The Voice Within | VictorSchueller.com

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“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” ~Peggy O’Mara

My three-year-old daughter has learned to operate the zipper on her jacket and zip it up.  She was very pumped when she mastered it for the first time.  It’s pretty awesome to watch her as she continually adds more skills to her repertoire of physical feats.  I remember back to when my older daughter was learning to tie her shoes.  I got out a long rope-like piece of clothing that was actually a belt for one of my wife’s outfits.  I watched as she wrapped the long rope around her waist, and then used the ample length of the rope to her advantage, as she carefully navigated through the twists and loops of our pseudo “shoelaces.”  I captured it on vide0 — the triumph over the ever-so-challenging shoelace!  She was so proud of herself!  You could just see how her self esteem soared.

When do we feel good about ourselves?  Do we feel better about ourselves when we admit defeat or think we can’t accomplish something, or when we overcome a difficult challenge and arise victorious?  The answer is obvious — we gain tremendous self esteem and self confidence when we present ourselves with challenges, and then responsively rise to those challenges and overcome them!  As we continue to grow and learn, the challenges get to be larger, but that’s okay.  I am guessing that it’s pretty routine for you to zip a zipper or tie some shoelaces.  You’d feel pretty silly if people around you celebrated every time you zipped your jacked or tied your shoelaces.  You’ve accomplished those now-mundane and routine tasks — you’ve moved on to bigger and more challenging things.

Now, what if, being a well-intentioned parent, I continued to step in and tell my younger daughter that it’s too hard for her to zip her own jacket, and I would do it for her?  What if I would have told my older daughter that tying shoes is a tough job, and I can just do it for her in a quarter of the time it takes her, so I’ll just do it for her?  Would you think that’s healthy and healthy for my daughters?  Or, would you suggest that my verbal expressions of their insufficiencies does more harm than good?  What about their development as young people?  What about their confidence in their abilities?  What about their feelings of self esteem and self worth?  What about their future ability to overcome challenges, or simply the willingness to accept challenges?  What about their feelings of competence to even consider a challenge?

It’s obvious that my voice, expressing non-confidence in my daughters would be an obstacle to future growth and development, as well as diminishing their self worth and self confidence.  So, if it’s obvious to us that our audible voices of non-confidence can be negative, why do we allow the non-audible voice of the ego continue to tell us that we’re not good enough?  Why do we continue to listen to the voice as it tells us that we’ll never succeed, so we might as well give up?  Why do we continue to tell ourselves that we aren’t good enough, or that we are incapable of accomplishing some things?  Why do we continue to tell ourselves that we aren’t good at learning names, or doing math problems, or striking up small talk with strangers?  Why?

The voice within limits our potential.  The voice within covers up the truly awesome person that we are.  The voice within wants to maintain power over us, and keep us from realizing our true potential and authentic self.

How long are we going to listen to the voice?  Maybe it’s time we speak back to that voice with our own non-audible voice.  Maybe it’s time for us to say that our voice is wrong, and we’re not going to listen to it, believe it, or even acknowledge it anymore.  Don’t you think we’re better than that anyway?  What do you think?

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