Your Inner Voice

 Many moons ago, I remember asking a psychology professor if people who were crazy knew that they were crazy or if they just went through their days in a blissful state of unawareness that something might be amiss. He scratched his chin and told me that it was a good question. He said that he felt it probably depended on the person and the situation, and that in all honesty he could not give me an answer. It’s a question I’ve pondered many times since then, perhaps because I eventually came to realize, just as surely as I’d always suspected, that I didn’t think quite like others. Did this mean I was crazy?

From the time I first heard the above quote articulated by One Stab in one of my favorite movies,  Legends of the Fall, it became a favorite. I identified so profoundly with Tristan and his, as I refer to mine, inner beast ( “I think it was the bear, growling inside him. Making him do bad things. Nothing that Tristan did was truly his own fault. It was the bear.”-One Stab ) Tristan felt and loved genuinely and his behavior was led by an intense inner calling as a protector. While his intentions were good, he was well aware and sometimes unsettled by the fact that at times his methods may have been questionable.

 I got Tristan. I understood what it was to feel so intensely that the physical side of myself could not “keep up” with the volcano of emotion that burned within, often causing eruptions that were not easily understood by others, nor could they be considered acceptable behavior. I got wanting to do better by those I loved and eventually understanding that learning the methods to “quiet the bear growling inside” would require a journey.

 Through the years, the inner voices quote became my personal empowering mantra, boosting me during the many moments when listening to my inner voice meant forfeiting the accepting understanding of others. It fueled me with the faith of conviction to proceed without requiring that acceptance and understanding due to the belief that something more powerful was at work in my life. And it was SPEAKING TO ME. I had only to listen to benefit from its power.

I invite you to benefit from what I have been shown about you. It isn’t just “some people”, as the quote suggests above, that hear their own inner voices with great clearness, it’s an ability that every person who aspires to do so can utilize. That voice is there for you, just waiting to be tapped into. Perhaps you can’t hear it over the din of the environment you have surrounded yourself in, or maybe you’ve sensed it, but were afraid of where listening to it may lead you. Step back and reassess. Take your time, quieting yourself and your mind and ease yourself in slowly. Journeys are meant to unfold in their own time. Consider yourself off the clock.