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As I was being wheeled out of the emergency room, my mind was overflowing with a number of thoughts. I had just been delivered the news that I had a fracture and a couple ligament tears in my left ankle. What led to it was nothing but a freak accident. Having been told that I would require at least 6 weeks rest didn’t go too well with me. “Why didn’t I look down before I took that step backwards?” “Why did this have to happen to me?” “Who cursed me so much?”…… The mind was abuzz with questions. Questions which seemed to be coming out of nowhere with plenty of absurd answers within my mind. Then as the pain began to set in, I needed to block it out of my mind. I began imagining what I would be doing right now, if only I didn’t have the fall, I tried taking myself to that happy place.
We all have that voice in our head, the voice with whom we converse from time to time. Sometimes we argue with it, sometimes we agree. At times that voice seems to blend in with our very own. There are those moments of extreme stress when you feel that there are more voices than one running all around the head each arguing with the other. We all have them. It talks to us about the past and discusses our future with us. Sometimes its naughty and at times its holy. When a guy sees a pretty girl he thinks “Should I talk to her?” “No”, “Yes”, “Maybe”, “What if she has a boyfriend?”,”You are sexy and you know it” …..the person in your head gives you so many answers within seconds for that one question. If you are supposed to have a meeting with your boss, teacher, patient later in the day you’ll silently play out how the conversation might go in your head from both perspectives. How often have we seen cricketers speak to themselves forcing their mind to concentrate on the job at hand. When you are angry with your senior or boss but can’t abuse them aloud, you’ll have an imaginary conversation in your head where you curse the hell out of the M*****F*****. Haven’t you tried talking to that person within you while recollecting an answer during exams which just won’t come out?
Those who watch the WWE will be familiar with Randy Orton’s entrance music which is aptly called I HEAR VOICES which perfectly summarises what the voice actually is
I hear voices in my head
They council me
They understand me
They talk to me
I have a voice that is my saviour
Hates to love and loves to hate
I have a voice that has the knowledge
And the power to rule your fate
We often have the tendency to blurt out something which leaves us red faced the moment the words leave our lips. Those are the thoughts which escape a conversation with our inner voice. But just because we have a conversation in our head, doesn’t mean that what we say sounds right always. How often have you experienced those moments with friends where something which sounded right in your head, sounds absolutely ridiculous when you say it aloud. You think to yourself “That sounded funny in my head, now its plain offensive or stupid.”
courtesy: www.chananery.com
But many a times , this very inner voice of ours is a cause of great anguish. For often we have the tendency to overthink and over analyse many situations in life and worsen it further. It might be relationships or job related, we deliberate it so much in our heads that it leaves us tired and frustrated both physically and mentally. And with this even a simple problem gets blown out of proportion, friendships lost, marriages broken. Someone said that the “battle is always won in the mind”,…they weren’t kidding.
I call it The Voice. Religion may call it the conscience. We are supposed to have 2 voices – the good and the bad, the angel and the devil. Arguments happen between the two, and we follow the one who wins the debate of the mind. Who wins eventually depends on the kind of person one is. Sometimes the voice we want to be defeats the person that we are. Those are the instances where a good person does something shockingly bad or vice versa. There is a third voice which is neither good nor bad. Its the one we use just to converse, to create perfect situations out of imperfect ones like how I was imagining my life would be if I didn’t sustain the fracture. As this year is coming to an end, you’ll be retrospecting and planning a whole lot for the coming year. Its the time probably when you will be conversing with your inner voice the most!
We need to control this Voice rather than the other way round. How does one do it, I do not know. Yoga, meditation, self help books, they are all directed towards controlling this Inner Voice. Whether you like it or not, its there. Its talking to you right now as you are reading this. You can almost hear it saying “He’s right”…..if not, who are you talking to right now?
Authors Note : The Featured image on this post is from www.gizmodo.com
