That voice in our head goes all day long, doesn’t it? Sometimes it’s positive. Sometimes it’s negative. Sometimes it’s contemplating what to cook for dinner or reminding you of the need to put gas in the car. Sometimes it’s making a long wish list for the future or telling you to be nervous about something coming up on the horizon. Sometimes it’s just content looking around, feeling the good vibes.

If you read up on the subject, there are actually two inner voices. I call one the outer inner voice. This is what they call the ego in the woo-woo world of books and podcasts. The outer inner voice hardly ever shuts up. It thinks its job is to protect you and to fight for you. It thinks it needs to constantly give you feedback because the world is a dangerous and scary place. It makes you question if you are good enough, stable enough, smart enough, able enough.

The other voice is the inner inner voice. This is the deep down who-you-are at your core. Call it what you want – a spirit, a source, a being, a soul, a light. This is a beautiful voice because it’s at peace, it’s comfortable, it’s vibrant. It doesn’t need to be anything else at that moment. It is very comfortable with what it already knows. It’s just you. Brilliant, beautiful you.

I think it’s hard for many people to hear the inner inner voice. I’ve been trying for a long time to listen more closely to that voice. I’ve done a lot of reading and listening to podcasts about this process and I started where they all told me to start – meditation, prayer, walks, nature.

We’ll start with meditation. I slapped on the noise-canceling headphones and tried varying degrees of meditation. Guided. Not guided. Sitting just right. Sitting in whatever way was comfortable. Inside. Outside. Sometimes at home, sometimes at the office. But nothing really happened. At least not yet. I’ll keep trying – I think it’s good for our minds and bodies. It just doesn’t seem like my real self wants to talk during this process.

So how about prayer? Back in March, when we started quarantine, I developed an early morning habit of reading a bible passage, praying, meditating on it, and journaling. I do it every morning now. It’s become a part of my routine and I miss it terribly if I skip it. I am a spiritual person and this helps connect me to my faith and grounds me in the right mindset as I start my day. But I wouldn’t say this is where I really hear my true inner voice. I read. I pray. And I wait to hear my spirit burst forth with amazing insights for the day ahead. But that hasn’t happened yet and it’s been 8 months now. Again, I’ll keep doing this because I believe it is helpful to me, but my inner inner voice isn’t talking much here either.

What about walking, being in nature? Love it. My mind does wander when I spend time outdoors and I get a lot of creative ideas and fresh perspectives. But it doesn’t feel like I’m hearing from the truest, most inner part of myself here either.

So, last night I was in my bathroom getting ready for bed. I took out my contacts, washed my face, and removed my makeup. This is my routine every single night. Then I climbed up onto the counter between the two sinks, sat criss-cross, and stared at myself closely in the mirror. This is also my routine every single night. I look at my complexion, my eyebrows, my lips, my chin. I check out the pores, the wrinkles, whatever needs to be inspected and I sometimes take the tweezers to whatever needs tweezing. So last night, as I was sitting there looking over my face like I do every night, I was pondering about what to write today. I knew I wanted to write about the inner voice, I just wasn’t quite sure where I was going to go with it.

And then, after I’d stared down the wrinkles, took care of the eyebrows, looked myself over from forehead to chin, I sat there and stared at my eyes. I was looking into them and thinking about how I sit here every night, for as long as I want just staring at myself, never really being critical of what I see. Sure, I adjust the eyebrows and fix a few things up, but it dawned on me that I never engage in negative self-talk while I’m sitting on this bathroom counter at the end of the day. I don’t wish for my complexion or my hair or my eyes to be different than they are. I just look them over and know they are exactly as they are supposed to be. While I do this, my mind will wander back through the day, turning over the events and looking at them from different perspectives. Then it will wander into what is to come tomorrow, looking that over from different angles. Then sometimes it wanders into my goals and dreams and ponders how to make them happen. It’s all kind of slow and non-deliberate and it just does this without my help because I’m busy looking at myself in the mirror. Honestly, I didn’t even realize this was happening in my life every night…

Until last night when I was sitting on that countertop thinking of how to blog about listening to my inner voice. I sat there staring at my green eyes from two inches away and boom – I realized that RIGHT HERE ON THIS COUNTERTOP is where I hear my innermost self loud and clear. Here’s why:

1. I’m by myself. Not right away, mind you. Because as soon as you climb up onto the counter to have some serious alone time with your face, the people come from all throughout the house to ask questions, get toilet paper, get a band-aid, say goodnight. You name it, they need it. The very premise that you DON’T want anyone asking you why you sit on top of the bathroom counter for long periods of time, staring into yourself, is enough to cause them all to appear. It’s the most Jesus-like act I perform in a day. Sit on the counter, they will come. Never fails. But, eventually, they run out of needs and I get to be all by myself.
2. I stay as long as I want. Sometimes I sit there for 25 minutes and my feet get tingly and fall asleep. But I never look at the clock or think about time. This is always at the end of my day, so except for going to bed I have no obligations. I just sit there until I decide I’m done. There is no rush.
3. There is no negativity. I don’t wish for different eyes, lips, skin, appearance. I just accept that what I am looking at is how I am made and what I have grown to be today. It’s just me. I’m not sure how this works so effortlessly because many times throughout a day I will glance at myself in the mirror or in a photo and let the ego have a heyday: “time to lose some weight, your clothes don’t look right, your hair looks funny, one eye is lower than the other, nice double chin…” But when I am on my counter at the end of the day, the ego is as quiet as can be. The silence is golden.
4. The insights are magical. The ideas, thought processes, creativity just flow right into my conscious space. All kinds of projects are born on that bathroom counter without even trying. They just show up.

Apparently, my bathroom counter is where it all goes down. Who knew? I have been looking everywhere else but there. Maybe meditation or nature walks aren’t really it for you either. Or maybe they are! Maybe your thing is exercising or driving aimlessly in your car. Or cooking or making art. Or staring up at the clouds or watching the sunrise. Whatever it is, identify the space in your life where the ego is at a complete loss for words and you are 100% comfortable being you. THAT, my friends, is where you will find your innermost voice. And she’s perfect.