Relationship Between Silence and Inner Voice

¶ … Silence and Inner Voice

"a Grace of Silence": Inner and outer voices

When our inner voice coheres with the voices of the outer world, life is much easier. A beautiful girl is told by her parents, friends, and teachers that she is beautiful and therefore good and she feels better about herself. It is more difficult when the inner voice of self-worth and the outer voices of the world do not cohere, as is the case in Andrew Flewelling's essay entitled "A Grace of Silence." In the essay, Flewelling describes the experience of growing up a minister's son in a racially polarized Southern community. Of biracial decent, the child of a white father and an African-American mother, Flewelling was told throughout his life by the outer world that he was bad and not a worthy person because of his skin tone. To survive, he had to only listen to his true, inner voice.

When we have friends and family to support us, when strangers smile at us on the street because our appearance pleases them, when we have accomplishments that are honored by the world such as wealth and power, it is easy to have high self-esteem. When we are stripped bare of our defenses, when we have no attractive clothing, when our image is demonized, and when we are the member of an arbitrarily-despised racial group, we must look within for emotional sustenance instead. This is a much lonelier emotional journey.

But, as Flewelling's experience illustrates, we are not alone, as we can also look to our community for support. When he was young, this community support gave Flewelling the sense of 'I am' that he carried into adolescence and later adulthood. However, he admits that "as I got older, the noise of our civilization -- television, movies, history, religion -- began to dictate the way I thought I ought to live my life." Only after his father passed away did he regain his sense of faith in himself, the faith he possessed when he still liked to ride his Big Wheel down the carpeted aisle of the church where his father preached.

But it is not necessary to have a major life crisis like the death of a beloved parent to find one's true inner voice. Through meditation, journaling, and other practices of self-discovery we can find this voice and isolate ourselves from the noise of civilization. What is confusing for me at times, though, is that sometimes it is necessary to listen to outer voices, such as the voices of parents and teachers that provide guidance. Sometimes I can act upon what feels like my inner voice but it is really the outer noise of culture telling me to make bad choices. Listening to others and tapping into the truth within is always a delicate balance.