What do you think when you see someone talking to themselves incessantly? You might think they're crazy. But what if you're doing the same - even if not aloud?
It's likely you're unaware of your internal self-talk, even as you notice someone else's external self-talk. The difference between the two is more technical than essential.
I write this from my own lived experience. Until my inner monologue dragged me down to rock bottom - and finally woke me up - I had no idea it was even there. I was fully identified with it! Now I know: I'm a canvas, and every thought - conscious or unconscious - is a stroke of paint on it.
The original reason I chose to live where I do now was practical. I wanted to reduce my rent through a special arrangement: living with a woman in her mid-80s who had been alone since her husband passed. It was meant to be a way to minimize my expenses. But soon I discovered that this place held a different kind of challenge - and a new task.
It didn't take long to notice that she too is trapped in incessant self-talk. Every stray thought that passes through her mind, she verbalizes - usually to me. This has felt like torture at times, as if I were being pulled back into the very mental noise I fought so hard to get free from.
Foolishly, I used to ask her to stop, which, let's be honest, was not so different from what she was doing to me! I began to feel the contradiction: how could I demand silence from someone whose inner voice is crying for connection? And yet I couldn't stop asking her to stop commenting on everything I do - until yesterday.
I saw her sobbing, alone, her face buried in her hands. I instantly felt, deep in my gut, that my persistence had brought her to that moment. I was right. When I embraced her and kissed her forehead, she began to share her pain.
For the first time, I heard her real voice - not the chatter, but the cry beneath it. And in that moment, I found my true task: to help free her from the life-long, mind-made prison she doesn't even realize she's in.
She says it's too late to change - that this is how she's always been. She also says she's afraid that if she stops talking, she'll lose her voice altogether, and that this chattering is the only speech she knows. But I believe something else is possible. I believe the quality of speech is no less vital than the act of speaking itself.
And there's more. I've noticed that when she or her neighbors meet someone else, they almost always begin to gossip. It's automatic, mechanical.
A strange thought occurred to me recently - that the hearing loss so many elderly people suffer from here might actually be the soul's resistance. A quiet rebellion against being forced to hear gossip for a lifetime.
I've discovered at least two ways to neutralize these gossipers. They work like magic. I rarely fail to make them laugh - or at least smile - with just a few words. Do you want to know what I say? Then come visit. ;-) These words only work when stirred gently into a secret ingredient called presence.