass storefronts. It appears that the dog says to the man: “Do you want to listen to the voice in your head or to your best friend?” Think about it. Well if God is a triggering word for you,( dog spelled backwards,) and it might be, perhaps your intuition, your whole being, your higher self, your wisdom, the ground of your being would feel better. Or even your sixth sense.
The other is a cartoon where a guru sits on top of a mountain. A man climbs up the mountain to ask the guru about the meaning of life. The guru responds: “You do the hokey-pokey and you turn your self around, that’s what it’s all about.” And believe it or not, this is a very deep truth. The hokey-pokey is living from your conditioned self where you are run by the voice in your head. You turn your self around is your beginning to make space inside to listen within to a deeper guidance that is wise with loving kindness, clarity and genuine good guidance, your true self. My question to you is this? Do you want to cultivate this in yourself, this otherness who is you? It is waiting for you to become silent and to listen within.
