Lessons from my Inner Voice

I have these distant memories from childhood, when the words in my mind would all start to speak at once. A whirlwind of voices ran circles through little Michelle’s mind, and I couldn’t slow them down or quiet them. That same energy — very hard to name yet so easily felt — would find its way into my dreams, not as words but as strange acts: jumping off high points like swing sets or my grandmother’s staircase, accompanied by that dropping feeling in my stomach. Both the voices and the dreams seemed to articulate what I couldn’t make sense of at the time… a feeling of chaos, lack of control, fear, and anxiety.

As a kid, analyzing or understanding this logically never occurred to me. I had been living in pure survival mode for as long as I can remember, tiptoeing around my father’s moods and trying to control what I could to find safety. That mechanism stayed with me into adulthood, sharpening into a heightened sensitivity to energetic and emotional shifts: knowing when to speak and when to hold back, mentally rehearsing outcomes, adapting direction quickly. I created a sense of outer safety in this hyper-awareness, but my inner world, especially the overlapping mental chatter, remained in a state of triage.

“Everything I see is an echo I sent to myself from long ago.”

It wasn’t until I began putting these thoughts and memories down that I noticed my inner voice’s first major turning point: the shift from managing the chaos around me to recognizing that I had needs, and a voice worth listening to.

It began with “I’ve had enough,” and as courage built, it became “I can stand up for myself.” This wasn’t about ruminating in helpless frustration or trying to control the uncontrollable anymore. My inner voice had stopped being solely a survival skill and started becoming a source of strength; my voice rising to find a shred of truth, through the panic. Because the truth my body knew all along was that taking up space, rather than becoming invisible, was how I could slowly and steadily pull my power back into me.

I remember it so vividly, like much of my adolescence, a kind of dramatic movie scene. Heart pounding, hands shaking, yet vibrating with newfound strength beneath my teenage audacity. The first time I didn’t tiptoe, didn’t try to predict the outcome, didn’t run through rehearsed possibilities in my mind. I just stood there. Present and scared shitless.

Like that moment in The Lion King, when young Simba lets out his tiny roar, and Mufasa’s thunder answers. Except in my case, both roars were mine: the scared, shaking cub and the unexpected strength behind it; the part of me I was just meeting. A line drawn through my nervous system before it ever reached my voice.

And while that moment didn’t fix everything. It certainly changed me.

My inner dialogue began to reshape. Instead of a warning system scanning for danger, it became my inner ally, teaching me to say: I’m here. I matter. And I don’t have to abandon myself to be safe.

So much time has passed; I’m now more than double the age I was then. In the years between, my inner voice has taken many forms: talking myself off emotional cliffs, talking myself into taking leaps, and eventually becoming a sound advocate. My voice of reason, cheerleader, accountability partner, and, most importantly, unconditionally loving (though not without unsolicited critiques) friend.

Today, it’s not so much dialogue as it is instinct. I have my own back now, and with that, the need for convincing is mostly gone. It was never about silencing my mind, but about learning to speak from lived experience and truth.

The stronger my inner voice becomes, the less it needs to say.

What once sounded like conversations now arrives as clarity. Questions have moved into statements, then into sensation. Many days, it’s simply knowing; a feeling in my body before a thought ever forms. And the feeling in my gut grows clearer the less my mind talks over it.

Even knowing all this…the trust, the knowing, moments still come up when my inner critic appears; cringing at hearing my voice on our podcast, judging where growth is slow, old patterns flickering like shadows. Telling me where I’m still not enough.

I don’t pretend not to hear her. I’ve simply stopped mistaking her words for truth.

Hearing the voice behind my fears, shame, and doubt doesn’t mean I’ve lost my way or that I’m failing at life in that moment. What if those words simply served as checkpoints, signaling for me, and for all of us, really, to check in and listen, without absorbing?

Therein lies the foundation of self-trust. No endpoint. Just a relationship, and like any relationship, it grows, changes, and is tested. It asks for patience, attention, and care, and in return, it becomes stronger.

A strong inner dialogue has nothing to do with perfection. It’s about meeting the voice inside you as you are, not a curated version of yourself. Some days feel clear and right; others are full of doubts or questions. Instead of erasing it or bending it to my will, I meet it and stay in conversation.

In coaching, when someone lands on a thought pattern or a story, we often ask, “What are you making that mean about you?”

That question has also shaped how I speak to myself. It keeps me honest and curious, revealing what I actually believe so I can choose consciously rather than react unconsciously.

So I ask you:

How is your inner voice speaking to you today? In what tone?

Is it frantic? Protective? Tired? Hopeful? Curious? Quiet?

Not in the story of who you’ve been, or who you think you should be, but in this moment.

Your inner voice doesn’t need to be polished to be trusted. It simply needs to be part of the conversation, not ignored or overpowered, just given space to grow.