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29 September 2014 By Annie Sragner, Columnist No Comments

This week has been plodding on in a rut. I was swamped with work and my mom had some emergency health problems. Everything seems to go wrong at once.

Often times when I dwell on the negative external events happening around me, I notice my internal voice taking on a touch of meanness. Annie, why did you get yourself here? Do better! she says condescendingly at me.

By voice, I dont mean literal voices speaking in your head. Its just the internal monologue and flow of your thoughts and what that sounds like to you.

I started reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. In the first few dozen pages, he discusses separating yourself from that voice. Your true being is the person who listens to those thoughts and acknowledges them.

Whenever I become overwhelmed with the work-and-play college scene, I try to consciously listen to the tone and content of this negative voice and feeling. Almost immediately, the voice silences and Im completely at peace in the moment.

So much of our mood depends on the tone of the inner voice. It is a lot easier to have a good day when your brain speaks nicely to the rest of you. Its almost scary to think that the brain has so much power over us. It even named itself! It came up with the word brain.

Ive heard it said that there are three voices that exist: the voice you hear in your own head, the voice you hear when you speak out loud and the voice that others hear from you. This is correlated to why hearing your own voice on tape sounds so odd and why singers often cover one of their ears to better hear their external voice.

Getting caught up in one voice causes you to neglect or ignore the other two voices by law of conservation. People who act grumpy are caught up in their internal thoughts and forget to consider how their voice sounds to others. This is why people put their foot in their mouth or say things they dont mean.

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The Big Picture: The balance of internal, external voices