Tell me who are you?
I can remember a turning point with the voices in my head. It was around 2011, after reading The Power of Now, and having spent one of the worst summers of my life. It was right before my boss had called to say they were laying me off at the end of that year, but I had felt that career path coming to an end for a long time.
The summer had been spent in a constant state of agitation – the house needed, the bills needed, the animals needed, everything and everyone needed something from me and I was running very low on resources. The thought of ending it all was pervasive and I daydreamed about walking into the bayou with stones in my pockets. I would sit on my sofa in a half catatonic state and wonder how I would get through the day.
That’s when another voice entered my head – a kinder and gentler voice, which made me realize there was a constant voice in my head that had a very ugly slant on the world. The one that said when you looked in the mirror – you look horrible, you’re fat, you’re getting old, you’re wrinkled, you’re hair looks like hell, those clothes look ghastly on you. It was that voice that this new voice started responding to – “Stop it!” “That’s not nice.” “Shut up!”
And after a while this new voice started showing up more – it was my new friend – my avatar – who would yell and curse the other voice. Back and forth this Battle Royale played out in my thoughts. And sometimes I was so amused by this new voice, I would actually laugh out loud.
As I got to know the new voice, I got to really know the old voice and was sort of shocked by how long that old nagging and negative voice had been haunting my thoughts. And I would let the two go at it for minutes or hours or even days on end. And after a while the nicer, kinder, gentler voice – the friend in my head – started gaining more strength.
But it wasn’t until I learned how to silence both of these voices that I found peace. I had a handful of events in my life where I had remembered utter joy and I was trying to find out how to replicate them. It wasn’t until I read The Power of Now that I realized those joyful moments had occurred because I had been utterly present.
The negative voice lives inside all of us – it isn’t because my childhood was any more unhappy than any other person, or that I have less self confidence or more problems than others. It is the negative voice that accumulates over time and gets rusty and creaky and really annoying for most of us. The friendly voice is more prominent in some people than others, but it isn’t necessarily the panacea to the negative one because honestly I was exhausted listening to the two of them, day in and day out.
True peace comes from banishing all of these voices and thoughts and just being. Pushing aside regrets from the past, not indulging fears of the future, but being totally present in this moment in your life. That is joy – nirvana – peace.
I’m inclined to say that spending your money or time trying to figure out why you have a negative voice(s) is worthless. Even if you invite in a friendly voice, you still won’t find peace. Don’t worry about where these thoughts come from or what they mean – they don’t mean anything – you are simply giving them a stage and an audience in your mind. They are thoughts – as worthless as the vapor they rode in on.
It is learning to silence all thought and learning to be present that has brought me the most joy and peace.