About Voice Dialogue - And Try This Voice Dialogue Excercise

How Will You Benefit From Voice Dialogue?

A major benefit of the Voice Dialogue method is to get a map of your own psyche to understand how you may be limited by it as well as how you may draw upon it's many resources.  As you stand back and see your own inner cast of characters you realize "Who" you are, as consciousness.  It will increase your capacity to exercise more conscious choices during your life's journey.  It is a masterful tool for clarity in all forms of relationships.  It will give you a life-long ability of self inquiry. You will have the ability to embrace all parts of yourself with acceptance, to see yourself and others from a place of compassionate awareness and grace.

Voice Dialogue works with three aspects of your psyche:

1. "The Witness" refers to being in a state of total awareness. It gives you the ability to step back from your own mind and allows you to perceive things from an objective overview. "The Witness" is an impartial, non judgmental presence that is not attached to an outcome.


2. "The Personality" is made up of many different "parts" or "sub-personalities." These energy patterns carry your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, attitudes, rules, values, judgments, expectations, memories and experiences. As you get to know your "selves" you can give them names such as the protector, the pusher, the pleaser, the critic, the rebel, the victim, the vulnerable child, the being self.


3. "The Aware Ego" takes in information from the "selves" and from awareness to help you make effective choices. The Aware Ego is an on-going process that gets strengthened through practice. In time the "selves" will become a consultant to you, rather than being an energy pattern that controls you.

Voice Dialogue work explores your inner "selves":

Your "selves," or "sub personalities," were formed since you were a child. The word 'persona' in French means 'mask.' Your personality is the mask you wear. In the beginning of your life, if there is such a thing as a beginning, you were pure consciousness, formless, infinite and one with all that is. You choose to incarnate, were conceived and transitioned into form. Being in the womb, would ideally be a safe, quiet, nourishing place where your needs were perfectly met. You were pure essence. Yet you were very sensitive to the feelings and needs of your mother and her environment. You felt what she felt. This formed the first imprints and beliefs about your life. Then you had a unique birth experience which also colored your life. As a child you were highly sensitive, extremely intelligent and aware. You were also vulnerable and felt helpless in the world. Your basic instinct was to contract, to tense up your muscles as a way of protecting yourself. You felt and were totally dependent on "the other" to attend to your needs.

While you were a newborn you were watching, learning and making decisions about the way life was. From these decisions you formed beliefs that are still deep in your subconscious mind. For example, you might have cried and gotten someone to come over and pick you up. So, then you might have made a decision, "if I make a lot of noise I get loved." Or maybe you cried and you got the door closed and were ignored. You made the decision "when I express myself, I get abandoned." So you decided to be a "good baby" and the " pleaser" in you was born. If you experienced a situation where you felt " I"m ignored, my needs aren't important," then the "victim" in you was formed. If you experienced something like becoming a little "rascal," then the "rebel" appeared. The principal job of these "selves" which formed from your experiences was to protect the vulnerability of the innocent child that once was you. Remember, you were very intelligent, watching, learning and making decisions to keep yourself alive. Your basic fear was that you would not survive unless someone took care of you, which was true.

The primary selves form the core of your personality and are developed to protect the vulnerable child in you. By the time you were 4 years old your basic personality was formed. You made your decisions about the way life was for the individual baby that was you. By 7 years old you made your decisions about the way life was in society. You might have developed a strong "protector" that decided it was best to keep your mouth shut ("Don't blab, watch what you say") or a "perfectionist" (who says, " you have to be perfect, if you are perfect they will love you". ) Or, you may have become the "pusher" (who says, "keep working so they will approve of you.") These sub personalities are like inner parents. On the deepest level they would do anything to protect you, so they bury the vulnerable child to keep it safe. Often, by adolescence, the child in you got lost, your vulnerability buried.

What is a "Disowned Self"?

As you were growing up there were rules and judgments in your family system. Those behavior-guiding experiences caused you to "disown" your inner selves to make you fit into your family system. The disowned self became an energy pattern that was judged or even punished. The judgements may have been as subtle as a raised eyebrow, the withdrawal of love or a critical remark. For example, if you were flirtatious as a child and your mother did not approve you might have decided it was better to repress your sexuality, dress conservatively and be morally upright. Sexuality still exists someplace in your unconscious, however. A disowned self can also be a quality your family admired, i.e., "The neighbors are so rich -- and we are not."

Once you attain this perspective you can see that anything you judge in another person is a wonderful opportunity to look within to see what you have disowned in yourself. Voice Dialogue founders Hal and Sidra Stone said, "For every primary self, there is an equal and opposite disowned self." This is a law of the psyche wherein you are constantly attracting your disowned selves. The stronger the disowned, the more powerful it will be brought to you from the outer world. Why? It is a mystery..... the universe is sending the missing piece to complete you, to unify the whole.

A Simple Voice Dialogue Exercise To Discover Your Disowned Selves

1. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Think of a person who annoys or bothers you. It could be a person you judge.
2. What quality are you judging in them?
3. Were you allowed to have that quality as a child?
4. This person reflects a part of you that you have not accepted inside yourself.
5. Open your eyes and write down the quality. That's a disowned self!
6. How can you choose to honor that part of yourself? That part inside needs your acceptance.

Voice Dialogue gives Conscious Choice

As you learn this powerful process you will become more accepting of all parts of who you are. You realize it's okay to feel conflicted in areas of your life. One part of you likes staying up late and another part of you likes getting up early. One part of you loves ice cream and another part wants to eat greens. One part enjoys being with your children and another part wants time alone. When you embrace all parts of your self (and conflicting needs) you will be able to make more conscious choices rather than reacting out of habit or duty. This process will give you more self acceptance as well as understanding and acceptance of others. When you shine the light of awareness onto your selves, consciousness awakens. If you are interested in the evolution of your consciousness you will appreciate this technology and be able to use it for the rest of your life.