Internal Dialogue Quotes

Non-judgment quiets the internal dialogue, and this opens once again the doorway to creativity.

The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue

To just let go, and not pick everything to death. To just let go and enjoy what you had. To just let go and not make everybody around you miserable with your own internal dialogue. To just let go and be happy. So simple. So difficult. So terrifying.

A two-headed man should have twice the IQ, and the ability to have internal dialogues externally.

Anyone can plot a course with a map or compass; but without a sense of who you are, you will never know if you're already home.

If the idea of loving those whom you have been taught to recognize as your enemies is too overwhelming, consider more deeply the observation that we are all much more alike than we are unalike.

[M]y discovering my own identity doesn't mean that I work it out in isolation, but that I negotiate it through dialogue, partly overt, partly internal, with others.

perhaps solitude has stretched out his thoughts into long strands, and accustomed him to internal dialogues.

Whenever you can’t balance what you see with what you believe you have conflict.

Unfortunately, much of the important information Ambassador Grew sent to Washington was largely overlooked or ignored, and dialogue between Washington and Tokyo was strained. This state of affairs is indicated by Grew’s cable on July 10, 1941, in which he pointed out that he had to go to the British ambassador in Tokyo, Sir Robert Craigie, to find out about discussions between the State Department and the Japanese ambassador in Washington. This occurred because the State Department kept the British ambassador in Washington abreast of events, who promptly informed the foreign secretary in London, who in turn informed their ambassador in Tokyo. Sir Robert then kindly passed the information to Ambassador Grew.

War is not just the shower of bullets and bombs from both sides, it is also the shower of blood and bones on both sides.

Is he about to kiss me? Did he eat garlic too or was I the only one? 'Cause if Ric didn't eat garlic then my breath's gonna stink and he'll think... Oh for fuck sake, shut up internal dialogue!

People think they think, but it’s not true. It’s mostly self-criticism that passes for thinking. True thinking is rare—just like true listening. Thinking is listening to yourself. It’s difficult. To think, you have to be at least two people at the same time. Then you have to let those people disagree. Thinking is an internal dialogue between two or more different views of the world.

Silence is a mirror. So faithful, and yet so unexpected, is the relection it can throw back at men that they will go to almost any length to avoid seeing themselves in it, and if ever its duplicating surface is temporarily wiped clean of modern life's ubiquitous hubbub, they will hasten to fog it over with such desperate personal noise devices as polite conversation, hummin, whistling, imaginary dialogue, schizophrenic babble, or, should it come to that, the clandestine cannonry of their own farting. Only in sleep is silence tolerated, and even there, most dreams have soundtracks. Since meditation is a deliberate descent into deep internal hush, a mute stare into the ultimate looking glass, it is regarded with suspicion by the nattering masses; with hostility by buisness interests (people sitting in silent serenity are seldom consuming goods); and with spite by a clergy whose windy authority it is seen to undermine and whose bombastic livelihood it is perceived to threaten.

Winning and losing is not an external game. It is an internal battle over telling yourself the truth vs. lies regarding why you haven’t stepped into the life you dreamed of.

The first step toward patience is to become aware of when your internal dialogue is running wild and dragging you with it.

Situations produce vibrations. Negative, potentially harmful situations emit slow vibrations. Positive, potentially life-enhancing situations emit quick vibrations. As these vibrations impact on your energy field they produce either resonance or dissonance in your lower and middle tantiens (psychic power stations) depending on your own vibratory rate at the time. When you psychic field force is strong and your vibratory rate is fast, therefore, you will draw only positive situations to you. When you mind is quiet enough and your attention is on the moment, you will literally hear the dissonance in your belly and chest like an alarm bell going off, urging you from deep within your body to move in such and such a direction. Always follow it. At times these urges may come to you in the form of internally spoken dialogue with your higher self, spirit guide, guardian angel, alien intelligence, however you see the owner of the “still, small voice within.” This form of dialogue can be entertaining and reassuring but is best not overindulged in as, in the extreme; it tends to lead to the loony bin. At times you may receive your messages from “Indian signs”, such as slogans on passing trucks or cloud formations in the sky. This is also best kept in moderation, to avoid seeing signs in everything and becoming terribly confused. Just let it happen when it happens and don’t try looking for it.

-Please, Anita, go home, and don’t freak. Just go home, and be happy. Be happy, and let everyone around you be happy. Is that so hard? When Jason said it like that, it didn’t seem hard. In fact, it seemed to make a lot of sense, but inside, it felt hard. Inside it felt like the hardest thing in the world. To just let go, and not pick everything to death. To just let go and enjoy what you had. To just let go and not make everybody around you miserable with your own internal dialogue. To just let go and be happy. So simple. So difficult. So terrifying.

Practicing silence means making a commitment to take a certain amount of time to simply Be. Experiencing silence means periodically withdrawing from the activity of speech. It also means periodically withdrawing from such activities as watching television, listening to the radio, or reading a book. If you never give yourself the opportunity to experience silence, this creates turbulence in your internal dialogue.

Talking to oneself is a recognized means to learn, in fact, self-speak may be the seed concept behind human consciousness. Private conversation that we hold with ourselves might represent the preeminent means to provoke the speaker into thinking (a form of cognitive auto-stimulation), modify behavior, and perhaps even amend the functional architecture of the plastic human brain. Writing out our private talks with oneself enables a person to “see” what they think, a process that invites reflection, ongoing thoughtful discourse with the self, and refinement of our thinking patterns and beliefs. Internal sotto voice conversations with our private-self provide several advantages, but most people find it difficult to maintain self-speak for an extended period. Internal dialogue must compete with external distractions. Writing allows a person to resume a personal dialogue where they left off before interrupted by outside stimuli. A written disquisition also provides a permanent record that a person can examine, amend, supplement, update, or reject.

If you have an inner dialogue that disempowers you, it won’t change until you yourself replace it with a positive, powerful, internal conversation.

Even when we're sitting still, with no external stimuli, an endless internal dialogue may be going on in our head. we're constantly consuming our thoughts. Cows, goats, and buffalo chew their food, swallow it, then regurgitate and rechew it multiple times. We may not be cows or buffalo, but we ruminate just the same on our thoughts - unfortunately, primarily negative thoughts. We eat them, and then we bring them up to chew again and again, like a cow chewing its cud.

To think, you have to be at least two people at the same time. Then you have to let those people disagree. Thinking is an internal dialogue between two or more different views of the world.

A destructive thought process exists within all of us, and we are plagued to varying degrees by an internal dialogue that is harmful, restrictive, and at its ultimate extreme, self-destructive.

You mustn't mind so much. It's all in your head." "Well, I live in my head.

We are all either conditioned by belief system or consciousness. Belief system is built through the world, consciousness is built from within.

Classical science, the mythical science of a simple, passive world, belongs to the past, killed not by philosophical criticism or empiricist resignation but by the internal development of science itself.

One of the most wonderful things about Pride and Prejudice is the variety of voices it embodies. There are so many different forms of dialogue: between several people, between two people, internal dialogue and dialogue through letters. All tensions are created and resolved through dialogue. Austen's ability to create such multivocality, such diverse voices and intonations in relation and in confrontation within a cohesive structure, is one of the best examples of the democratic aspect of the novel. In Austen's novels, there are spaces for oppositions that do not need to eliminate each other in order to exist. There is also space - not just space but a necessity - for self-reflection and self-criticism. Such reflection is the cause of change. We needed no message, no outright call for plurality, to prove our point. All we needed was to reach and appreciate the cacophony of voices to understand its democratic imperative. There was where Austen's danger lay.

Nerds obsess. We zealously deconstruct. We have a very active internal monologue (which may feel more like a dialogue sometimes). I think that so many of the things we undertake are a partial attempt to distract this monologue. We are hyper-self-aware. We have difficulty “chilling out.

My challenge to you today is to observe your thoughts and internal dialogue and recognize if and when you speak poorly to yourself. We all have moments of self-deprecation and very often we are too hard on ourselves. Today, start to be caring and supportive of yourself. Observe that little voice in your head and say something positive to yourself instead!

One day I am going to die," my internal dialogue asserts. That reality reverberates in my skull like a shriek in a cave. I am going to experience whatever it feels like for my life force to finish. Face it. Whatever animates my body will stop. Black. Nothing, That isn't just some alarming scary-movie fear; it's true. People will have to deal with my corpse.

Our souls gravitate toward the things meant for us, and everything that is meant for us isn't necessarily pretty, but whatever we are pulled toward is necessary for our growth.

As the expert in knowing yourself, you get to decide what you want to explore in your internal landscape.

Let someone else be the most powerful country, make ours the most peaceful country.

My writing is my internal dialogue—

I see things in windows and I say to myself that I want them. I want them because I want to belong. I want to be liked by more people, I want to be held in higher regard than others. I want to feel valued, so I say to myself to watch certain shows. I watch certain shows on the television so I can participate in dialogues and conversations and debates with people who want the same things I want. I want to dress a certain way so certain groups of people are forced to be attracted to me. I want to do my hair a certain way with certain styling products and particular combs and methods so that I can fit in with the In-Crowd. I want to spend hours upon hours at the gym, stuffing my body with what scientists are calling 'superfoods', so that I can be loved and envied by everyone around me. I want to become an icon on someone's mantle. I want to work meaningless jobs so that I can fill my wallet and parentally-advised bank accounts with monetary potential. I want to believe what's on the news so that I can feel normal along with the rest of forever. I want to listen to the Top Ten on Q102, and roll my windows down so others can hear it and see that I am listening to it, and enjoying it. I want to go to church every Sunday, and pray every other day. I want to believe that what I do is for the promise of a peaceful afterlife. I want rewards for my 'good' deeds. I want acknowledgment and praise. And I want people to know that I put out that fire. I want people to know that I support the war effort. I want people to know that I volunteer to save lives. I want to be seen and heard and pointed at with love. I want to read my name in the history books during a future full of clones exactly like me. The mirror, I've noticed, is almost always positioned above the sink. Though the sink offers more depth than a mirror, and mirror is only able to reflect, the sink is held in lower regard. Lower still is the toilet, and thought it offers even more depth than the sink, we piss and shit in it. I want these kind of architectural details to be paralleled in my every day life. I want to care more about my reflection, and less about my cleanliness. I want to be seen as someone who lives externally, and never internally, unless I am able to lock the door behind me. I want these things, because if I didn't, I would be dead in the mirrors of those around me. I would be nothing. I would be an example. Sunken, and easily washed away.

What is the black shadow? It's the running inner dialogue we have with ourselves all day long about our fears of being inferior as black people. It is our internalization of the white man's lie that blacks are inferior to whites -- the very lie that was the foundation of our ancestors' enslavement. The black shadow is more than simply internalized racism; it's also our complex feelings of fear and despair about being black, and consequently our longing to be less black.

Like the tightly closed eyelids of a child trying to escape the reprimand of a parent, there is a part of the mind that needs to shut down in the face of an internal dialogue that is steeped in guilt, shame, and self-loathing.

As women of one country achieve more equality, men seek out women with fewer options elsewhere - a pattern observable sexually in sex trafficking, sex tourism, and mail -order brides and economically in labor trafficking, international outsourcing to sweatshops, and relocation of production in dominant countries to sources of cheap female labor in countries whose gross domestic product is less than that of some of the multinational corporations that locate there. No more than clean air can women's equality be successfully achieved in one country. No woman will be free until all women are equal.

Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s taking action even though you are gripped by fear. Courage requires the self-discipline to put yourself in harm’s way and ignore the internal dialogue that tells you to retreat to safety. Self-discipline

When you hate what you are doing, complain about your surroundings, curse things that are happening or have happened, or when your internal dialogue consists of shoulds and shouldn’ts, of blaming and accusing, then you are arguing with what is, arguing with that which is always already the case. You are making Life into an enemy and Life says, “War is what you want, and war is what you get.” External reality, which always reflects back to you your inner state, is then experienced as hostile.

I was in fear I would not have my job anymore because of my physical burnout. And my internal dialogue responded back that I should be in fear of losing my life, my values and my integrity. It was at that point that everything changed—for the better.

To change your mind you have to change your thought habits, and you do this by spending time each day correcting faulty internal dialogue. Every time you think negative, stop yourself and make yourself think positive and continue doing so until the negative thoughts have been starved to death and the positives have grown strong on a diet of regular use. To think bad thoughts is very easy, they float into your mind uninvited. To think good thoughts, however, takes daily practice and constant vigilance.

True thinking is rare—just like true listening. Thinking is listening to yourself. It’s difficult. To think, you have to be at least two people at the same time. Then you have to let those people disagree. Thinking is an internal dialogue between two or more different views of the world.

Every thought you think and every word you speak is an affirmation. All of your self-talk, your internal dialogue, is a stream of affirmations. You’re using affirmations every moment whether you know it or not. You’re affirming and creating your life experiences with every word and thought.

Instead of expressing rage and sadness over a loss, the child accepts the blame for being rejected, and from that point on, relentlessly accuses him or herself of being unworthy of love from anyone. “No longer is the feeling of being loved the sole prerequisite for well-being, but the feeling of having done the right thing is now necessary.” (Fenichel, 1945, p. 388) Feelings of worthlessness, self-accusatory thoughts, and the erratic mood swings that characterize certain types of depressive states are controlled by an internal negative thought process or inner dialogue, the voice.

The problem is that moderates of all faiths are committed to reinterpreting, or ignoring outright, the most dangerous and absurd parts of their scripture—and this commitment is precisely what makes them moderates. But it also requires some degree of intellectual dishonesty, because moderates can’t acknowledge that their moderation comes from outside the faith. The doors leading out of the prison of scriptural literalism simply do not open from the inside. In the twenty-first century, the moderate’s commitment to scientific rationality, human rights, gender equality, and every other modern value—values that, as you say, are potentially universal for human beings—comes from the past thousand years of human progress, much of which was accomplished in spite of religion, not because of it. So when moderates claim to find their modern, ethical commitments within scripture, it looks like an exercise in self-deception. The truth is that most of our modern values are antithetical to the specific teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And where we do find these values expressed in our holy books, they are almost never best expressed there. Moderates seem unwilling to grapple with the fact that all scriptures contain an extraordinary amount of stupidity and barbarism that can always be rediscovered and made holy anew by fundamentalists—and there’s no principle of moderation internal to the faith that prevents this. These fundamentalist readings are, almost by definition, more complete and consistent—and, therefore, more honest. The fundamentalist picks up the book and says, “Okay, I’m just going to read every word of this and do my best to understand what God wants from me. I’ll leave my personal biases completely out of it.” Conversely, every moderate seems to believe that his interpretation and selective reading of scripture is more accurate than God’s literal words. Presumably, God could have written these books any way He wanted. And if He wanted them to be understood in the spirit of twenty-first-century secular rationality, He could have left out all those bits about stoning people to death for adultery or witchcraft. It really isn’t hard to write a book that prohibits sexual slavery—you just put in a few lines like “Don’t take sex slaves!” and “When you fight a war and take prisoners, as you inevitably will, don’t rape any of them!” And yet God couldn’t seem to manage it. This is why the approach of a group like the Islamic State holds a certain intellectual appeal (which, admittedly, sounds strange to say) because the most straightforward reading of scripture suggests that Allah advises jihadists to take sex slaves from among the conquered, decapitate their enemies, and so forth.

If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It’s very important to be aware of them every time they come up.” – Deepak Chopra

When there is complete peace of mind when the outer world is chaotic you will truly be free.

International

Privately Kate thought that for a guy in a banana-yellow suit he was turning out to be a pretty sharp operator.

She had an internal battle between letting go and holding on to tradition.

I hadn't the faintest idea what 'this matter' was, but I was more annoyed than interested.

Researchers have concluded two things. One is that we drop out of conversations every twelve to eighteen seconds to process what people are saying; two, we often remember what we think about what another person is saying because that is a stronger internal process and chemical signal. In other words, our internal listening and dialogue trumps the other person’s speech.

In your rare embrace, sometimes I am lost nowadays. In these years, you have changed. I have changed. Every single day, we’re fighting our feuds silently; inventing devious ways to hurt one another. Our gazes keep to our feet: wavering, pirouetting and crisscrossing, so as to not stumble, even inadvertently, upon each other. Our windows look out at other windows looking in at us. Mynahs no longer come by in our balconies. Branches, not of a mango tree, but of a conglomerate, surround them instead. The silhouettes of concrete buildings sometimes shine in the rain's aftermath, but remain concrete. Today, as the Ganga rises and rages all over the city, people run for their lives, but I let it wash over my soul and flood my tears.’ ('Left from Dhakeshwari')

It was Vyasa’s genius to take the whole great Mahabharata epic and see it as metaphor for the perennial war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness in every human heart. Arjuna and Krishna are then no longer merely characters in a literary masterpiece. Arjuna becomes Everyman, asking the Lord himself, Sri Krishna, the perennial questions about life and death – not as a philosopher, but as the quintessential man of action. Thus read, the Gita is not an external dialogue but an internal one: between the ordinary human personality, full of questions about the meaning of life, and our deepest Self, which is divine.

The way that the obsessive focus on girls' looks plays into the dialogue around what they can and can't do is particularly poisonous. It inserts the self-consciousness of the watched, objectified woman into girls' internal narratives before they would ever have noticed it themselves. [...] And it teaches them lessons about their own value being measured by their bodies and faces – lessons that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

People are little more than a living conversation, both internal and spoken. A dialogue in a body. A skin-and-bone bag that talks, and it talks about everything, and the limit of that talk is the limit of that life. Period.

Yet, when I’m alone, I rarely feel lonely. If I were writing the thesaurus entries for alone, the synonyms would include: authentic, free, individual, indulgent, open, peaceful, protected, pure, quiet, rejuvenating, solitary. Thanks to the amount of time I spend alone, I’m on intimate terms with myself. I have a running internal dialogue that informs my life, my writing, my relationships. I observe and absorb the world around me. I’m good at being alone.

On behalf of those you killed, imprisoned, tortured, you are not welcome, Erdogan! No, Erdogan, you’re not welcome in Algeria. We are a country which has already paid its price of blood and tears to those who wanted to impose their caliphate on us, those who put their ideas before our bodies, those who took our children hostage and who attempted to kill our hopes for a better future. The notorious family that claims to act in the name of the God and religion—you’re a member of it—you fund it, you support it, you desire to become its international leader. Islamism is your livelihood Islamism, which is your livelihood, is our misfortune. We will not forget about it, and you are a reminder of it today. You offer your shadow and your wings to those who work to make our country kneel down before your “Sublime Door.” You embody and represent what we loathe. You hate freedom, the free spirit. But you love parades. You use religion for business. You dream of a caliphate and hope to return to our lands. But you do it behind the closed doors, by supporting Islamist parties, by offering gifts through your companies, by infiltrating the life of the community, by controlling the mosques. These are the old methods of your “Muslim Brothers” in this country, who used to show us God’s Heaven with one hand while digging our graves with the other. No, Mr. Erdogan, you are not a man of help; you do not fight for freedom or principles; you do not defend the right of peoples to self-determination. You know only how to subject the Kurds to the fires of death; you know only how to subject your opponents to your dictatorship. You cry with the victims in the Middle East, yet sign contracts with their executioners. You do not dream of a dignified future for us, but of a caliphate for yourself. We are aware of your institutionalized persecution, your list of Turks to track down, your sinister prisons filled with the innocent, your dictatorial justice palaces, your insolence and boastful nature. You do not dream of a humanity that shares common values and principles, but are interested only in the remaking of the Ottoman Empire and its bloodthirsty warlords. Islam, for you, is a footstool; God is a business sign; modernity is an enemy; Palestine is a showcase; and local Islamists are your stunned courtesans. Humanity will not remember you with good deeds Humanity will remember you for your machinations, your secret coups d’état, and your manhunts. History will remember you for your bombings, your vengeful wars, and your inability to engage in constructive dialogue with others. The UN vote for Al-Quds is only an instrument in your service. Let us laugh at this with the Palestinians. We know that the Palestinian issue is your political capital, as it is for many others. You know well how to make a political fortune by exploiting others’ emotions. In Algeria, we suffered, and still suffer, from those who pretend to be God and act as takers and givers of life. They applaud your coming, but not us. You are the idol of Algerian Islamists and Populists, those who are unable to imagine a political structure beyond a caliphate for Muslim-majority societies. We aspire to become a country of freedom and dignity. This is not your ambition, nor your virtue. You are an illusion You have made beautiful Turkey an open prison and a bazaar for your business and loved ones. I hope that this beautiful nation rises above your ambitions. I hope that justice will be restored and flourish there once again, at least for those who have been imprisoned, tortured, bombed, and killed. You are an illusion, Erdogan—you know it and we know it. You play on the history of our humiliation, on our emotions, on our beliefs, and introduce yourself as a savior. However, you are a gravedigger, both for your own country and for your neighbors. Turkey is a political miracle, but it owes you nothing. The best thing you can do

But social media doesn’t just provide us with a platform to (over)share the thoughts and feelings streaming through our head, and the ways it derails our internal dialogues don’t exclusively relate to empathy and time. Social media also allows us to shape what we want other people to believe is happening in our lives, and our choices about what to post can fuel other people’s chatter. The human need to self-present is powerful. We craft our appearances to influence how people perceive us all the time.

When barriers to functioning make completing care tasks difficult, a person can experience an immense amount of shame. “How can I be failing at something so simple?” they think to themselves. The critical internal dialogue quickly forms a vicious cycle, paralyzing the person even further. They are unlikely to reach out for help with these tasks due to intense fear of judgment and rejection. As shame and isolation increase, mental health plummets. Self-loathing sets in and motivation vanishes. Sadly, this is often compounded by

Most of us spend our time preoccupied. We are constantly carrying on an internal dialogue. While we are involved in talking to ourselves, we miss the moment-to-moment awareness of our life. We look, but we don’t see. We listen, but we don’t hear. We eat, but we don’t taste. We love, but we don’t feel. The senses are receiving all the information, but because of our preoccupations, cognition is not taking place. Zazen brings us back to each moment. The moment is where our life takes place. If we miss the moment, we miss our life.

An important component in the history of knowledge is the development of techniques that increase the potency of “words and diagrams.” What is true historically is also true for the individual: An important part of becoming a good learner is learning how to push out the frontier of what we can express with words. From this point of view the question about the bicycle is not whether or not one can “tell” someone “in full” how to ride but rather what can be done to improve our ability to communicate with others (and with ourselves in internal dialogues)

Tears fled her eyes as she ran, and they slid into her ears, but she did not wipe them, no, she pressed forward through the many trees, keeping her eyes upon the large shadow that flew forward, almost guiding her out of the woods, but that was preposterous – so why am I following it? What do you mean why are you following it? It’s the only thing that’s putting distance between you and those...monsters back there! But what about Lord Delacroix? What the devil about him? He tried to keep you safe – he truly did attempt to save you— And what did that get him? Crushed by a damned Lycan – again! But I should still go back to save him.... I should keep moving! But he’s saved my life – I can’t let him die! Technically, he’s already dead, Alexi.... Goddamn it all! Run – run now – come back when you’re safe! Come back? With who?! Help, of course! Where on Earth am I going to find help?!

When studying the world’s religions, there appear to be two primary paths available to those who want to practice their faith. One path is internal and contemplative in nature. The other is emotional, external, and actionable in nature. I have identified these as the paths of oneness and goodness.

But we must all be conscious of the power of our archaic internal dialogues. Of how they weave themselves through our public discourses and our unspoken expectations of each other. Good provider? Think it over. What are you doing to a man when you call him a good provider? Are you normalizing and reinforcing the Man Box paradigm of a man who sacrifices his emotional expression and hidden aspirations to insure a steady stream of revenue for his family? Are you relegating him to some space outside the daily emotional sphere of the family and by extension, depriving the family of crucial male emotional modeling and connection?

Each of us talked about what we thought the “ethics of equality” was, from our own point of view, without paying any attention to the other guy’s point of view. For example, the historian proposed that the way to understand ethical problems is to look historically at how they evolved and how they developed; the international lawyer suggested that the way to do it is to see how in fact people actually act in different situations and make their arrangements; the Jesuit priest was always referring to “the fragmentation of knowledge” and I, as a scientist, proposed that we should isolate the problem in a way analogous to Galileo’s techniques for experiments; and so on. “So, in my opinion,” I said, “we had no dialogue at all. Instead, we had nothing but chaos!” Of

The old saying, “You Snooze, You Lose” may have a much deeper meaning than any of us realized. When you delay waking up until you have to—meaning you wait until the last possible moment to get out of bed and start your day—consider that what you’re actually doing is resisting your life. Every time you hit the snooze button, you’re in a state of resistance to your day, to your life, and to waking up and creating the life you say you want. Think about the kind of negative energy that surrounds you when you begin your day with resistance, when you respond to the sound of the alarm clock with internal dialogue along the lines of, “Oh no, it’s time already. I have to wake up. I don’t want to wake up.” It’s as if you’re saying, “I don’t want to live my life, at least not to the fullest.

Outside of the courtroom, in the dialogues we engage in and the discussions we have, we should be asking ourselves continually whether the stories we tell divide or unite. If we are casting ourselves collectively as victims, to what end are we doing so? Is there a way in which this is seemingly entitling us to collectively diminish others or to sanction acts that we wouldn’t otherwise feel entitled to endorse?

Unpublished. What if I, revealed these feelings private pieces, cast… at stranger’s eyes exposing sober thought, and truth as sentiments, lie deep interred, inside of me… should they come alive? Unconsciously to never share, that essence... safe, in mind Restlessness wordplay, stills me I was born… unsettled Through my rage, of self-indulgence all… those chosen things, I hide deep and unexposed stay inconsolable… within the inside

What is the proper relationship between dodgy self-absorption and a quest for perceptive understanding of our own journey? Why do we need to determine who we are? Why do I spend hours attempting to evaluate past performance, reconcile exhibited flaws in my personal character, and atone for reprehensible prior behavior? Why cannot a person be satisfied with just being? People tend to spend more time living inside their head than they do confronting reality. Is a person’s constant internal narrative dialogue a form of catharsis? Is a narrative the most apropos method to comprehend what living entails? Do we seek to tell our own stories in order to interpret and organize the reality of the world that surrounds us? Alternatively, is storytelling simply the easiest way for us to apprehend the tenuous notion of the self? Does storytelling enable us to recognize the translucent thread that connects us to the past?

It is not a young man’s response, which was more what we expected, but that of an elderly man of letters, which is all the more significant, perhaps, because it shows us the unexpected direction taken by Pasternak on his interior journey in his long period of silence. This last survivor of the Westernising, avant-garde poets of the 1920s has not detonated in the ‘thaw’ a display of stylistic fireworks long held in reserve; after the end of the dialogue with the international avant-garde, which had been the natural space for his poetry,

She had been hesitant the first night, right before she had launched into him like a wild animal. The imprint of her violence had lasted on him well until the morning and while he had been hurt, he had loved the fact that she was into him, that she lusted after him fanatically, that she scratched him, wept on him, bit him and he was grateful that she let him see her like that: unhinged, throbbing and warm-skinned. She was powerful and thus ironically all the more defenceless in surrender. At times he felt as though she truly hated him, hated him for making her feel like this, for having to condescend herself just by wanting him. He felt as though she was warning him constantly through her seething, hurtling silence; to not let her down after she had disclosed so much of her soul to him. Her insecurities, her memories, her fetishes, her scent, her limbs; they had all been laid-bare in front of him and as he lay there next to the girl whose chest heaved and fell like the meter of a ghazal, he fell in love with that girl and her bundle of contradictions.’ ('Left from Dhakeshwari')

What fundamentally distinguishes torture, understood in human rights terms, from the events these women have described is that torture is done to men as well as to women. Or, more precisely, when what usually happens to women as these women have described it happens to men, which it sometimes does, women's experience is the template for it, so those men, too, are ignored as women are. When the abuse is sexual or intimate, especially when it is sexual and inflicted by an intimate, it is gendered, hence not considered a human rights violation.

The black shadow is a burden every black person carries, whether or not we are conscious of it. It lives deep in our unconscious minds and influences us all the time, and we are neither aware nor mindful of its profound influence on every aspect of our lives. What is the black shadow? It’s the running inner dialogue we have with ourselves all day long about our fears of being inferior as black people. It is our internalization of the white man’s lie that blacks are inferior to whites – the very lie that was the foundation of our ancestors’ enslavement.

Eighthly, none of our sense-perceptions is opposed to the acceptance of infinity, since we cannot deny infinity merely because we do not sensibly perceive it; but since sense in itself is included in infinity, and since reason doth confirm infinity, therefore needs must that we posit infinity. Moreover, if we consider well, sense doth present to us an infinite universe. For we perceive an endless series of objects, each one contained by another, nor do we ever perceive either with our external or our internal sense, an object which is not contained by another or similar object. Lastly before our eyes one thing is seen to bound another; air is as a well between the hills, and mountains between tracts of air, land bounds the sea and again sea bounds all lands; yet in truth there is nothing outside to limit the universe ... so far on every side spreads out huge room for things, free from limit in all directions everywhere. [6] From the testimony of our sight then we should rather infer the infinite, since there is no object which doth not terminate in another, nor can we experience aught which terminateth in itself.

Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, often regarded as the most famous decorated US army officer of the early twentieth century, wrote a book after World War I aptly called War Is a Racket. Upon retirement in the 1930s, he gave speeches around the country to spread his message—a message that sheds light upon the hidden internal dialogue underlying US military history. In 1935, Butler boldly stated: I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

The lead singer put his sombrero on Zara's head and pulled her close, his hips moving in a way Jay didn't want to see another man's hips move when he was so close to the woman Jay had fantasized about kissing only moments ago. As if he could hear Jay's internal dialogue, the singer caught his gaze. His lips spread in a smug smile and he slid his hand down Zara's back to the curve of her ass. Zara slapped his hand away but not before Jay felt a fierce and totally inexplicable wave of possessiveness wash over him. Not my fight. But he was already out of the booth and across the floor. It was the disrespect the singer was showing toward her, he told himself, the danger he represented, and the gauntlet he'd thrown at Jay's feet. Nothing more. "You came!" Zara flung herself into his arms before he could even open his mouth to give the singer a piece of his mind. Jay gave a satisfied growl and wrapped his arms around her, acutely aware of her soft sexy body pressed up against him, her warmth seeping into his skin like a drug. Something loosened inside him and he bit back a sigh. "Jay." She breathed his name and their eyes met, locked. The world fell away, the music fading beneath the pudding of his heart and the rush of blood in his ears. Raw need spiraled inside him, and in that moment he knew two things: he was going to kiss her, and it was going to happen now. He lowered his head, closing the distance between them, his thoughts centered on naked bodies, cool sheets, panted breaths, and the thudding of his headboard against the wall.

As stated earlier, intimacy is greatly enhanced when two people dialogue about all aspects of their experience. This is especially true when they transcend taboos against full emotional communication. Feelings of love, appreciation and gratitude are naturally enhanced when we reciprocally show our full selves - confident or afraid, loving or alienated, proud or embarrassed. What an incredible achievement it is when any two of us create such an authentic and supportive relationship! Many of the most intimate relationships that I have seen are between people who have done a great deal of freeing themselves from the negative legacies of their upbringings. “The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living” A further silver lining in recovery is the attainment of a much richer internal life.

the recovery of the practice of catechesis is one of the most hopeful signs for Christians interested in cultivating their ability to question and live into the answers. Christians throughout history have used catechisms to train those new to the faith in the fundamentals. Answers were often memorized, with the goal that they would be internalized so that the catechumen could have a lively dialogue with the teacher. As Christians recover the practice of catechesis, our questions will become more sophisticated because we will have a more robust framework through which to look at the world. The apologetics movement, in fact, could think of its own work through this lens. Answers and particular reasons almost never persuade people. But internalizing them lays a helpful foundation that allows for the more lively and productive back-and-forth of dialoguing together.

Islamophobia doesn't disappear simply because you choose to close your eyes. Can you stand by a dehumanized muslim, against the bigoted barbarians of your own culture, and speak out at the top of your voice and conviction - I am a muslim, just as much as I am a christian - I am a muslim, just as much as I am a jew - I am a muslim, just as much as I am a buddhist - hindu - or atheist? Can you? Because, until every threat to the welfare of the dehumanized humans actually, genuinely, internally feels like a threat to your own family, no phobia will ever come to an end - no hatred will ever face demise. Till every culture, every country, every corner of the planet, becomes our own culture, our own country, our own home, there is no peace, there will never be peace. And this, my friend, is called practical divinity, practical sufism, practical nondualism, and practical humanism. Or better yet, this is the ism beyond all isms - this is the ism that concerns the life, laughter and loveliness of the entire humankind - this - is humanity.

The more intense this hegemonic process of forced integration and integral reality is, the more singularities will rise against it. There will be more "rogue states" - states (like Iran, Palestine) that deliberately exclude themselves from the international community without waiting to be excluded, that exclude themselves from the universal and play their own game, at their own risk and peril. There will be more "rogue events" and more refusal of society by individuals. One could say, inverting Holderlin, that "Where Good grows, there grows the Genie of Evil," ("Da, wo des Gute wiichst, wiichst auch der Genius des Bosen"). This more or less clandestine insurrection of antagonistic forces against the integrist violence of the system is less an effect of the mind, the will or even the desire of human beings than the evil genius of the world itself in refusing globalization. To find the only adversary who will face this allpowerful hegemony, we must look for those beings that are strangers to will, exiled from dialogue and representation, exiled from knowledge and history.

Rather, I found through this experience that there is significant similarity between meditating under a waterfall and tidying. When you stand under a waterfall, the only audible sound is the roar of water. As the cascade pummels your body, the sensation of pain soon disappears and numbness spreads. Then a sensation of heat warms you from the inside out, and you enter a meditative trance. Although I had never tried this form of meditation before, the sensation it generated seemed extremely familiar. It closely resembled what I experience when I am tidying. While not exactly a meditative state, there are times when I am cleaning that I can quietly commune with myself. The work of carefully considering each object I own to see whether it sparks joy inside me is like conversing with myself through the medium of my possessions. For this reason, it is essential to create a quiet space in which to evaluate the things in your life. Ideally, you should not even be listening to music. Sometimes I hear of methods that recommend tidying in time to a catchy song, but personally, I don’t encourage this. I feel that noise makes it harder to hear the internal dialogue between the owner and his or her belongings. Listening to the TV is, of course, out of the question. If you need some background noise to relax, choose environmental or ambient music with no lyrics or well-defined melodies. If you want to add momentum to your tidying work, tap the power of the atmosphere in your room rather than relying on music. The best time to start is early morning. The fresh morning air keeps your mind clear and your power of discernment sharp. For this reason, most of my lessons commence in the morning. The earliest lesson I ever conducted began at six thirty, and we were able to clean at twice the usual speed. The clear, refreshed feeling gained after standing under a waterfall can be addictive. Similarly, when you finish putting your space in order, you will be overcome with the urge to do it again. And, unlike waterfall meditation, you don’t have to travel long distances over hard terrain to get there. You can enjoy the same effect in your own home. That’s pretty special, don’t you think?

My internal dialogue went something like this: leave it open!… but that would be strange if someone walks by… who cares? I care! Why do I care? Just close it! You can’t close it; you’re in your underwear!! and if the door is closed you might… do… something… Here is the situation: I’m in my underwear in my room with Quinn and my alcohol laden inhibitions are low, low, low. It’s like closing yourself up in a Godiva chocolate shop, of course you’re going to sample something… Don’t sample anything!! Don’t even smell anything!! If you smell it you’ll want to try it. Don’t smell him anymore. No. More. Smelling. I hope he doesn’t see the empty bottle of wine… Put some clothes on. Is it weird if I dress in front of him? I want some chocolate. Ah! Clothes!! Finally the door closed even though I hadn’t made a conscious decision to do so. I took a steadying breath then turned and followed, trailing some distance behind him and crossing to the opposite side of the room from where he was currently standing. I spotted my workout shirt on the bed and attempted to surreptitiously put it on. Quinn’s back was to me and he seemed to be meandering around the space; he didn’t appear to be in any hurry. He paused for a short moment next to my laptop and stared at the screen. He looked lost and a little vulnerable. Smash, smash, smash I took this opportunity to rapidly pull on some sweatpants and a sweatshirt from my suitcase. The sweatshirt was on backwards, with the little ‘V’ in the back and the tag in the front, but I ignored it and grabbed my jacket from the closet behind me and soundlessly slipped it on too. He walked to the window and surveyed the view as I hurriedly pushed my feet into socks and hand knit slippers, given to me by Elizabeth last Christmas. I was a tornado of frenzied activity, indiscriminately and quietly pulling on clothes. I may have been overcompensating for my earlier state of undress. However, it wasn’t until he, with leisurely languid movements, turned toward me that I finally stopped dressing; my hands froze on my head as I pulled on a white cabled hat, another hand knit gift from Elizabeth. Quinn sighed, “I need to talk to you about your sist-” but

Chef Kishen dazzled the table. I, on the other hand, transport people to dazzling places. But I have never been able to cook like him. His touch was precise. As if music. He appraised fruits, vegetables, meats, with astonishment, and grasped them with humility, with reverence, very carefully as if they were the most fragile objects in the world. Before cooking he would ask: Fish, what would you like to become? Basil, where did you lose your heart? Lemon: It is not who you touch, but how you touch. Learn from big elaichi. There, there. Karayla, meri jaan, why are you so prudish? ... Cinnamon was 'hot', cumin 'cold', nutmeg caused good erections. Exactly: 32 kinds of tarkas. 'Garlic is a woman, Kip. Avocado, a man. Coconut, a hijra... Chilies are South American. Coffee, Arabian. "Curry powder" is a British invention. There is no such thing as Indian food, Kip. But there are Indian methods (Punjabi-Kashmiri-Tamil-Goan-Bengali-Hyderabadi). Allow a dialogue between our methods and the ingredients from the rest of the world. Japan, Italy, Afghanistan. Make something new. Channa goes well with artichokes. Rajmah with brie and parsley. Don't get stuck inside nationalities.

How do we evaluate the claims of the biblical story? We begin by recognizing that the Bible is not objective history, nor was it ever intended to be. The idea, and much more so the practice, of “objective history” was unavailable to its authors. To state it baldly, the Bible is not history: it is the Bible. The biblical narrative breaks most of the fundamental rules of modern history writing. We find in the biblical story, presented as fact, aspects that no historian could know: private and unverifiable elements, including events that occurred behind closed doors; dialogues; and even internal monologues. We find characterizations of the various individuals in the story that are far from unbiased. And, perhaps most notably, we find the introduction of divine intervention as an explanation for the course of events. We can hardly blame the biblical author for failing to follow conventions of history writing that developed thousands of years after he wrote his narrative. At the same time, however, we cannot read the biblical text as if it were a piece of modern history writing. It may be describing the past, and in that sense it is historical in nature, but it describes the past using conventions more familiar to us from the genre of historical fiction.

It is always a fashion to advise disputants to sit round a table and solve disputes by dialogue and discussion, and not to resort to violent confrontation and wars. Whether in national disputes or in international conflicts parties are being constantly advised to avoid wars and to negotiate, while governments continue to oppress, persecute, and even commit genocide. No doubt, it is a very salutary advice and a noble ideal, quite often well-meaning, too. Nobody fights a war for the pleasure of it. But the trouble is, it has never been pragmatic ideal, and never will be so long as governments being what they are and the tyranny of the majority and armed might being the ruling principle of democracy…The weaker is left to its own devices to shake off tyranny and oppression. If the weaker side listened to this idealistic advice and waited till the end of time for a solution to its problems there would have been no wars of independence. If the American colonies of George III’s England listened to such advice and continued to be governed by England and to pay taxes to England without representation in the Parliament at Westminster, there would have been no American War of Independence, no American Declaration of Independence, and there would be no United States of America today…” (pp.279-280)

All the sentiments of the human mind, gratitude, resentment, love, friendship, approbation, blame, pity, emulation, envy, have a plain reference to the state and situation of man, and are calculated for preserving the existence and promoting the activity of such a being in such circumstances. It seems, therefore, unreasonable to transfer such sentiments to a supreme existence or to suppose him actuated by them; and the phenomena, besides, of the universe will not support us in such a theory. All our ideas derived from the senses are confessedly false and illusive, and cannot therefore be supposed to have place in a Supreme Intelligence. And as the ideas of internal sentiment, added to those of the external senses, compose the whole furniture of human understanding, we may conclude that none of the materials of thought are in any respect similar in the human and in the Divine Intelligence. Now, as to the manner of thinking, how can we make any comparison between them or suppose them anywise resembling? Our thought is fluctuating, uncertain, fleeting, successive, and compounded; and were we to remove these circumstances, we absolutely annihilate its essence, and it would in such a case be an abuse of terms to apply to it the name of thought or reason. At least, if it appear more pious and respectful (as it really is) still to retain these terms when we mention the Supreme Being, we ought to acknowledge that their meaning, in that case, is totally incomprehensible; and that the infirmities of our nature do not permit us to reach any ideas which in the least correspond to the ineffable sublimity of the Divine Attributes.

Over the next 300 years, the Afro-Asian giant swallowed up all the other worlds. It consumed the Mesoamerican World in 1521, when the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire. It took its first bite out of the Oceanic World at the same time, during Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe, and soon after that completed its conquest. The Andean World collapsed in 1532, when Spanish conquistadors crushed the Inca Empire. The first European landed on the Australian continent in 1606, and that pristine world came to an end when British colonisation began in earnest in 1788. Fifteen years later the Britons established their first settlement in Tasmania, thus bringing the last autonomous human world into the Afro-Asian sphere of influence. It took the Afro-Asian giant several centuries to digest all that it had swallowed, but the process was irreversible. Today almost all humans share the same geopolitical system (the entire planet is divided into internationally recognised states); the same economic system (capitalist market forces shape even the remotest corners of the globe); the same legal system (human rights and international law are valid everywhere, at least theoretically); and the same scientific system (experts in Iran, Israel, Australia and Argentina have exactly the same views about the structure of atoms or the treatment of tuberculosis). The single global culture is not homogeneous. Just as a single organic body contains many different kinds of organs and cells, so our single global culture contains many different types of lifestyles and people, from New York stockbrokers to Afghan shepherds. Yet they are all closely connected and they influence one another in myriad ways. They still argue and fight, but they argue using the same concepts and fight using the same weapons. A real ‘clash of civilisations’ is like the proverbial dialogue of the deaf. Nobody can grasp what the other is saying. Today when Iran and the United States rattle swords at one another, they both speak the language of nation states, capitalist economies, international rights and nuclear physics.

The narcissistic mother will manipulate other family members to gang up against you by focusing on everything that’s wrong with you. This conveniently takes the focus away from the real perpetrator, which is of course her. It’s interesting to think about the manipulation that’s actually going on. So if you have been labelled as the black sheep and that has been your permanent role in the family, it actually allows all the other family members to start feeling better about themselves. They actually start to believe that they are healthier and more obedient to the narcissistic mother than you, and again this creates a division within the family. Another important point is that if a child is scapegoated from an early age, he or she may fully internalize all of their narcissistic mother’s criticism and shame. This means that the scapegoats develop this harsh inner critic that will continue that inner dialogue that constantly reminds them of how bad and flawed they are. I guess you could call that “inner scapegoating,” and it is extremely toxic to a young impressionable child whose identity is still being formed. So, the scapegoat may struggle with low self-esteem and often continues to feel deeply inadequate and unlovable. Adult scapegoat children also tend to suppress a huge amount of abandonment anxiety because they were emotionally or even physically abandoned by the narcissistic mother over and over again. Adult scapegoat children therefore become super sensitive to observing any potential signs of approval or disapproval. These are all important aspects of the profound impact that a toxic family dynamic may continue to have on adult relationships. Perhaps you may still have issues with authority. Maybe you’re still used to justifying yourself or somehow proving your worth. This is an unconscious pattern that you may still not be aware of and that you are perpetuating because you don’t realize how powerful these dysfunctional family dynamics still are. And once you wake up and understand you can let go of that label, you can break that pattern by choosing to think and behave completely different. You can learn to choose your battles and do not always have to be defensive. You do not always have to feel victimized. You need to become more self-aware and notice if you are still trying to get your parents’ approval or validation. Maturing into adulthood means that you may need to understand that you may never have a healthy relationship with an intentional perpetrator of abuse. You need to process your feelings of frustration, loneliness, rage, and grief.

The first tip to increasing your reading speed is to decrease the sub-vocalizations you use. A sub-vocalization is something you are probably doing right now. It is when you mentally say and hear the word you are reading. It’s a habit that is mostly unnecessary, though is helpful when you want to slow down for increased comprehension. The simple fact is we can understand and process a word more quickly than we can say or hear it. Putting a stop, or at least decreasing, your internal dialogue while reading will greatly help your reading speed. If reading out loud is the first and slowest level, hearing sub-vocalizations is only the second and slightly faster level.

I direct Work the System to those who have the following chronic internal dialogue: "There are things I must do right now and there is barely the the time or money or energy to do them. I will bulldoze my way through these tasks and, as usual they will be completed just in time - but the results will be of marginal quality and my body and mind will continue to be stretched to the breaking point. I'm tired and stressed and can't seem to shake free from living on the edge and I worry about my frame of mind and my health. There is too much chaos around me, too little control and never enough money. Things are not what they should be.

Why on Earth would you slow a book down though? Interestingly enough, listening to books at half speed is a great way to fall asleep. Your mind will slowly drift off as the speed of your internal monologue starts to match the dialogue of the slower book. There are very few times in this book where I will advocate you messing with your senses as profoundly as I am here, but I truly believe that you can master your content overload by using your attention and time to get the most out of what technology has to offer.

Your internal conversation is an invitation for change.

Inside it felt like the hardest thing in the world. To just let go, and not pick everything to death. To just let go and enjoy what you had. To just let go and not make everybody around you miserable with your own internal dialogue. To just let go and be happy. So simple. So difficult. So terrifying.

In 2015 the American Jewish pop star Matisyahu was disinvited from appearing at Rototom Sunsplash, an annual international reggae music festival held in Spain that was, ironically, devoted to “the promotion of peace, equality, human rights and social justice.”12 He was told by festival organizers that the pressure to disinvite him came from BDS members, and that if he made a public statement in support of Palestinian statehood and against Israeli “war crimes,” he would be able to perform.13 When he refused to do so, his performance was canceled and Rototom Sunsplash issued the following statement: Rototom Sunsplash, after having repeatedly sought dialogue in the face of the artist’s unavailability to give a clear statement against war and on the right of the Palestinian people to their own state, has decided to cancel [his] concert. Even though Rototom Sunsplash’s other goals included examining the “rise in Islamophobia in Western countries, as well as the situation of the prisoners in Guantánamo,” no European performers were required to denounce expressions of Islamophobia in their countries, and American performers were not required to share their views on the United States policy toward prisoners in Guantánamo. After an international outcry at the festival’s assertion that an American Jewish musician was answerable for Israeli government policy, the invitation was reinstated.

Negative thoughts? One can replace negative internal dialogue (when noticed) with the repetition of mantra; listening carefully for the most distant sounds; gazing softly at the space between leaves; or pranayama.

Internal dialogue is the sum total of all mental and emotional activity directed at maintaining our view of the world.

He was not sure what they would get back, and he was ready to shut down the comms if it was just that anguished mad babbling, because there could be no dialogue with that – no possibility of negotiating with that internalized storm of insanity.