Whose voice is that?

"Ugly," "incompetent," and "clumsy" were voices or words he heard. The therapist asked who and what the voice sounded like. Over the course of their session, he realized whose voices they were. These were the voices of lovers, parents, teachers, supervisors, colleagues, friends, enemies, or siblings. Their words framed his world, and they have become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Self-fulfilling prophecy is when your belief and perception become reality. For example, one voice says, "You can do it," while another voice says, "Remember how you failed last time." If you believe the latter and it happens as you believed and feel affirmed that you knew it would happen, that is a self-fulfilling prophecy, to put it succinctly.

The voice and its many variants in the opening paragraph are in our heads all the time. These are the internalized voices of past critics whose comments have become magnified to suggest that we will never get it right. Voices of people from our past or present that call our attention to the gaps and insecurities in us that scream louder at us as we aim for our defined goals.

What are the voices in your head? Can you identify whose voice they are? What does this voice make you do or not do? Nasty voices in our heads can keep us from writing, dreaming big, and achieving our goals and furthering our aspirations.

I am learning to deal with my internal dialogue every day. Who told you academia is not for you? That you are not smart or intelligent enough, or how you present yourself (dress) doesn't align with the rigor of intellectual life. I heard/read Mrs. Kamala Harris say, "Hear your critics out, but don’t be constrained by them." Sometimes I hear my internal critique out, and I plan and strategize against it.

We all have inadequacies, insecurities, and inner chatter that often attempts to overthrow our wisdom. Struggling with the noise of inadequacies can cripple the cries of our competency. This is a dialogue we cannot avoid, even when life, events, and situations mock and contradict our beliefs.

I read of a Black woman named Eliza who swam with her child across an iced Kentucky river in winter when slave catchers were pursuing her to take her child and put him on an auction block. I wonder what her internal dialogue must have been. "Maybe not, my child." "One more stroke." "Keep going; don’t give up." Her story was fictionalized in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

This is not about toxic positivity. Cry if you must, but don’t stop believing.

After I cry my eyes out someday, I pick up my pen and start writing to myself and speaking against those negative and sometimes intrusive thoughts:

Ololade's daughter, you will make it.

You have not seen your best days yet.

God reserves the best for the last.

You will figure your way out.

You have not come this far to give up now.

Happy Sunday!

Have a fabulous week ahead