When the Inner Voice Raises its Hand

We can go through periods of our lives when things seem to be quiet, our minds feel calm and we can focus effectively on our daily tasks. Relationships seem comfortable and uncomplicated and, even though it’s winter as it is now, life can feel warm and easy. I so appreciate those times, when life flows like a steady river, not too slow and not too fast but at just the right speed. We enjoy that feeling, no surges, no feeling of rushing or gushing, just movement forward at a steady, but not too predictable pace either, because that might be boring...

And yet even though our minds feel quiet, our inner worlds are never silent. We can feel calm during our daily lives but beneath the surface, parts of us are constantly communicating to us. The question is, can we hear them? They begin softly, as whispers. They whisper to us in the form of a passing thought that we barely register, a subtle tightening in our chest or a brief emotional shift that comes and goes before we have time to name it. These are not random occurrences, they are messages.

Your inner system is always trying to help you but when its signals go unnoticed, it’s minimized or overridden by you, it if forced to adapt. If you aren’t listening, it learns that whispering isn’t enough. So, it raises its voice in the hope you will hear it. This reminds me of when my daughter was very young, she is very softly spoken, she would say Mum quietly several times but if I failed to respond, the volume would increase steadily until I heard her and paid attention.

In the event that we don’t listen to the parts of ourselves that have something to say, the feint sense of unease that we were experiencing slowly becomes a persistent worry. A mild fatigue turns into exhaustion. A quiet sadness grows into numbness, withdrawal, or tears that seem to arrive ‘out of nowhere.’ Things start escalating, becoming more and more urgent until we are really struggling to cope with daily life. What we often call overwhelm, anxiety or burnout is frequently the result of parts that have been trying, without success, to get our attention for a long time. I have a very anxious part that I am reassuring regularly at the moment. This Christmas was a difficult one and I have been left with an anxious part that needs a lot of attention and reassurance that I am safe. This anxiety is reminiscent of that which I lived with throughout my teens that, although I’ve done a lot of work on, still activates when family situations feel out of control and I am hurting.

Your system (and the parts within it) escalates not to punish you with these emotions or states of being, but to protect you. It’s trying to tell you something - in the case of my anxiety, it’s letting me know that I haven’t yet allowed myself to feel all the feelings associated with what happened recently - and each part is doing a different job. Some parts of us are vigilant, scanning for danger and rehearsing worst-case scenarios to keep us safe. Others carry the weight of old experiences, grief that was never fully felt, shame that formed before we had words, fear that learned long ago it had to stay alert. Some parts aren’t in pain at all, they are simply lonely, longing to be acknowledged and desperate to know that they matter. When these parts are ignored, they don’t disappear, even if we think they do. They wait. And then they speak again, louder.

Grief that was never fully felt is a really good example of this. The sad thing is that, for many cultures, it goes largely unobserved. I am writing in the UK and, for the most part here, I find that it is ignored. I had a colleague who, after having lost a very close relative, returned to work after only a few days - it was a busy period in the business and they were encouraged not to take time off because of that. So they didn’t insist, they did what they were asked and over time they became overburdened and stressed. Someone who once was a productive member of the team, failed to listen to the parts of them that were eventually screaming out in the pain of their grief at the loss and eventually they had to take an extended period off with ill health. No surprise that during that time off they had grief counselling.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy to listen. I have had a lot going on recently and I am feeling it, as I said. Whilst writing I have just heard myself sigh very heavily. That’s a part of me telling me that it needs some attention. It’s my responsibility to ask it what it needs. Does it need a five minute break from writing? Is writing about grief bringing up my unprocessed emotions? Do I have unprocessed grief? How much time do we all have? Life is busy enough, without having to add in talking to parts of us at intervals throughout the day! Plus, many of us have learned to meet these louder signals with frustration or judgment. Why am I like this? Why can’t I just calm down? Why does this keep coming back? Why can’t I just power through? Instead of asking how to make the noise stop, see if you can ask it what it’s trying to say?

Some people have said to me that they don’t get the idea of listening to yourself, and that most of us have so much internal chatter that it’s impossible for us to hear those parts of us that are shouting, let alone whispering and I totally get that. It’s not easy at all to take the time to acknowledge those parts of us that are struggling. But listening doesn’t mean obeying every impulse or fear. It simply means turning toward your inner experience with curiosity rather than control. Self-energy, which is essentially that part of us that meets those parts of us that are requesting attention, doesn’t silence parts, it simply creates enough safety for them to stop shouting.

When you listen early in the process, if you can, listen to the whisper rather than to the demand, something shifts. Urgency softens and the nervous system settles, even just a little. The part that’s trying to tell you something begins to trust that it doesn’t have to escalate to be noticed. But what does noticing really look like? It looks like acknowledging a fleeting thought, a tight jaw, a heaviness in your head or behind your eyes. (I have a slight pain in my right shoulder just now, something I need to acknowledge, as well as seeing what that sigh was trying to tell me). Pause and ask gently, which part of me is here? What is it trying to tell me?

Internal parts of us are no different from the people in our lives, when they present their problems to us, we think that we have to fix them but actually it’s enough to listen. There is no need to fix or resolve anything in that moment because presence alone can often be enough, just like with our loved ones, to change something. And the beautiful thing is that our parts can hear us when we ask these questions and, over time, this practice builds an internal relationship. Your parts learn that they will be met with compassion instead of dismissal. You learn that your inner world is not something to manage or suppress, but something that you can understand. This work is invaluable, insight, awareness, is the first step to change.

There are so many benefits to doing this process but most significantly, it builds trust, self-trust and as this trust grows, your inner environment changes and your parts will respond. They start to understand that they don’t need to scream to be heard and that pain doesn’t have to turn into crisis. This is how regulation develops from the inside out. This is how inner harmony begins, not through force, but through gentle and sustained attention.

If you would like, here is an exercise for you to use to listen to your parts. It may feel strange at first, it did for me too, but over time, it will come easier.

Exercise

Pause for a brief internal check-in.

Scan your body and mind. Notice any sensations, emotions or thoughts that are present. Gently name the part you sense is there, if you can and if you can’t name the part, then name the sensation. This will also work.

This is my worried / anxious / overwhelmed part

Offer silent acknowledgment, without judgment or problem-solving.

You are not trying to change anything, only to listen.