Taming The Inner Voice: Part 2

The following article is Part 2 of a 2-part series about taming our inner voices. Part 2 is about using awareness and technique to realise that there is another inner voice inside us.

My Discovery

As detailed in Part 1 of Taming The Inner Voice, it wasn’t until I realised what my inner voice was comprised of that I could take action to limit its power over me. But despite my efforts to quieten the inner voice, I couldn’t create silence in my mind. Instead of the inner director running the show, another voice popped up instead. This voice was kinder and more loving, able to support me through my errors and failures.

As the days went on, I continued my journey down this new path. The more I was persistent in my awareness of my inner critic, and the more I attempted to silence him, the more the ‘other voice’ appeared instead. Although I couldn’t achieve silence, I could achieve calming thoughts instead.

Where had this voice come from? I knew it was ‘me’, but unlike my inner critic, it wasn’t comprised of voices from my past. This new voice was 100% me – of this I had no doubt.

Then I realised something else – if this voice had always been ‘me’, and had always been inside of me, then had it been part of me since I was born? Was it my own pure voice?

It was the only explanation I could think of – this voice that was comforting to listen to, was my ‘loving voice’, the voice that had been with me ever since I was born, and perhaps even before that. Once I reached this explanation (despite the protests of my inner critic), I was able to understand something new about myself – there are two voices in the mind, not one.

And so began an attempt to balance the use of each two voice. Each time I began to hear the inner critic in my mind, I began to tame it, and without fail, I could start to hear the loving voice again. I could hear the voice reminding me that everything is exactly where it needs to be, and that there’s no need to stress myself over something that’s out of my control. The inner director tried to convince me that this was all stupid, but now that I knew its source, I no longer believed it.

The balance between the two voices is now a lot more even, and I am thankful that I’ve been able to reach this point in my life. But before I go on and detail the process I went through, I feel some more explanation is necessary.

The Two Voices

There are two voices that everybody has available to use – the critical voice and the loving voice. These can best be represented by the images of a tiny devil and tiny angel standing on each of our shoulders, both whispering in our ears trying to influence our next course of action. Each voice wants us to listen to what it says, and will use past experiences as a motivator.

However, due to the scars from some of our past experiences, the ‘devil’ voice often wins out. This is because the past experiences we are likely to remember the most are those that have had the biggest impact on our thinking. A time when we were severely scolded by our parents is going to have more of an effect on us than a time when we played with our friends at school.

Why is this? Why do we unconsciously tend to remember the ‘negative’ events more than the ‘positive’? I believe this is because of our human nature. When we are young, before the world influences us, we fully believe that the world and everyone in it are good. For the first years of our life, we are pure and innocent, happily playing with any new thing that comes our way, and loving everyone we come into contact with. We take for granted that everyone loves each other, and no-one would ever do anything to hurt anyone.

The Emergence Of The Inner Critic

Life goes on, and we start to experience circumstances and events that hurt us emotionally, verbally, or sometimes even physically. When this happens, we start to doubt the goodness of the world. People that we loved, such as our teachers and parents, don’t appear as pure as they used to, and this makes us doubt.

We start to doubt others and whether they truly love us, which in turn leads us to start to doubt ourselves. We start to lose the ability to love ourselves unconditionally – if others say that we’re stupid, or we can’t achieve something, then we may start to think they’re right. We look up to them for guidance and love, so if they cut off the supply, then we lose out. And when that happens, the inner critic emerges to work its awful magic.

The voice we have been using before is that of the ‘loving voice’, the ‘kind voice’. It helps us through our first learning experiences and ensures we keep a healthy curiosity for the world. But when the critical voice, the inner critic starts to speak up, it starts to dominate our internal conversations, to the point where (often into adulthood) we can no longer hear our kind voice speak. And as illustrated in Part 1, the inner critic isn’t friendly to us.

To use the devil/angel example, the devil can say whatever he/she wants, whilst the angel has been silenced with tape.

Letting The Loving Voice Speak Again

This stage is where most people are at. We can no longer hear our angel because we’ve become accustomed to listening to our devil – our devil is directing the show.

And the worst thing is we can’t do anything about it – as it’s all we’ve known for the longest of times, we can’t remember the early years of our life where there was no inner critic. So if we can’t remember a time of pure joy in our lives, how can we think there’s anything wrong with our current reality?

So how do you tame that pesky ‘inner director’ long enough to let your loving voice come back to you? Here’s what I learned:

Take Back Your Control

The greatest thing we can do for ourselves is to realise that we can choose how we react to any given situation. Just because something happens that isn’t intended, doesn’t mean that we ‘automatically’ have to react negatively to it.

Don’t let your inner director run the show any more. Whenever that voice appears in your mind without warning, challenge it. Challenge why this voice is saying what it’s saying. Remind yourself that you have a choice, and that you can treat any event as a learning curve rather than a failure. Take back the control of your own life, and support your loving voice.

Find A Positive Aspect To Everything

The ‘devil voice’ in us doesn’t speak positively. Anything that this voice says is designed to put you down, and to make you feel like you have insurmountable limits. This doesn’t breed positive behaviour.

Instead, realise that we aren’t given positive thoughts – we have to create them. Positivity is a trait that comes from within us, nowhere else. Find the positive aspect of something, anything, and bring it to the forefront of your mind. Focus on it for as long as it’s necessary, and feel the change in your thinking.

Keep The Awareness Going

As I mentioned in Part 1, there are two keys to restoring the balance between our two voices – awareness and persistence. We have to possess an awareness of where our inner critic is controlling our thoughts and behaviours, and we have to be persistent in our awareness.

No matter how hard it may seem at times, we must continue to be aware. We have gotten used to our ‘devils’ running the show for too long – it’s time to let the ‘angels’ have a chance at guiding us.

I’d like to thank you for reading this 2-part series, and I hope that you have been able to use some of what I’ve written. Keep possessing the awareness and the persistence, and realise that there is nothing wrong – you are exactly where you need to be.

 

Image courtesy of DEVsGoons.com