Inner Voices, Outer Voices
How do you choose which thoughts to speak out loud?
I have always been fascinated by the inner voices we humans have. How do you talk to yourself, in the quiet of your own head? Are you polite? Supportive? Critical? I’ve titled my blog Inner Voices, Outer Voices because I want to explore what we’re really like inside, how we express ourselves and why. Positive, functional identities and relationships are crucial to a happy, healthy life, and I hope that people reading this might find it helpful to develop their voice and feel more confident about expressing themselves.
In addition to our own inner monologue, there are the different parts of ourselves that come to the fore in different circumstances or relationships. Some people assume that when we talk about different voices in our heads we’re referring to mental illness or a dissociative disorder: while that is an interesting topic, what I mean when I talk about different voices is when a mentally healthy person argues with themselves.
This is an example of cognitive dissonance, a term first coined by Leon Festinger (A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 1957), which involves thinking or believing two different things at the same time: part of me wants the biscuit. Part of me tells me not to. I can have a whole inner debate about biscuits (and frequently do), and both of those voices are me.
The fact that we’re capable of such cognitive dissonance is amazing, and my background as a therapist and counsellor has given me a great interest in how to make these different voices work for us, rather than miring us in unproductive conflict.
Once we’re clear on what we’re saying to ourselves in the privacy of our own heads, we have to decide what to say out loud, for others to hear, i.e. externalise our inner voice.
What do we choose to say? And more interestingly, what do we choose not to say? Which subjects are taboo, not just culturally but with specific people in our lives, and why? What are we comfortable talking about, or not? Sometimes we’re very comfortable expressing one inner voice out loud, but not others.
Developing your voice as a person can be very difficult — especially for those who have been silenced in the past, by society, controlling relationships, their own inner critic or low self-esteem. Learning to recognise what we think and feel, and then being able to say that with confidence, is crucial to our developing personhood over a lifetime.
Your voice is the most precious, fundamental thing about you. It’s how you express and share yourself with the world — and I for one would absolutely love to hear what you have to say. Please leave a comment below if you are interested in this topic.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
