It’s easy if you try, assuming it’s got something to say. It starts by turning off the incessant chatter of your mind and stepping outside the outbursts of your emotions.
That means getting quiet, truly quiet inside, and finding a “space” in you that I call “the place of silence.” It follows the old adage they wrote on the back of school busses — stop, look and listen. I’ll get to that in a moment.
Meditation helps, but it isn’t essential. Prayer is good, too — if you sit quietly after you’re done and listen. Or just plain sitting, contemplating whatever or nothing at all, until the mind quiets down and you’re there all alone on your own.
Easier said than done, you say? Perhaps so, but have you really tried? These days it’s hard enough just to sit still, not to mention doing it without a phone to look at or TV blaring at you from across the room. People talking to you or kids running around screaming in the background don’t help, either.
So a good place to start if you’re interested in tapping into this inner part of you is just making time to be alone. No conversations. No company except your own, and maybe whoever or whatever you discover inside. No devices. No nothing to distract you, though you’ll do a good job of that all by yourself.
This is where you’ve got to work on yourself. Because if you’re not hearing your inner voice the way you are in the life you’re living, then either you’re not paying attention, or you’re filling your time with too many other things to connect to that which is most important in your life — the INNER YOU and the source of your being.
This concept is a hard one for many people to accept, that there is more to them than they know. Certainly they have their shadow sides, the repressed parts of their personality that have been pushed aside in favor of attributes they’d rather show off to the world. Those things, too, have to be quieted in order to hear your inner voice.
But for seekers who stop engaging with the stimuli of their outer world, they slowly begin to realize there’s an entire inner world just waiting for them to explore and put to use in how they conduct their affairs.
I could put a name on it, but that would only confuse things. Whether it’s your soul, higher self, God or whatever term you want to call it, those usually come with preconceived notions to try to make some semblance of understanding of the unknowable.
For our purposes, let’s call it Spirit — the same spirit that emanates from our Creator that flows outward in light to manifest all reality, imbued with an innate intelligence that knows just what it must do in order to create both us and the experiences we get in our lives and world.
Your inner voice, then, is one form of proving, “What goes around, comes around.” Consciousness springs from the One Infinite Creator (the term God works as well, though that implies some degree of personification, even an omnipotent one) and works through Spirit to create you and your reality and all that happens within it. And it speaks to itself (blasphemy!) through the inner voice.
That line of communication is always open, always flowing. But it isn’t always speaking to our conscious minds. Rather, most of it is directed to our subconscious to give us concepts, impressions and ideas to mull over until they manifest in some thought or emotion that we in turn put into action.
So stopping your outer activity for a period is essential, at least until you get better attuned to your connection to source. But that alone isn’t enough. You’ve got to look for whatever’s being transmitted, and most importantly, listen. Even then it can be hard to understand, to translate ideas and concepts from the divine into concrete thoughts that bubble up to the surface.
For the inner voice doesn’t just speak to you through “direct” communication that your mind can receive and understand. Rather, it gives signals in many different ways, including the signs and synchronicities of your life.
There are two ways, though, that I’ve found easiest for most people to understand. One is through your thoughts. While it may take you many years of observation to recognize and decipher the many different forms your thoughts can carry such conversations, simply accepting that somewhere inside is a source of knowledge of what you need to know in the moment is a good start.
You tap into it by an inner conversation, simply by silently “talking” to yourself inside, hoping that whatever’s there will actually listen to your “prayer” and somehow respond. Let’s try it.
Ask yourself a question to something you want to know. Almost immediately your mind will provide an answer, drawing on that great cosmic database that either is or is connected to your subconsciousness.
This is probably the most rudimentary form of listening to your inner voice. It is instantly available to everyone. Is it truly your inner self that is responding? Who knows? But the information you get is often clear, concise and actionable to the needs of the moment.
But be careful. For what you “get” in one moment may not be true for another moment, nor prove to be an absolute truth you can rely on. Still, it is a helpful resource to move forward when you’re stuck and have no idea where to go from here.
Another, more recognized version of your inner voice is that which we call “intuition.” It comes with a sense of knowing that thought and reason cannot explain, such as a warning that comes out of nowhere telling you to “look out” for imminent danger you haven’t recognized and averted.
There are of course far more things to look for as your inner sensitivity grows, things like vibrational responses to certain thoughts or scenarios. And of course, once you open that inner door, you’ll start to see that there is not just one voice trying to speak to you from within, but that there may be several for you to contend with, sort through and decipher for yourself.
When you do, you’ll then need to grow in your ability to work with your inner voice so you can know which one(s) come from Spirit, and which come from other sources like spirit guides or even intrusive outsiders that telepathically impose their ideas, and sometimes wills, upon you. But it all starts with knowing yourself and getting quiet in whatever way works for you.
Of course, hearing your inner voice (however it manifests for you) is only the first step, one that you will continue to hone as you dive deeper into your inner core. It does not absolve you with responsibility for your life, or how you exercise your free will.
For hearing it comes with a choice. Once you do, you then have to decide what to do with it. And that is another story for another day, to face the choice of following your inner voice and readjusting how you live your life accordingly — or not, and continuing on your merry way believing, “I’ve got this. I don’t need your help.”
Whatever your relationship to your inner voice and however you see it or the source from which it comes, know that it won’t wave a magic wand and make your life something wonderful. That remains up to you.
Rather, your inner voice is simply just another tool to help you shape your life into what it needs to be to bring you the experiences you came to get. And knowing what those are is beyond your pay grade at the moment, so you just have to make the best of what you can with what you’ve got — just like you’re doing now.
Anyway, listening to your inner voice is the start of something big in the evolution of your soul and its journey through the lifetimes in which your individuality manifests. I have long held that it is the goal of many religious teachings and traditions passed down through the years, and the place where all religions join together to point us toward the indwelling Spirit. I strongly suggest you consider starting to listen for its guidance and learn what to do with it from here.
You can do it. I know you can. It’s a task you were born to master, for it will ultimately lead you home.
Godspeed, and God bless you indeed.