Voices

Hearing voices does not make you crazy, not necessarily. Nor does not hearing voices surely mean you are sane. Through the passage of time, and the abuses we suffer at the hands of others and ourselves, we can become hard of hearing inner voices who care deeply for us. These voices can become hidden, inaudible and inaccessible, until we are ready to hear the hard truths they wish to convey. These truths are often unsettling at first, as they seek to liberate us by calling us to courageously face the previously unfaceable, to look ourselves in the mirror more directly and with a longer gaze, to behold who we have become, even to our dismay, and then, gently, gradually, to help us toward healing, integration, and becoming something more.

Annie, a middle-aged woman and survivor of childhood sexual abuse, began experimenting with yoga as a new way of listening to her body and possible path toward healing, as recounted in Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score. After her second yoga class, Annie told her psychiatrist, “I don’t know all of the reasons yoga terrifies me so much. But I do know that it will be an incredible source of healing for me, and that is why I am working on myself to try it. Yoga is about looking inward, instead of outward, and listening to my body. A lot of my survival has been geared around not doing those things. Going to the class today, my heart was racing, and part of me wanted to turn around. But then, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, until I got to the door and went in. After the class, I came home and slept for four hours. This week, I tried doing yoga at home, and the words came to me, ‘Your body has things to say.’ I said back to myself, ‘I will try to listen.’” This voice, unexpected, from within Annie, was not a symptom of a psychosis, but the sounding of self-care and self-compassion.

Augustine, a young man lost in wild living, world ambitions, and sexual promiscuity, similarly heard a voice one day, as later recounted in his book Confessions. Heading nowhere fast or good, having broken his mother’s heart, and perhaps now tinged with the smallest sense of guilt and regret, Augustine suddenly became tearful as he sat down beneath a tree in a garden in Milan to reassess the direction of his life. As he did, the words came to him, “Tolle, lege” (Latin for “take, and read”). The voice, unanticipated, yet undenialbe, confused him at first. He heard it repeatedly. Eventually, after some reflection, and recalling his mother’s tears, prayers, and petitions for him, Augustine supposed the words must refer to the Bible, which he did then take, and read, and so took the first steps down a new path of healing and personal transformation.

Annie and Augustine are but two examples of countless others who hear voices. This is not terribly surprising given we are a pantheon of personalities—each of us—with as many inner voices as our personas. Some of these voices are quite quiet and not easily heard, as their modus operandi is to be coy and clandestine, ensuring we actually want to hear what they have to say. Other voices can be like a cacophony, causing us confusion, as they may speak more or less simultaneously in a commotion, perhaps pulling us in opposite directions, and making it difficult to discern what we truly want or need. Allowing for internal dialogues as a normal, healthy part of being human nurtures self-discovery. Listening to ourselves, and our selves, is then less about clarification of what we already know, and more about having ears for vital voices previously marginalized or muted. We may not know what we really think or how we truly feel about a particular matter in our lives until space is created and ample time is given for a voice to speak—freely, and without judgment or expectation. Hearing voices, ultimately, is about honoring the essence of our lives, the complexity of who we are, but also our need for healing and becoming.