I might be taking a morning walk along the bay with a friend and chatting about nothing in particular, nothing heavy or dark…just light hearted best friend convo…when in bursts her Heckler or Bully.

Her inner dialogue is running an insidious thought loop, spewing out the most floridly hateful, ugly and abusive commentary. About what? For her it was about being fat, about not being good enough, about people judging her, and a lot of victim/envy content. 

And she was unaware of it in so much as she was so used to it that it felt more like something running in the background to her, and she wasn’t directly conscious of it. It was just her usual inner condition. 

Her inner talk show host was speaking to her in ways she would never speak to anyone…she was a really lovely person. 

And she wasn’t alone in this. Just about everyone had some version of this going on. 

This made it hard to be around people. Basically, imagine the most cruel, sadistic, abusive, manipulative parent…someone who should never be allowed around kids…now imagine that the people around you have some version of this, their own particular flavor of it and that it’s addressing them out loud, nearly nonstop. You’d want to be alone, too. 

There is this delusion that your inner voices are hermetically sealed inside your head and that their effect remains there.

But that’s not what happens. It fills your personal space, fills the room, and whether or not people can directly perceive your inner running commentary, it nonetheless affects them. 

You are sending out a signal, a pattern, in all directions, and that pattern looks for similar or complementary patterns. Also, this running narration interprets the world to you, and constantly reinforces a particular image of not just the world, but yourself, your condition, your place in it. 

If you faithfully transcribed even ten minutes of this inner talk show, what would you find? Who is the host? Who are the guests? What are they talking about and what vision of the world are they spinning? Is Alex Jones your inner host? How about Margaret…the abusive mother in the horror movie, Carrie? Who has a hot mic?

If your inner voice was your outer voice, how would that change how you perceive yourself, how others perceive you? 

It’s interesting how some people believe they need that inner Bully or Heckler. Or the one that’s constantly reminding you that you’re a victim, or that other people can’t be trusted. Do you have the belief that this is how you motivate yourself to do things, or keep yourself from doing things you shouldn’t or how you keep yourself safe in the world? How can you expect to hear your True Voice through all this? 

Start examining your inner talk show programming and find out just what that programming is. It’s more than one show, you likely subscribe to several. Look for talk show personalities: Bully, Worrier, Spiritual Thought Police, Mom on Roids, Emotional Accountant, Victim, Punisher, Ultimate Critic (of self and others), The Narcissistic Paranoid (helps you focus on how other people are judging you, whether they are or not…fun!), Catty Teen, Drill Sergeant, Diet Monitor, Crusader, Mother Superior, Eeyore.