Voices in Our Head

It is one of those things that sounds a bit insane, but the reality is it applies it all of us. In fact, it is true of all of us. That being the case, I guess that does not make it or us insane after all. What I am talking about are the voices in our head. They are there for all of us. At times, what they say is sensible, sensitive, forthright, courageous and dispassionate. Other times, they are totally off-the-wall, inappropriate, mean, petty and spiteful. Our challenge, of course, is to wade through our inner noise box and ultimately decide which voice or voices to listen to and which ones to ignore. Sometimes that is easy and sometimes not.


The choice we make is ultimately driven by a kind of "voice vote" in our head. Those deciding include the intellectual part of our brain, the emotional part, the morale part, and external voices that have infiltrated our psyche. Each of these entities can represent one or a few voices or many. Given that cast, it is easy to see why sometimes we have trouble making up our mind about an issue or even determining what exactly it is we want to say about it. One can also understand why, at times, what we eventually do say does not always represent the best of our thinking. After all, with all those voices in our head, particularly when they all have strong opinions, it is no wonder responses we finally do emit sometimes need to be amended.


No question about it: communication is a complicated act. As tempting as it might be, it is important that we do more than at least consider the voices representing our own emotions and intellectual base. Ones that originated from others must be given equal time, too. This is important if our ultimate communication goal is to be heard and establish a connection with another. That means the voices that originate in other's heads must be weighed along side those that come from us. No question about it, that is a lot for any of us to wade through. But the good news it is a process that we all share.