What is internal mind chatter, or better known as, your internal dialogue? Most here are intimately familiar with it, but for those new to self help work, the internal dialogue is simply the mind-chatter that goes on in our heads at all times - the little voices that run lists, create inventories, make pronouncements (judgments, observations, questions), and in general "sing the world into being", as the Aborigines call it. Everything we experience is commented upon by the internal dialogue. "He's handsome," it observes. "Got to go to the post office today," it says, over and over, as if to remind us lest we could possibly forget. "Big tree." "Did you feed the fish?"
The problem with the internal dialogue is that it is what maintains your 'fixed attention' of the consensual reality. It keeps the agreements and strengthens them by never allowing you to examine your own I-Am from within the place of Silent Knowing. And that, of course, is why it is necessary to learn to stop the internal dialogue - to be able to actually find the awareness and attention point of the higher/core self which is otherwise drowned out by the chatter. What I have personally found to work best, at least for starters, is simply this:
1. Make a commitment to doing the exercise listed below for at least 30 minutes every night. If night time doesn't work for you, commit to the time of day when you are most "in touch" with your spirit.
2. Sit in silence and simply observe your inner thoughts. Do not attempt to analyze, categorize or stop the internal dialogue. Just listen to what it is saying. Do this for a minimum of 5-10 minutes, calmly accepting that this is the beginning, and that no attempt is being made to effect change at the present Now. You are simply observing & listening.
3. At a certain point, which may happen almost "in a flash", or might require several attempts to really observe, it will become aware to you that there are two "minds" at work. There is the self doing the speaking (the internal dialogue), and there is the self doing the observing. What you will further experience is that the "speaker" does not really like being watched, and once it realizes this is happening, it will almost seem to turn to you with an inquisitive gaze, rather like a dog caught whizzing on the floor. :-) Point is: it has just become aware that it is not alone, and just by virtue of being "caught in the act", there is a tendency for it to become more circumspect. It begins to observe itself, and this is where the real beginning can occur.
4. Once you have observed the twin selves (speaker and listener), it becomes possible to further realize that the listener is actually the higher self, and that when shifting to that higher awareness, (coming to "Awareness" rather than simply existing at the lowest common denominator of mechanical progression through life), you begin to experience for the first time the place of silent knowing. From there, once you learn how to shift to the place of higher awareness at will, the internal dialogue ceases to be a problem.
This is a technique that will yield very rapid results - not to entirely STOP the internal dialogue, but to give you direct awareness and experience of the twin-mind phenomenon, and as a result of that awareness, to consciously shift your attention to the infinitely more Aware higher self by choice. And, like any serious spiritual work, this is not a technique that will be mastered in a single sitting, though I've found that many actually do have a real "Eureka!" experience just by virtue of being able to experience "observer" and "observed" simultaneously.
The trick of this technique is that it does not rely on force or any direct attempts to silence the internal dialogue. It only requires the commitment to do it, and the gentle but ruthless task of observing oneself without judgment or fear.
Kristopher Kelley
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