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Fighting With Your Inner Self
Dealing with the little voice inside your head.
I read an interesting book this past month called Last Ape Standing by Chip Walter. One of the chapters that intrigued me is called “The Voice Inside Your Head”. In the chapter, he refers to a question penned by Douglas Hofstadter who wrote: “What is a self and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle?”
The stuff he is talking about is our brain, the jelly-like mass between our ears as he quotes: “that makes it possible for you to walk, breathe, see, smell, speak, reflect and imagine”.
In our waking moments, we all talk to ourselves. That little voice is called inner speech, and you can hear it when you’re thinking or silently reading. When inner speech is occurring, your larynx is actually making tiny muscular movements. Often we are critical of ourselves, other times praising. Often we just talk nonsense. How many times have you screwed up on something and said words to the effect: “You idiot. What did you do that for?”
Quieting that voice inside your head is not an easy task. I know. I have worked at it for a long time and rather than…
