This essay,
Me And The Voice In My Head,
is the companion piece to
Voice? What Voice?.
I am indebted to Nancy Froio who inspired this conversation.
Typically if someone says "I hear a voice in my head", they're regarded
as crazy. We label them schizophrenic.
But if you tell the truth about it, perfectly normal people - like
you for example - hear a voice in their head all the
time. In fact, if you really tell the truth about the
voice in your head, you do much more than merely hear it:
you identify with it. For you, the voice in your head
is you.
We regard the voice in our head as "I" - "I" as in the phrase "I
think ...". And do you know that's what's really
crazy: when you regard the voice in your head as yourself, when
you regard the voice in your head as who you really are.
If I'm not the voice in my head, then who am I? I mean
really?Who I really amlike an opening is the space in which the events of my
life occur.
Who I really amlike a possibility is complete rapid response
communication - everyone is transformed with no one and nothing left
out.
Who I really amlike a commitment is the start of these
Conversations For
Transformation
and the space of their ongoing completion and fulfillment.
Setting sail on the voyage of discovery of who you really
are (in other words embarking on the freshman years of
Transformation 101) requires a certain willingness to
shift what you identify yourself as away from the voice in
your head on which, by habit, by societal agreement, and by cultural
norm, it's been centered probably since the time you were born and
almost certainly since the time you learned to speak.
If you observe it but don't take it seriously, pretty soon it starts to
lose its grip. Like a radio on in the background, you know it's there
but you don't pay much attention to it. You get on with your life. The
radio's on.
So what?!"
There's background muzak while you work. Who you are
really, like a commitment, is fully engaged, fully in play. The
voice in your head is just static. And even if the radio's
clear, everyone knows it's not the voice of a real person
in the room with you. Everyone knows it's just on the radio.
There's no rules about this. The voice in your head is neither a bad
nor a good thing. It's often mis-identified with who you really
are. By habit (plus a certain amount of miseducation and a few
erroneous inferences), we got to identify with the voice in our head in
the first place. Conversely, through healthier habits and prudent
education, the erroneous mis-identification is shifted.
Even as you do that, remember you don't have to. There's
nothing wrong
with the voice in your head.
It's OK the way it is.
It's just not you. That's all. It's just not "I" as in the
phrase "I think ...". At worst, don't identify with it. At best,
distinguish it from who you really are: an opening, a
possibility, a commitment.
Me and the voice in my head have a great relationship. We get along
famously.
I am who I am, and the voice in my head is the voice in my head. I let
it be, and it lets me be. It's like the perfect tenant: once I've let
the space, I hardly notice he's there.