“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

nce people catch onto the notion that there are voices in their heads causing them all sorts of trouble and misery, their focus turns to “getting rid of them.” At which point I will respectfully remind them that this won’t work. They won’t go away, and you can’t get rid of them. They’re here to stay.

Now, the truth is the voices don’t exist, and they only have influence over you if you give them your attention.

But this doesn’t help people because they still experience these voices as real. Years of being fooled in a particular way or being made to feel bad for certain things is hard to ignore. Emotions arise, and the whole system goes “tilt” as they try to walk through what appears to be a wall of fire.

So what can a person do?

I suggest you use the voices to your benefit.

The training I offer people is the ability to “spot the voices” so you can begin to hear them, identify them, and note the language they use. When you have discovered and cataloged the voices you hear in your head, you can no longer be so easily fooled by them.

Now the game becomes, every time I hear a particular voice it will become a signal for me to do the opposite of what it suggests.

So if it says, “You have no creativity!” as I sit down to do a creative drawing, I can catch that voice and retort, “Bullsh*t!” and keep drawing.

Over time, if you practice this technique, you’ll begin to see that the voices gradually become your greatest allies. Instead of them being noxious mental weeds you’re trying to get rid of, fighting them tooth-and-nail, you’re using them as a tool – a red flag – that help you come to consciousness.

At some point in a workshop or retreat I’m facilitating, a student will inevitably ask me, “Why do we have voices?”

And I’ll typically respond, “I don’t know why we have voices. But if I had to venture a guess, I’d say they’re our greatest opportunity to remind ourselves to choose compassion instead.”