Don't disown your little voice

I was reading through my daily blogs (both friends’ and national ones) and came across a big discussion that talked about emotional intelligence, and EQ.

Most things about EQ I definitely agree with. I think that an emotional intelligence is in many ways as important as IQ, but for some reason these people decided to bring up something that bothers me a lot: Internal Noise.

Many different people and organizations have taken to the idea that internal noise is bad. One individual said, "Just about everyone has noise inside their head. It’s a noise that keeps them from being rational, that forces them to avoid the simple truths sometimes, that makes them unable to take a shortcut when a long (more emotional one) is available."

When I participated in Landmark, I was constantly told that the voice in my head was always negative and held me back from my potential. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all about people meeting their maximum potential. What I don’t think is that people’s internal voice is "bad."

In case you are confused about what I mean by internal voice, I mean when you hear yourself talk internally. A lot of times I hear this referred to, it is to say something bad. As in "you aren’t good enough" or "look how fat you are." Funny, but my voice has never said bad things to me. I don’t think that it has anything to do with confidence either. When I was younger, I had lots of confidence issues, and even then, I don’t think that it was my "little voice" that contributed to it.

Interestingly enough considering the afore mentioned quote, it is often my internal voice that is what helps me make rational and logical decisions. It is my internal voice that lets me think things through and in many cases can build my confidence and override my more negative instinctual reactions.

I am really happy that there are a lot of people and organizations out there that are trying to better people and help them become more fully actualized and more effective and fulfilled individuals. What I am not ok with is the idea that people will be turned against the very thing that can be the most powerful and vital tool at their disposal.
People who offer advice can often find it easy to place blame. Their audience loves it because it gives them a chance to blame "something" be it their past, their internal voice, whatever rather than own up to their own flaws. In my experience it is your flaws that can bring out your greatest strengths, and only by accepting all of yourself, and not trying to tune out and short circuit parts of ourselves can we actually grow as people.