I don’t know what I want from my life. All I can hear are other people’s voices in my head.
What do you think?
Hearing other people’s voices in your head means that you care, that you’re sensitive. And I think that’s a good thing. Being sensitive has been labeled as bad, but I think we need more sensitivity in this world. The real question is how to hear your own voice louder than you hear these other voices.
I can’t say if everybody experiences this because, well, I’m not everybody. But I do know that I have experienced this. In fact, I sometimes struggle to know what I think. And even when I am CERTAIN what I think, I wonder if my certainty is wrong somehow. I know something, but then I wonder if I actually know it. I second guess, I spin in circles, I ask for opinions. But really? Really I do know. But if I don’t know that I know, then that’s its own conundrum, its own problem to solve.
I love memoirs. I love reading books. I love all of it. On some level, I just love it – I am truly interested in others’ stories in a way that is authentic. But on another level, I am looking for an identity in these other people. In some ways, aren’t I just adding more voices to my already cluttered head? Maybe.
But maybe trying on identities isn’t all bad. For a while – for the sake of exploration. It’s like playing dress-up. You can try on all sorts of identities while you’re still trying to find the one that feels the best for you. So, allow yourself to try them on. Like a little kid trying on a fireman costume or a super-hero costume or a ballerina costume, you also get to try on identities to see what fits for you.
And this is where the magic comes in. You’ll know what’s right for you when you find it. When you put on the right costume, you’ll know that it isn’t a costume. It’s you. Now this likely doesn’t mean you’ll have no doubt whatsoever. That would be nice, but doubt is kind of like a habit, kind of like a weird, almost backwards, type of self protection. We doubt ourselves in an attempt to keep ourselves safe, protected from failure or looking stupid or anything else. So feel the doubt and recognize if the doubt is all up in your head, with swirling thoughts and other people’s voices. That isn’t where the truth lies. Believe it or not, the truth isn’t up inside your head. The truth is deep inside yourself.
Now I know that if you’re anything like me, this will sound like new age, existential garbage. I get it. I was there for many years. And yet, it is true. When we stop to listen to what we actually know deep inside our own selves, that’s when the magic starts to happen.
If I could have made a career out of doubting myself, I would have been a billionaire by now. I was (and sometimes still am) VERY GOOD at doubting myself. When you let yourself listen to the thoughts in your head (some of which aren’t even your own) versus the knowing in your body, that is when you start to get confused and start to feel more than a little crazy.
And believe me, people are all too willing to tell you what you should think or feel or whatever. And I’m not saying these people are bad. They aren’t (always) bad. In fact, I have been known to feel somebody else’s pain and try so hard to give them the answers. I have been known to think that I have the solution to their problems. I have believed deep in my soul that what worked for me (or did it?) will work for them! I have known this to be the case. And guess what – I’m usually wrong.
Much of the time, I’m wrong.
Most of the time, I’m wrong. Not because I’m awful, but because I’m trying to give somebody else my own solution, the one that’s supposed to be meant for me.
So, if you know that we as humans tend to do this, there are a few things you can do. First of all, when people start trying to tell you what you should do or what they think is the answer for you (You should go back to school! Book that cruise, you deserve to relax! You need a spa day! All you need to do is exercise and eat healthier.) – whatever the advice is that’s coming your way – recognize this for what it is. Understand that this is somebody else’s way of trying to give you the advice they (likely) wish they could take for themselves. Try not to take it on or take it too seriously. Just realize that their voices are somehow, in a weird way intended for themselves, even as they are aiming those voices adamantly at you.
Second, turn it around. When you are tempted to tell people what they need to do, stop yourself and recognize that you also are giving yourself advice, even when you think you’re advising someone else. When you find yourself doling out advice, it is likely that you need to turn that advice back around and listen to it. The beauty of that is that you get to do that. If you find yourself (like I have) telling people that they need to just take a creative class, sing more, go on a solo adventure, claim a space in their house to decorate, whatever it is. If you find yourself doling out advice to anyone at all, stop and consider whether this is actually advice for you. (Spoiler alert: it probably is.)
For example, when I’ve found myself telling people you need to love yourself more!, what I believe now to actually be true is that I myself needed to love myself more.
Never mind the fact that this advice on its own is crap because it is too vague and overused, not to mention that if people knew how to love themselves they wouldn’t be in need of the advice to do just that. Telling people to do something that they have no idea how to do is not useful in any way shape or form. Telling people to be more present or still your mind or get in touch with your true feelings or blah, blah, blah is just like that – the classic adult voice on the Peanuts holiday specials – it sounds like blah, blah, blah to them and that’s about as useful as it is.
But regardless, back to the point, if you find yourself telling people to sing more, then it’s likely you are the one needing or wanting to sing. If you find yourself telling people to exercise more, then likely you need to listen to your own advice.
So, the bottom line is that you get to take your own advice.
Cairn: Write a “friend” a letter.
When you are needing advice, pretend it’s a friend asking for this very same advice, and write her a letter of advice. Then read it back as if it was written to you, because it was.
So where does that leave us? We have a situation where you don’t know what you want and you keep hearing other people’s voices.
Stop searching, stop asking for advice and opinions, stop reading up on solutions, stop the frenzied activity. Just be. Even if only for a moment.
Yes, it’s likely that you still won’t know. So, try something on (in your imagination is fine) – picture yourself taking an action and see how it makes you feel in your body, in your soul.
I still think back to my time in graduate school, and I can still feel the relief and knowing in my body when I thought about ditching my stuff, getting out of debt and doing just a simple job, a non-esoteric job. I was studying to become a researcher (one of the most esoteric jobs that there is), and I wanted hands-on, practical work. I wanted something where I could get my hands dirty and actually do something real. I wanted to drive a truck, deliver goods from Point A to Point B. I wanted to work on a farm, producing vegetables that people would eat. I wanted to work in a store so that people could come in and buy shit that they likely didn’t need. I wanted to do something that gave me the knowing that I was doing something with my days that was tangible. I remember the feeling of relief just from imagining it. I remember it, and honestly, I feel it still today. Did I directly act on this knowing? Yes and no. I didn’t ditch my furniture, quit my job and run for the mountains to work in a little ski shop. I didn’t. But I did leave my PhD program. This was a start, this was taking an action and I believe it was the right choice, even though most of the people around me thought I was making a grave mistake. Just because the world or other people think something is obviously right or obviously wrong does not make it obviously right or obviously wrong. There is no objective truth, there is only your truth for yourself.
Cairn: There is no objective truth when it comes to what is right for each person.
People take this statement out of context and then use it to hurt other people. If somebody commits a crime, then there is objective truth. Facts remain facts. You cannot change the facts into something they are not and then claim them as your “truth.” That’s not how it works.
When people say everybody has their own truth, that means that some want a PhD and others don’t. That does not mean that you can lie about somebody and call it your truth. It doesn’t work that way.
So back to my yearning for simplicity and practicality. The me of today can see that the me of then could have done far more than leaving the program. In fact, taking many more actions would have made my life more far more pleasurable, but I congratulate myself for taking that one action, even amidst protests. It was a step in the right, life-affirming direction.
As for the other stuff, I have spent a lot of time holding out for permission (not a good idea). Seeking permission implies that others (whomever you are seeking permission from) know better than you what is right for you. It gives other people far too much power in your life, and is the origin of “other people’s voices.” This goes back to the truth thing – in this case, with preferences and values and goals, there is no such thing as objectively “right.” There is only right for you and you are the only one that will know this.
Don’t shame yourself into thinking that you don’t know as much as those around you. Take other people off the pedestal you might not even know you’d put them on. If you are looking to others to help you decide what you want, then you have put them on some type of pedestal. And, likewise, if you think you know what others should do, then you are standing a little too high yourself. We are all equal people in this world and we all are unique. No matter how much someone thinks they know you (or you think you know someone else), it’s not true. Nobody can ever know everything about another person. Heck, we have enough trouble figuring our own selves out.
I recently had coffee with an acquaintance that boasted that she can figure people out within moments of meeting them. She said this within the context of a broader statement, but then she proceeded to analyze me in a way that didn’t ring true whatsoever to me. We just can’t know as much as we think we can about other people. People aren’t so easily classified and labeled and categorized. And that includes you.
You are unique. Honor what you want to do with your life (or even your afternoon or your year), even as you think you don’t yet know it. (But you do.) I will acknowledge that not knowing that you know is effectively the same thing as not knowing. Somewhere inside of you, you know what makes your heart sing. And the dirty little secret that nobody tells you (likely because they don’t yet know it) is that that – that thing that makes your heart sing – is what you are supposed to actually do.
Start letting yourself be honest about that is, even if it seems unattainable. Don’t write it off just yet. Give yourself permission to dream. And then take a step, even a small step, in that direction. The momentum might just gather and you will take off in the direction you know you want to go.
