Reply To: Exercise 3: Inner Monologue
Evelyn Wallace’s Inner Monologue Exercise
This exercise comes at a time when I’ve reconnected with my spiritual values—Michael Singer’s work was the nudge I needed—which means I’ve been putting conscious effort on noticing my own thoughts quite a bit lately. Being asked to transcribe them was a whole new thing, and it helped me go deeper into my own self-awareness. Alas! Before I get swept into a river of narrative, I’ll answer the specific questions:
• I did notice trends in my inner monologue, and how! The first trend was that (some) thoughts tend to be location-specific, or triggered specifically by my outer environment. Another trend was that as soon as I began identifying the thought I was about to transcribe (before I’d even picked up my pen), the direction of thought changed. That is to say: bearing witness to the thought made the thought a new thing, usually something quieter. If the first thought was something “hot,” I often responded to it with a second thought that was more reflective. The second thought often smoothed the edges of the first, reconsidered, and put some distance between self and first thought (and self and second thought, even). I also noticed trends in the thoughts I had but never wrote down. Who am I really hiding from?
• Common thoughts, by category but in no particular order: thoughts about a recent ex, thoughts about gratitude, thoughts about whether my behaviors were in alignment with my values, thoughts about the day-to-day operations of life, thoughts about that one nonprofit that’s almost certainly operating fraudulently, thoughts about my SIDCHAs, thoughts about parenting.
• I suspect some of my thoughts were par for the course as compared with the thoughts of others (housekeeping items, for example, or thoughts about intimate partnerships, whatever stage of the relationship you’re in). From experience, I suspect that some of my other thoughts (usually the ones I didn’t transcribe for this exercise) are less common among the rest of humanity, but maybe this exercise is here to help me see: I’m not that special.
• How might I apply this? Easy! Every time I am asked to bring my awareness to my thoughts (especially by writing them down), I am compelled to remember that I am the bigger entity, the one behind the thoughts. And that’s a good state of being to be operating from, in general. For reference, it’s not about having the thought or not having the thought, it’s about how quickly I can recognize what the thought is and what to do with it. If it’s administrative, it definitely goes in my in-tray. If it’s about an ex, it definitely goes in the let-it-be-heard-then-dismiss-it tray. I anticipate this thought-watcher exercise will help me to process my own emotions (and thoughts) from a more regulated place, which will allow me to connect with others from a more regulated place, which will allow me to do the work I need to do on earth as effectively as possible. And also, as an added bonus, it looks like it might apply to being more administratively organized!