You Talking To You?

Exploring inner monologue

Janhavi Sharma: For Project FUEL

Do you speak to yourself? How often does it happen, and for how long? Do you speak smoothly, or with hesitation? These questions might seem naive and silly, but they are important to answer.

Recently, my friend Shawn shared that only 30-50 % people engage in inner monologue. Surprisingly, there are individuals who have never experienced it. To me, this sounded absurd and astounding because I've never not spoken to myself. These dialogues with my inner self have been my refuge throughout the years—during school bullying, amidst the triumphs and challenges of my work, and in relationships both enduring and broken. It's been an effective tool for organizing my thoughts.

An inner monologue isn’t solely a pep talk; it's a check-in with your heart as much as it is rationalizing with your head. It's about giving yourself a chance to listen to your own thoughts, perhaps even tuning into your intuition. If our goal is to see things in a new light, then beyond the advice and interpretations of the outer world, we must commit to listening to our own perspective. We may not always find answers, but there's a strong chance that by listening to our inner murmurs, we can clear the fog obscuring the path to the answers we seek.

A calm mind is like clear water in a pond, revealing what lies beneath. Just as muddy water obscures the bottom, external noise along with our inner turmoil clouds our thoughts. To find clarity, we must sit quietly by the water, patiently listening to its rhythm and letting go of distractions.

Now, there are different ways to converse with ourselves—one with gentleness and respect, and the other, with self-criticism. When we speak to ourselves kindly, our inner dialogue becomes a wellspring of motivation, guidance, and self-reinforcement. However, some choose to use their inner voice to reprimand themselves, a pattern identified as self-critical self-talk. I advocate for the former approach, as the world often provides ample criticism. 

Illustrating a striking contrast between the two, Ursula Le Guin calls it the tiff between the ‘the Inner Preacher’ and ‘the Inner Teacher’. She writes:

“There’s a preacher in me who just longs to cram my lovely pot with my opinions, my beliefs, with Truths. And if my subject’s a morally loaded one, such as Man’s relationship to Nature—well, that Inner Preacher’s just itching to set people straight and tell them how to think and what to do, yes, Lord, amen!

I have more trust in my Inner Teacher. She is subtle and humble because she hopes to be understood. She contains contradictory opinions without getting indigestion. She can mediate between the arrogant artist self who mutters, “I don’t give a damn if you don’t understand me,” and the preacher self who shouts, “Now hear this!” She doesn’t declare truth, but offers it. She takes a Grecian urn and says, “Look closely at this, study it, for study will reward you; and I can tell you some of the things that other people have found in this pot, some of the goodies you too may find in it.”

One exercise I often like is something an interviewee once shared with me. They said, “When I am desperate to talk loudly to myself, I simply pick up my phone, pretend to dial a number, and start blabbering. People never mind anyone speaking on the phone. Who am I talking to? To myself. But that’s the secret.”

In essence, Clarice Lispector wisely noted,

“It’s inside myself that I must create someone who will understand."

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