That Voice Chattering inside Your Head is not Who You Are

Alan Watts’ teaching on this is dead on.

Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider on Unsplash

Here we go again, gang. Time for another exploration of that pesky voice in our head that refuses to shut up.

If you’re wondering why I write about this topic, it’s because understanding it is essential for our overall well-being and advancement on the spiritual path. Why? Because that voice, and our succumbing to its insistence that it is who we are, is the core problem facing virtually every human on Earth.

The Eloquent Alan Watts

Today’s angle on the voice comes from Alan Watts, a mid-20^th century British teacher-philosopher. The writings and lectures of Watts, who died in 1973, pop up all over the spiritual landscape.

Until recently I didn’t pay him much heed, as I found Watts to be a bit too glib, in addition to being a heavy drinker and womanizer. I know that may sound judgmental, but I’ve always been drawn to teachers who not only talked the talk but walked the walk; people like Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass and Michael Singer.

But I listened to a talk of his last week and was blown away by its eloquence and comprehensiveness. Here’s one snippet that I found particularly powerful:

“The voice in your head was shaped by parents, teachers, religion, culture and society. It learned what to approve and condemn. What to desire and what to avoid. It is not born from your essence; it is built from repetition. And yet, because it speaks in the first person, you mistake it for truth.”

So much there. Where to start?

What the voice is

First, let’s zero in on what the voice is, and what it isn’t. It is not the act of thinking. When we’re at the grocery store trying to remember what we’re out of at home, those are what I call voluntary thoughts. We’re asking our minds to produce thoughts that we need.

The voice in the head is specifically about involuntary thinking. By that I mean, we’re sitting at our desk looking out the window and the next thing we know we’re in a thought stream about how mad we are at our spouse for…fill in the blank.

We didn’t ask our mind to start thinking these thoughts. They just start happening.

And, as Watts said, those random, involuntary thoughts we have are “…shaped by parents, teachers, religion, culture and society.”

The impatient husband example

How? Let’s use the spousal rumination example.

Let’s say it’s a husband looking out the window, seething because his wife said she’d be home from the grocery store ten minutes ago. She left him with their four-year-old daughter…for what was supposed to be a half hour that has now turned into forty minutes. His voice won’t shut up with thoughts of how inconsiderate she is…because she’s all of ten minutes late.

Why is his voice so adamant about this? For starters, his father treated his mother as if she were his employee. Why was his father like this? Because his father treated his grandmother the same way.

And why did all of these men treat their wives like this? Because the religion they were raised in taught that women were to be subservient to men. Cementing this treatment even further is the fact that they all grew up in a country where everyone practiced this religion, so all the men treated women this way.

Back to the husband staring out the window. He didn’t say to himself, “Okay, let’s start a thought stream about how mad I am at my wife.”

The thoughts came involuntarily

No. He just looked out the window of his home office and the voice started talking. And the thoughts that the voice created were shaped by his parents, religion, culture and society.

Of course, not every thought stream our voice in the head creates is shaped by all of those influences, but you get the drift.

Watts gives us the key to liberation, enlightenment, inner peace – call it whatever you want – in the first part of the third sentence:

“It is not born from your essence…”

Meaning? The voice in our heads is not who we are. It is not our essence, our deep “I”, our true conscious self…

Believing that the voice is who we are is, as stated at the top, the central affliction plaguing humanity. Why do all of us succumb to believing this?

As Watts goes on to say about the voice:

“…because it speaks in the first person, you mistake it for truth.”

The husband’s voice says,

“I can’t believe how inconsiderate she is!”

The voice says “I” can’t believe…But that “I” is not who he is. Again, that “I” is just something his mind created out of all his experiences and influences throughout his life.

The first step toward liberation for him, and for all of us, is realizing that this voice is not who he is.

Great. Once we do that, what’s step number two?

Step two: Observe the voice

We begin the process of observing the voice. We just watch it in action.

Who watches? Our consciousness. Our awareness. Which is our true self.

In our example, the husband would notice the fury that the voice has wrought on his being and say to himself,

“The voice in my head is furious that my wife is ten minutes late. What’s that about?”

With even a modicum of self-awareness, he’d realize that the origins of this reaction emanate from his parental, religious and cultural background.

Fine. So he notices that. Then what? He simply keeps observing what the voice is saying.

Critically, he does this without judgment. Meaning, he doesn’t say to himself,

“Jeez, I’m such a jerk for feeling this way. And so are my parents and my religion and my country…”

That doesn’t help. The voice is not an enemy to be destroyed. It is a fearful, insecure, often angry entity lodged deep in our beings that needs, above all else, our compassion.

So that’s what we do. We just watch the voice and continue seeing it for what it is…

An enormous pot of soup created by our mind/chef, comprised of ingredients bought at a grocery store that sells only our life experiences. Each time life pokes us, we take a spoonful of soup and devour it.

The good that comes from observing the voice

But if we get poked and simply look at the soup without eating it…What happens then?

Over time, often many years, that pot of soup gradually evaporates. And the voice becomes more distant. More faint.

And as that happens, the influence over our being shifts from the voice to our conscious, true self. Which manifests as equanimity, peace and centeredness.

At the end of the day, what this is about is developing a relationship with the voice in your head. Observing it. Seeing what it likes to ruminate on. Being curious about it.

The more we do this, the more we realize that this voice isn’t us. It’s just another object that our consciousness (the subject) places attention on. We come to realize that the voice is no different than looking at yellow tulips or listening to leaves rustling in the wind.

The takeaway

After fifteen years of diligent study of all things spiritual, I’ve learned this: The idea that the voice is not who we are is the central point in the whole ballgame.

That being the case, it’s essential to do the work of realizing and incorporating this truth into the depths of our being.

Capisce?

Let’s go out with one last look at Alan Watts’ powerful words:

“The voice in your head was shaped by parents, teachers, religion, culture and society. It learned what to approve and condemn. What to desire and what to avoid. It is not born from your essence; it is built from repetition. And yet, because it speaks in the first person, you mistake it for truth.”