Are You Impressed?

Readers, a question: Have you ever heard—inside yourself—that little voice that narrates your daily life? I’m not always aware of mine but over the past week I’ve been able to hear it more and it’s getting my attention.

I’m not talking about the still, small voice of wisdom or the intuitive rumble somewhere between your solar plexus and belly…but more of a head (or head trip) voice that is coaching from the sidelines in a less than helpful way.

OK, let me step way out here on the end of the vulnerability diving board (Thanks Brene) and tell you that this little persistent voice of mine offers a pretty consistent commentary on what “they” think or worse, might, think of me. Sort of like this, “Well, when they see this, she’ll think that..” OR “If you have that (bag, book, dress, degree, credit …) he’ll see that….”.

The thing is that it’s a really soft but persistent voice…maybe cultural, maybe familial, maybe psychotic. Not really sure. What I am clear on though is that it’s consistency makes it hard to hear though its very subliminal nature makes it a powerful influence.

Now here is the counter-intuitive part: We are often told to get more quiet to hear our inner voice and I think that applies to the inner wisdom “still small voice” but this more active but low-toned nag (and it is a kind of nag) is heard best when I am busy—probably because that is when I am most worried and distracted. And its arsenal is distraction. In the same strange way I’m sure its intention is some kind of help. I do think that our character defects or quirks are all trying to help us in some way but this one grabs any form of insecurity and pumps it up.

So I’m trying to listen in more and see what this “are they impressed?” voice is all about. This is part of me—likely a strategy of a younger me—something to soothe the girl that felt so terribly, dangerously invisible years ago—but now? At 60? Really, who is it exactly that I want to see me?

And the spiritual remedy for this? Believing that a Higher Power really does see and care.

The Voice

I picked up Geneen Roth again today. Her newest book is called “Women, Food and God”. In the section I opened to she is writing about The Voice.

This isn’t unique to people with food issues or eating addictions. All addicts have a version of The Voice. Many non-addicted people have The Voice too—those of us in recovery recognized somewhere along the way that we were eating, drinking, shopping, starving, exercising or manically pleasing other people to quiet or mollify The Voice.

Roth writes that, “The Voice feels and sounds so much like you that you believe it is you. You think you are telling yourself the truth…the intention of the Voice is to stun you not to activate your intelligence…Its intent is to keep you from being thrown out of whatever it perceives as the circle of love.”

I’ve come to understand that my Voice is young—a younger part of me—kind of mixed with my mother’s fears and some crazy reasoning I cooked up as a kid—a young part of me that figured out—in a kid’s way of figuring—that if I could be prettier, thinner, smarter, then I would be loved. If loved then not left. If not left then safe.

Of course that young self only had access to limited experience and experiences that I saw thru its eyes and didn’t really understand. So I concocted a set of ideas that are still broadcasting into a 57 year-old head. It’s kind of charming and sweet in a way—that is when it’s not making me quite crazy or insisting that I have to keep EVERYBODY happy or else just use whatever is handy to not feel at all.

In AA we sometimes hear comments like, “My head will try to kill me”, or “My best thinking got me here.” Both true but not because the Voice is malevolent—it’s young, it thinks it can help, but we know better. That’s why we don’t give car keys and chain saws to six year olds.

Roth writes, “The Voice usurps your strength, passion and energy.”

Is there an antidote? Harry Potter learned one: Don’t listen to The Dementors. Don’t believe what they say; change your thinking when the dementors are around.

Writer Byron Katie has another way. She says, “I love my thoughts. I’m just not tempted to believe them.”

In AA when we hear someone new or a bit misguided we laugh and say, “Thanks for sharing” We can say that to the Voice also, and “Keep coming back.”

A Legion of Demons

I met with a spiritual director yesterday and talked with her about the ways that my old beliefs and negative thoughts torment me. For days I have been thinking about the story in Mark 5: 8 -16 where Jesus heals the “demoniac”. Isn’t that a great word?

Jesus speaks directly to the “demons” in the possessed man. “What is your name?” Jesus asks and the answer comes, “My name is Legion; for we are many.”

Now that is a case for Jesus as Psychotherapist I think. The legion of demons tormenting this man has to be old beliefs, schema, voices. The story says that the man is tied in chains and I understand that feeling when these old beliefs are hell bent on convincing me of my defectiveness and my deprivation.

But what is startling on re-reading this story is that Jesus does not talk to the man but he talks to the “demons” directly. The demons and Jesus have a conversation about what to do; where they can go, how to make this work. Jesus bypasses the man and goes right to Legion. What does that suggest in terms of steps 6 and 7? In terms of healing? In terms of being restored to sanity? And most powerfully, in terms of respecting the old parts of ourselves that once existed to help us but that now tie us up in chains?

Two Voices

My earliest recovery began with A Course in Miracles. I was visiting my sister in California (I had run away from another relationship), and my sister came home from her job as Director of Education at a church and mentioned that a woman at work was teaching a class in how to make miracles happen. Something in her casual comment was just odd enough and just right enough that I had to know more. My sister brought me some articles from this woman and handouts from the class. It turned out that the woman was teaching a class in The Course in Miracles.

When I returned to Baltimore I found a Miracles study group at Ruscombe Mansion. In that group were people who participated in 12 step programs. Today I know how common that is but back then it felt like its own miracle that I should find in the group the ticket to the next stage of my recovery.

Recently I picked up the book, “Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow” by Karen Casey. Since I have been working on changing my thinking this title seemed to fit right in line. Of course, in a few minutes reading, I realized that Karen Casey is a Course in Miracles teacher and many of her thought changing concepts come from practicing The Course.

In one chapter she talks about learning to hear BOTH of the voices inside us. She says:

“There are always two voices present in our minds. One of them is quite loud and will always misdirect our thinking and our actions. It’s the voice that keeps us stuck in old behaviors and feeds our fears, our anger and constant discontent. The other voice, which is just as present but so much quieter, is ceaselessly conveying words of love and gratitude and hope and kindness. It’s the voice that comforts us. This voice makes us whole and ready to embrace the lessons we know are waiting for us.”

The challenge is how to tune out or turn down the volume of the louder voice and tune in the softer gentler voice. Casey says, “It’s not difficult to do but it requires breaking old, well-honed habits.”

I know now that we have many names for these voices. The first, loud one is the schema, the critical voice, the inner critic or the old tapes. The second, softer voice is the voice of recovery, healing, God and the small still voice of intuition and wisdom. It is also the voice that is built in to counter the schema. Someday we will learn that the small voice is installed at the same time as the scary schema voice. We are always given the solution when we are given the problem. Figure and ground may shift but they have both always been there.