Where's Your Passport?

Ever hear of your ‘Inner Voice’?

When I teach people how to speak 'out loud', I always say that you must figure out your 'inner voice' first.

That might sound like a vague statement to make. I mean, what the heck IS an inner voice anyway? And what if I don’t have one? Do I need to look for it somewhere?

Well, the thing is - we all have this inner voice - but have become quite the experts at ignoring it, so we’ve actually forgotten that it’s there.

It takes time, more than work, to re-discover it.

Imagine if you were going on holiday next week and thought “Ooh, better get my passport”.

Only it’s not in the place you usually keep it - you know, that ‘drawer’ with the ‘important folder’!

What do you do in that instance?

Yeah - you go and look for it. You don’t stop until it’s in your hand, right? It’s an important document….you need to get it.

With your inner voice, it’s the same. You put it somewhere...it’s just a case of looking. Time is all you need. Once you find the inner voice, then let it take you to where you need to go. Just like your passport.

So, where do you start looking...especially if you don’t know what it looks like? I mean...what are you looking for here??

The quickest and simplest way to find that elusive inner voice is this:

Take a look at your day today.

What did you do?

Who did you meet?

How did they make you feel?

What did you think?

What did you feel?

Was your day full of joy and genuine happiness?

Were there moments when you felt a bit ‘off’...like you just didn’t quite fit into a conversation or became irritated as the line up at the coffee shop was moving slowly and you needed to be back at the office in ten minutes?

Or maybe you saw graffiti on a wall or litter on the grass or heard an argument between a woman and a man on the street and it jarred with you.

Each time you notice something like that - it’s your inner voice.

The one who holds your values and true thoughts.

The one who says “This doesn’t fit who I am or what I want?”

So, is it a case of looking for what you want?

Maybe!

There’s a question in itself - What DO you want?

That doesn’t mean - what do you want for dinner, or when do you want your mortgage paid or that you would like to get a seat on the train as you go into work tomorrow morning.

Remember back to when you were a kid.

What did you want then?

How did you see yourself when you imagined the thirty-year-old you?

Your dreams, your fantasies.

Maybe you wanted to be an astronaut, a footballer or a truck driver. A doctor, an actor or a shopkeeper.

Did you imagine living in a particular type of house, or in a nice area? Did you have kids in your future you? A spouse? A car?

Here’s one thing I bet you always saw in your thoughts though….guaranteed - you saw a happy you.

No child ever imagines a future where they picture themselves sitting in a run-down motel room, lonely, sad, unhealthy and broke.

Your inner voice wants the best for you. Because it IS you!

So what happened?

How did you lose your ‘inner passport’?

Make no mistake about it - that is what has happened to you over the years. You put that ‘inner voice’ away in the safe drawer and then forgot about it. Instead of it taking you to where you needed to go, other people got hold of it and decided where best to send you. They took control of it.

Children learn what they need to do in order to survive.

“Good girl” “Don’t be a bold boy”.

We learn very quickly that in order to gain love and attention and maintain security in our life, we need to conform to the needs of others. If I’m a ‘bold boy’ then love is removed. In order to once again receive that love, I need to look at my ‘mis-behaving’ actions and correct them. Kids do this even when they don’t know why they need to! It’s survival instinct. “Just do what you’re told!"

If I’m ‘good’....then I need to remember that particular action and try to repeat it in the future.

Once you make a habit out of this and are seen to understand and abide by the ‘rules’, you will continue to receive love and validation from others (adults).

So, you place the inner voice (your real guide map...the one you were born with) aside.

As you grow older, that habit becomes ingrained in your neural pathways to become, what we term ‘second nature’.

There is really no such phenomenon as ‘second’ nature. It’s a false you. There is ‘nature’ and just that. ‘Second’ nature suggests a carbon copy of the real deal. Just like comparing an original Van Gogh and a re-print. They look the same, but only one has real value.

Let’s take a look at you now...decades on.

How has that been working for you?

Mortgage paid on time? Bills looked after? One holiday per year sorted? Car in the garage? Maybe an upgrade on your phone? TV Sports package bought? Fridge full of food?

You did it!

Right?

What more is there to life? Take on responsibilities and manage responsibilities.

Your ten-year-old self (the one with the passport in the back pocket) isn’t fooled.

That kid knew better...just wasn’t aware of it at the time.

That’s the child you channel when the train is late and you become stressed, when the satellite TV doesn’t work during a storm, when the coffee shop line is taking too long, when ‘Bill from accounts’ is putting pressure on you for the important report, when you feel depressed, when you start drinking, when you run out of patience.

That’s the kid tapping you on your shoulder saying “Find your passport”.

The key is very simple:

Question yourself.

Stop.

Feel.

Think.

Listen.

That’s all.

It’s not difficult.

But, because you’ve been trained so well for so long, it’s no longer easy.

First things first - go find the passport and don’t lose it this time :)