The Voice of our Thoughts

As human beings, we are constantly looking for an identification of who we are. Many of us identify ourselves with the voice that plays everyday in our own minds. It is as constant as breathing, blinking or many other aspects of our body we take for granted. However, unlike how we perceive our body, we often see the mind differently. We somehow feel that which makes us who we are IS the voice in our head.

So where do these voices in the mind come from? The right hemisphere of the brain is the aesthetics, feeling, and creative side and the left hemisphere the more logical thinking, analysis, and accuracy logical side. In her book  Sixth Sense, Dr Laurie Nadel describes the right hemisphere as being able to see a whole shoe, but cannot communicate the shoe (Nadel, 2006 P 12). The left hemisphere can only see the shoe in parts such as the heel, leather or lace, but the left hemisphere can communicate that this is a shoe and it goes on the foot. This means that right brain can understand subjects and objects as a whole, but cannot communicate the information. It needs to be sent to the left hemisphere to be tuned into a form of understood communication and conceptualized.

A wonderful and inspiring talk by the neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor (Website 1) describes how Jill ‘watched herself’ having a stroke, and lived to relate what happened inside her head during the brain hemorrhage. Only her left hemisphere was affected.  Which meant her right hemisphere was the only side fully functioning. She describes having to call for help but having to match the shapes of the number on the phone to the shapes on her business card. She also explains how when the phone was answered she could not understand herself talking and could not understand the person on the other end of the phone, as by now the right hemisphere of the brain was doing most of the work. Understanding this about the brain may indicate if there is a problem within the left hemisphere of the brain, the voice in our head can also be damaged, perhaps leading to mental illness.

We place great importance in what we feel about ourselves by what the head voice ‘thinks’ about who we are. Is this tour personality, so can we change who we are by simply changing our minds?

Dr. Eric Berne, author of Games People Play and originator of Transactional Analysis in psychotherapy, suggested this ego state can be broken into three head voices he called the 'parent, adult and child'.  Often the parent voice will mimic the major parental figure when going through childhood. This voice will still resonate into adulthood. The child voice would be the inner child, perhaps this voice would be a freighted child’s voice if the adult was un-nurtured as a child. The adult is more of a voice of balance in the group.

Looking at this mind module, it is possible to see how a childhood experience may have a bearing on how a person sees the world in adulthood. The inner parent voice may be critical and unloving. Becoming negative in the way a person feels about themselves. But even the parent adult and child voice can be broken down between a positive and negative outlook. A negative parent might say 'I can't believe you didn't get up early to get your work done, now you’re in trouble' A positive parent would say 'You needed that sleep, I trust you to get the work done in record time now you have rested. Your negative adult might say 'People are going to think you’re lazy' Your positive adult would say 'I don't care what people think, I know the truth'. Your negative child voice might say 'It's not fair! I want to stay in bed!' Your positive child voice would say 'let’s get up and play the game of life'.

Psychosynthesis has taken this idea further into the idea of Sub-personalities. In the book What We May Be by Piero Ferrucci, a well respected figure in the study of Psychosynthesis, he described the sub-personalities to be comparable to each of us having a crowd in the head:

“There can be the rebel and the intellectual. The seducer and the housewife, the saboteur and the aesthete, the organizer and the bon vivant – each with its own mythology, and all more or less comfortably crowded into one single person.”

These sub-personalities can be a very positive aspect of who we are as long as they are all kept in balance. Our ego is there to protect the physical body; it puts our needs first over other people in order to make sure we survive. Of course we can balance this ego with our love and higher intention. Our sub-personalities are balanced in much the same way. The ‘controller’ sub-personality needs to know when to back down in order to keep balance. At that point maybe the ‘pleaser’ personality will step forward.

We also have many levels and layers of consciousness. Some school of thought practices by hypnotherapist believe that we only have the conscious mind after the age of five year. Before that time we only have the subconscious, which is why our childhood influence can build our sub-personalities.  We have the superconscious mind to manifest good into our lives and lives of others, although the idea of the superconscious is still not fully understood. In the book Unlease your spiritual power and grow author Glyn Edwards describes the superconsciousness as “a state of internalized awareness that leads to supreme insight into one’s own nature.” (Edwards 2007 P21)

We also have a collective consciousness, a term of analytical psychology originally coined by Carl Jung. I see this to be a universal mind. These aspects of the subconscious mind bring remembered information or experienced information into the right hand side of the brain. This can be then sent to the left hand side and reserved as an ‘aha’ moment, where you don’t know quite how you know something, you just do.

Gangaji, an internationally known spiritual guru and guide, talks about the ‘awareness’ part of the mind. (website 2) Her idea is that, if you are depressed, there is an aspect of you that is aware that you are depressed, and that part of you is not depressed. If you are angry, there is an aspect of you that is aware that you are angry, but is not feeling that anger. Personally, I have discovered that if you have had too much wine, there is a part of you that is aware of being tipsy, that part of you is sober!

In conclusion, the real you is not your thoughts, those random messages we send out, but rather the thinker of those thoughts. You can put your thinker in control at any time. The thinker can stop the random thoughts and ideas of any sub-personality, recognize it for what it is, and think again. Putting in the replacement positive parent adult or child modal or sub-personality. This is especially useful if the voice in your head is being negative or destructive. Everyone deserves to be spoken to respectfully, even when it is by your own mind!

We are all used to having negative thoughts from time to time. But we can at any point transform our thoughts into being more positive and, in return, more powerful. I call this having an inner positive spin doctor. A spin doctor is used in politics to turn a bad political situation in to a good one for the press and image of the political party. Your life can be presented like a news broadcast. 'Today John Smith missed his train and narrowly made it into work on time. Critics say John Smith is showing signs of not being able to control his working day and are losing faith in his ability to be a successful human'.

Alternatively:

Today John Smith arrived bang on time for work despite having missed his train. Supporters say 'this proves John Smith has capacity to run for the position of God in the next election'. I doubt any of us want to be God, but a successful human definitely!

We fear criticism from others, but often give ourselves far worst critcism. We are not the voices in our heads, we are not our past events, we are the desertions we make about what happens to us and our judgments of the world around us.

If you were standing waiting to go on a rollercoaster, your palms might sweat, you might feel tightness in your body. One person would call this fear and another excitement. The symptoms are the same. It depends if you like rollercoasters. We can spin the way we think and therefore feel about ourselves with a different prospective. Almost turning the glass from half empty to half full.

The reason for doing this is to build faith in yourself. Without self faith we don't take valuable steps towards a better life. Faith allows us to reach a little higher for the things we want. Faith allows us to love a little deeper. When we believe in ourselves we live with our fear. This is achievable by changing how we interpret our day today accounts. Were we fools who missed the train, or amazing people for still arriving on time even although we missed the train.

The decisions we make about ourselves define who we are.

References

Dr. Berne, E. Year 1973 Games People Play Publisher Penguin Books

Ferrucci, P. Year 1982. What We May Be. Publisher Crucible.

Nadel, L. Year 2007. The Sixth Sense. Publisher iUniverse

Edwards, G. Year 2007 Unlease your spiritual power and grow Publisher Foulsham

Jung, C. Year 1912 On the Psychology of the Unconciousness Publisher Dover Publications

Websites

Website 1: www.ted.com

Web site 2: www.youtube.com