What is this voice in my head?
My takeaways part 1 from Michael A. Singer's "The Untethered Soul"
The first theme I would like to dive into is what Michael Singer calls “voice in your head”. He refers to it as the thing that “never shuts up,” when left to its own devices, “just keeps talking”. The reason for the existence of this constant chatter within your head is as follows:
Firstly, an energy build-up within yourself needs to be managed somehow. Your being tries to decrease the psychological uneasiness of nervous, fearful or insecure energy by talking about it excessively internally. It attempts to release the energy build-up with this chatter to revisit a place of psychological peace.
The second reason for this internal voice is based on the fact that it allows your mind to interpret the world around you in the exact way it wishes to do. By narrating the world by itself, it can leave out all the components it does not deem exciting or relevant to you whilst emphasising the parts it does. Therefore, you are not really experiencing reality as it is, but rather your mental interpretation pre-processed by the voice in your head. All this allows your mind to enter the illusion of control over the outside world. Consequentially, the more need for control and predictability you have, the stronger the voice in your head will become, and the more you will experience a distorted view of reality.
Mr Singer presents the internal voice as a “buffer” against reality that lets you feel more capable than you are whilst disallowing you access to the beauty of reality in front of your eyes.
The way out of this mental enslavement is what Singer refers to as “true personal growth”, encapsulating the transcendence of this voice by actively reminding yourself that you are not the voice in your head. You are the observer of this inner chatter; you are not involved in it or owe it any attention. By objectifying the inner voice, you can distance yourself from it, eventually leading to this voice becoming less dominant and you taking over your interpretation of reality. From there on, you are mentally free.
On that note, closing this piece.
In delight,
Yours truly.
References:
Singer, M. A. (2007). The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself. In Amazon (Illustrated edition). New Harbinger Publications/ Noetic Books. https://www.amazon.com/Untethered-Soul-Journey-Beyond-Yourself/dp/1572245379
//This is my first attempt at sharing my post-reading routine when having digested an enlightening book correlated to the topics I talk about here on Substack.
I hope you pick up value for yourself and get curious about reading them yourself. It’s recommended, naturally.