Taming and Befriending the Voices in Our Heads

“There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
“I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.”
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What’s right for you — just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.” — Shel Silverstein

What’s your relationship to the voices in your head?

Is your inner voice one of encouragement like a best friend or trusted advisor? Or is it a bully who torments and belittles you, making you feel less than? Or maybe it’s squirrel or monkey-like in nature, a source of constant distraction. Or maybe it’s a three-ring-circus with a cast of characters taking turns in the spotlight of your mind.

Well, “I don’t know about your brain, but mine is really bossy.”

I remember hearing those lyrics from Laurie Anderson’s “Baby Doll” from her album Strange Angels” and feeling like she knew me. I suddenly had words for something I’d been experiencing inside my head for as long as I could remember. That my brain was loud and really, really bossy and that I was not alone in feeling this way.

We Can Redefine our Relationship to the Voices in our Heads for Mental Wellness

I’ve been fascinated by human dynamics for as long as I can remember, including those between us and the voices in our heads. I remember reading an article about a Stanford research study which suggested that these voices vary across cultures with Americans experiencing these inner vocalizations as hostile and threatening — like assaults from persons unknown — while subjects in India and Africa had more positive, playful, personal relationships with the entities at play in their heads. The findings spawned a new approach to treatment inviting individuals suffering from schizophrenia to name and build relationships with the voices to mitigate harm.

Though the study focused on people suffering from psychosis, the idea that our cultural programming shapes the tone and content of our inner voices and that we can redefine our relationship to them to improve our emotional wellness resonates — and has broader relevance because, as I’ve learned through extensive family experience, mental health is a continuum, not a binary.

Mental Health: A Continuum not a Binary

On a visit with my brother during his decades-long US tour of locked facilities, I found myself alone in a conference room as I often did, waiting for Jonathan to be brought in, when a riot broke out. A staff member rushed in, informed me that they would be locking the door from the outside — locking me in for my safety! — then left. Outside a full on melee was unfolding. I could hear shouting and screaming and could see people running up and down the halls through the tiny window in the door, the only aperture in an otherwise windowless space, my unpadded cell.

It was deeply unsettling and what kept me calm was the terrifying thought that if I freaked out, someone in charge might think I deserved a longer stay and I wouldn’t be allowed to leave. In that moment I realized that there wasn’t a big difference between me and the distressed beings on the other side of the door. I suddenly saw mental health as a continuum, rather than a binary of sane/insane — and recognized that under the right set of circumstances, there for the grace of God could go I.

Can’ts, Shoulds, and Don’ts

For the first half of my life, the voices in my head were those of self criticism and self-doubt — a litany of cant’s shoulds and don’ts — and though they were relentless, they thankfully didn’t rise to the level of psychosis. They sounded a lot like that of my loving but anxious, self-critical, and risk-averse mother. I know now that these inner voices were just trying to keep me safe — cautioning me not to dream too big out of fear of failure and ridicule — but they created self-limiting beliefs and made me feel less than.

Sometime around my mid twenties, I’d finally had enough. I realized that they weren’t serving me and made it a practice of noticing when they showed up, thanking them for their concern, and choosing an alternate perspective. A practice which British professor of psychology Charles Fernyhough calls “dialogic thinking”. Basically talking to yourself lol. Through decades of inner work and a lifelong practice of conquering fear, these voices have largely quieted down. Don’t get me wrong, they still get activated from time to time but they’re no longer acting in leading roles.

My Inner Comedy Club

In my 30s, my inner voices became more like a live stand up comedy show — a constant, hilarious commentary on the world unfolding around me. I could keep myself entertained for hours and it took work not to burst out laughing in response to this playful, irreverent inner monologue. It had the added benefit of creating a wealth of material to entertain others I met along my journey. This inner voice could get really out of hand and I had to work at grounding and quieting her the f**k down to allow the other aspects of my psyche to develop.

Cue the Inner DJ

Another feature (or bug) of my overly active grey matter is that there is always music. Music that often spills out of my brain and into humming which drove my most recent lover bananas and at times has a similar effect on me.

I’m starting to think that this inner DJ has ADD and possibly a problem with crystal meth, spinning never-ending, annoyingly repetitive sets in the dancehalls of my mind. And boy, does this disc jockey have range: lounge, club hits, kirtan, oldies, show tunes, ad jingles from my childhood, you name it, it’s playing on my inner WADD, Voice of Distraction Radio. And all in fragments that play as if on a looping machine.

It might be the last song I heard in a store, the music from an ad or a show I’m watching, or the ringtones of my phone. There’s no apparent rhyme of reason though at one point I imbued the DJ with psychic powers and tried to read the messages hidden in the songs. One of the DJ’s go tos is from My Fair Lady, “All I want is a room somewhere. Far away from the cold night air. With one enormous chair. Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly?” Perhaps my soul’s longing to be taken care of. A body worker recently commented on my humming and when I explained this all to her, she offered that perhaps it’s a form of self soothing. Whatever it is, it’s quite unconscious.

Life as a Mindfulness Practice

Behavioral change happens when we make the unconscious conscious — noticing, curiously exploring, and offering it our loving witness — engaging with the energy directly rather than having negative thoughts about it which only compounds the issue. What the Buddhists call the second arrow of suffering. My inner music is painful enough in and of itself, my thoughts and judgements about it just intensify my suffering.

I’ve started to try to be more playful with it, engaging with this mysterious inner disc jockey in hopes of quieting it. I laugh at it, wonder at it, and occasionally slip into sighing at it, anything but fuming about it. Doing my best not to make it worse. I know DJs hate it when you make requests, but I’ve started to talk to it in hopes of befriending it. When a song comes on, I thank it, ask it what it wants, ask if it might be willing to take a break.

Recently during a walk on the beach, I decided to see if some of the mindfulness strategies I’ve been learning from Tara Brach in my now daily meditation practice might be helpful. Specifically the practice of tuning into the sounds around you to fully embody the present moment. As I walked, I turned my attention to the waves — the roar and crash of the break zone, the fizzing of the water as it flows up the sand — and to the splash, thud of my feet walking barefoot through the surf in my version of the Wim Hof method which I call Half Hof though it’s really more like a 1/4 to 1/3 Hof :) (Thank you inner comedian for this gift that made me giggle!).

Thank You For the Music

My applied mindfulness techniques are having impact and, like all new practices, it will take time for this chosen response to my inner DJ to become habitual and create meaningful change. Rather than bemoaning this inner soundtrack and feeling like its victim, I am grateful for the opportunity for self-evolution and growth and the invitation to redefine my relationship to this and other inner voices. Ironically or perhaps fittingly, the current song is ABBA’s “Thank You for the Music”.

Thank you for music where once there was a cacophony of criticism and self doubt.

Thank you for the opportunity for applied mindfulness — to, in the words of Tara Brach, recognize, allow, inquire, and nurture what comes up — that allows me to heal and grow.

Thank you for the insight that we can choose to change our relationship to our inner voices, to tame and befriend them rather than living at their mercy.

What’s your relationship like to your inner voices?

Are you loving or hating on yourself?

Celebrating and affirming or judging and shaming?

Saying I can or I can’t?

One of the biggest acts of self-care — one that is entirely free of charge and universally available 24x7x365 — is to notice the tone and content of our inner peanut gallery and choose to redefine our relationship to it, reshaping our core narratives and our experience of ourselves.

Over time, with practice, you’ll find you develop the ability to hear the wise one within that Shel Silverstein speaks of.