The Voice Inside Your Head

Do you know that voice in the back of your head that constantly replays conversations you had and what you could have said differently? The voice that reminds you of all the dreams you haven’t realized yet? The voice that is hell-bent on making sure you don’t forget all your past failures and current shortcomings?

Of course you do. We are all too familiar with it.

Following is one of my favorite quotes on the root of that voice, from Eckhart Tolle:

The mind is constantly looking for food for its identity, its sense of self. This is how the ego comes into existence and continually re-creates itself.

When each thought absorbs your attention completely, it means you identify with the voice in your head. Thought then becomes invested with a sense of self — this is the ego, the mind-made me. Fearing and wanting are its predominating emotions and motivating forces.

When you recognize there’s a voice in your head that pretends to be you and never stops speaking, you’re awakening out of your unconscious identification with a stream of thinking.

When you notice that voice, you realize that who you are is not the voice (the thinker) but the one who is aware of it. Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is freedom.

Momentary Freedom From Mind

When we are all wrapped up in our daily trivialities, it's good to remind ourselves once in a while that all the drama is a fictional story created by a mentally constructed self.

And the mere fact that you can observe and listen to it means it's not you.

So we learn to see the inner voice for what it is — a story loop stuck in the past, fearful of the future, desperately looking to escape reality. And we recognize what an unreliable narrator we all have doing our voice-over.

The truth of this statement is a hard pill to swallow, but creates a (momentary) feeling of freedom that is hard to match.