To understand the voice in your head, we need to know why it was there in the first place and how it operates.

In the last blog post we introduced the term “personal mind” to describe that part in our mind formed by impressions from past experiences. A newborn has no personal mind, everything is new and there is no established concept or belief. As soon as we begin to interact with the world, we gradually develop preferences to certain sounds, colours, shapes, smells and tastes, at the same time we also develop aversions towards what makes us uncomfortable.

Those are the things that have positively or negatively impressed us.

Obviously when we feel neutral towards an object or event, we are not “impressed”, and it does not leave an impression in our mind. In other words, we are okay with neutral objects, events and people, because they don’t evoke emotions in us. The voice in your head does not talk about them because there is no need to have any control with the experience when we are okay.

The trouble begins when things get out of control and we don’t like the outcome. But most of the time, we have no power over other people or events that happen. That is when the voice starts babbling, to narrate the world and establish some control over the “experience of reality”. Everything we perceive is filtered through our senses and personal mind, instead of the actual reality. The personal mind prefers to have some control over things that we can’t control, even if it is an illusion of control.

The voice would tell us “the grape must be sour anyway”, “that guy will pay for what he has done”, or “the worst thing won’t happen, hopefully”. What is going on is that the personal mind is constantly trying to protect the emotional heart like a little sister, using that kind of rationalisation through the voice in the head.

When we are not okay with the world, we don’t allow the emotion to pass through, but instead hold it inside our heart. We all know the feeling of holding an unreleased emotion; it constantly tries to rise up and cause more pain and trouble. Sometimes we manage to bury it and it is fine for a while, but sooner or later it will try to come up again.

The voice in your head further exacerbates the vicious cycle by using reasoning to suppress the emotion. But that would only make it worse because our willpower gives the emotion more energy by focusing on it.

When you are bothered by something, try to create distance from the voice while you are showering and watch it. How often do we lose focus when we have a lot on our mind? We might not even realise if we have finished our shower. But we can choose what we focus on by our willpower. There is a separation between us and the anger or the jealousy.

Beyond the voice in our head, there is our consciousness.

Next: The Seat of Consciousness