At times the inner voices can be just a little annoying, sort of like being bitten my mosquitoes on a summer evening walk, buzzing around the ears but really not too loud and not much of a problem to deal with. At other times these inner shouting’s can seem like a swarm of hornets, angry and out to cause as much pain and damage as possible. Well they can be that way for me. I am really not sure what the inner lives of others are, but sharing a common humanity I would think I am not alone in this. Bits and pieces are what I sometimes call these inner communications, fragments of voices from my past, things I have been told about myself and perhaps I believed more than I realized at the time they were presented to me. The seeds planted in a time long ago, forgotten often on a conscious level, yet their roots are deep and still work on me.
For some people, these voices are not so much heard as felt, leading to feelings that can be very destructive if fully identified with. Feelings and emotions are close, but also very different. Emotions can flare up then hopefully dealt with in a manner that is appropriate and can lead to some kind of closure. However underlying feelings can be the fuel that keeps the emotions churning for a long time, when the perceived event that caused the reaction is over with. Feelings tell us something. We can feel if a situation is good or bad, or we get a feeling about a person that is often true. However feelings can also be wrong, very wrong and their pronouncements can be very destructive if some distance or objectivity cannot be achieved. For after all, consciousness is what experiences, observes and listens to these inner dramas. It is the learned ability to simple watch without judgment that can in the end save ones life, literally.
From my experience (where else can I speak from?), inner voices simply want to be heard, not repressed, nor or the inner images orders to act out in some way. For being irrational these voices will communicate with inner situations, either in pictures, story lines or moods. Deep ones… All that is going on is a plea to simply listen and not judge. Sort of what is often ask of us when a friend shares some dark secret with us, or when we would like to share something with a friend ourselves. The inner and outer world are made of one warp and weave, one clothe, the separation of these two worlds is an illusion.
At times I believe addictions are used to deal with these inner dealings. People tend to focus on the major addictions, which is understandable since they create waves around them that cause a great deal of chaos for those who have a relationship with them. I call them the ‘big addictions’. There are others of course; ‘smaller addiction’ that can cause just as much damage, though it can for a long time stay hidden, or if not, they are not taken too seriously by those around them. Most likely because most people have these ‘smaller addictions’ so they are more easily ignored and even accepted. They serve a function and even though they cause havoc on many levels, if they were not available, perhaps things would be worse in the world, at least in my opinion. For the inner stresses of life and the struggle to simply be a decent human being can be a tough road for many and these escapes allow some breathing room, even if in the long run they can be actually harmful. Life is like that, situations that can’t always be bridged or fixed.
For me, for again I can only speak for myself, it is a ‘heart thing’. My heart is often hard, flint like and to tell you the truth, even if the voices are loud, the emotions that they present to me are often of the ‘fire’ variety, which shows a deep underlying anxiety about life that is masked in fear and covered over by anger. For I tend to move toward that which I fear and try to deal with it, though if anxiety comes to the fore, it can flip me out, in the since that I simply don’t know what to do. So here is the problem, or paradox. The more I listen to my inner dialogue, try to listen and not run or judge, the more easily the deeper ones of anxious concern also come to the surface. It is the anxious mutterings that I have a hard time not identifying with and being swallowed up for a few days. Though as time goes by and I find that I survive “something-horrible-that I can’t see is going to happen”, I am slowly learning to also step back, observe and hopefully learn to find some peace with this kind of undertow. The only way to deal with an actual undertow when at the beach is to relax and stop fighting it; you sink deeper and escape it. This does work, for I have been caught a few times and have got out ok. So the same goes with the inner journey, though as everyone knows, it is not always easy. Perhaps it is not meant to be.
Being a theist, I guess I believe that the process and all that entails has meaning even if at times I can for the life of me know what that is. True I have some moments of clarity, but they don’t last long. There is more to being human than simply struggling to be rational. There are emotions, feelings and intuitions that also have to be dealt with. To underplay any of them leads to peril. Perhaps we are called to be spiritual jugglers, and also if truth be told, we do a better job that we think we do. Perhaps it is all just jabbering on my part, but I have to swim forward and when I can’t I tread and when I get tired of that, well then I pray, for being a theist (Christian), I do believe in the process, so in the end, though many don’t like to hear it, perhaps it is grace that keeps not only me but also others afloat….and those that sink, well I think grace is there also. We are all such deep mysterious creatures, each with unique paths that we each must walk, that it is a waste of time to try to judge or evaluate others…..no we are meant to journey together and at times encourage and also confront, though confrontation is just another species beneath the genre of encouragement.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
