Your Inner Voice
I’m on a mission this year to discover my inner voice. I want to know how it sounds. I want to tune in to that radio frequency.
I’ve got a sense of what it’s like. It has a quiet, humble power that I want more of.
There’s something deep in there that I want to put into words.
When I say inner voice, I’m not talking about the inner critic that nags most of us, knocks our self-esteem, and tells us what’s wrong with ourselves. I’m plenty familiar with that voice.
What I mean by inner voice
There’s a song I learned as a child that talks about the “still small voice of calm.” It’s by a poet called John Greenleaf Whittaker, who started his life working on a farm, then later making shoes.
John struggled with farm work because he was a frail child, often beset by illness. Also, it was a strawberry farm, and he kept picking green strawberries the weren’t yet ripe.
“Why are you doing that?” John’s father, who owned the farm, asked him.
The farm struggled to make a profit anyway. It didn’t help to waste strawberries that would later be perfectly good if they were left on the plant.
John couldn’t explain why he did it. Later, John’s family realised he was color blind, so he couldn’t see any difference…
