Your Time Traveling Inside Voice
Since late September, I’ve been taking an online meditation course. I’ve long wanted to deepen my meditation practice, and knew I needed support to make myself sit for longer periods of time.
Meditating for longer periods of time means I get to spend some quality time with my inside voice. Not my inner voice, which is what my soul is trying to tell me, but the inside voice; the one that gets in the way; the one I use to talk to myself; my inner critic. You know the one - that voice that tells you you’re not good enough, that you need people to like you, that you should go to the gym and you just really need to get your shit together and figure out life. Oof. That voice.
For most of my life, my inside voice has been my biggest critic and contributor to my anxiety and perfectionism. In my early 30s, when it was particularly ruling my life, my anxiety would be so bad that I could not pick myself up off the couch to get ready for work without feeling like I might throw up. Thankfully, I found resources to help (therapy and medication to start; coaching and thought work later) and that voice has quieted down.
Here’s the thing about your inside voice: It’s lying to you.
Your inside voice is made up of thoughts; some very deeply a part of your story. But your thoughts are not always true. And 99% of the time, our thinking brains are either traveling forward and worrying about the future, or traveling backward and reliving something in the past.
If you are up all night worrying about a presentation tomorrow, you are worried about the future. If you are thinking about whether you handled a conversation the right way with your child or coworker, you are reliving the past. Our brains looove to time travel.
So, what to do? How do we stop time traveling? How do we recognize our inside voice for what it is?
First, therapy when you need or want it or if anything feels like too much (please hear me on this and get help if you are feeling overwhelmed).
Second, stay present. I know - I say it all the time. But it works! When your brain is in the present moment, you are not traveling forward or backward.
There are a lot of ways to bring yourself back to the present moment (as I tell you all the time!). Here are two of my favorites:
Focus on your feet on the ground. Really feel into them and try to breathe in and out through your feet. You could also choose another body part; just make sure it’s not your head. We all spend enough time up there.
Take three complete breaths. I learned this at Kripalu. First, breathe in and let it out with a sigh like you’re letting everything go. Then breathe in first to your stomach and lower ribs, then up through your heart space and all the way up to your collarbones. Let the breath out slowly in the reverse order (collarbones to stomach). Here’s a video to show you how. I do this all the time throughout the day.
The great thing is that you can do these techniques without anyone noticing. I often take a few complete breaths before a meeting, or before a difficult conversation, or when I am in a negative thought loop. If you find yourself spinning out scenarios in your head, or Thanksgiving dinner goes pear-shaped, no one will know if you start focusing on your feet. But you’ll know, because you will feel calmer and better able to focus on what’s in front of you. It’s miraculous!
But the biggest thing that’s helped me? Learning to love my inside voice as part of me. Treating my inside voice with kindness. Recognizing when I’m speaking to myself harshly and then welcoming with affection the thoughts underneath that harshness. Because it’s all part of me.