How To Hear Yourself

A Simple Practice For Greater Mental Clarity

We’re being entertained to death. There is an infinite amount of content streaming directly into our brains every moment we’re awake. And if you think about the idea of “infinite” content, you’ll see it’s literally true. In your lifetime, you don’t have enough hours to watch everything on Netflix, much less listen to all the podcasts or music on Spotify. Let’s not even get into how much sports content is generated on a weekly basis. 

That said, being entertained isn’t a bad thing. It’s a good way to be drawn into another reality for a while. It helps us forget about the stresses of our daily lives, gives us a way to relax, and gets our neurons firing. What’s interesting is that if we consider the core reason of why we want to be entertained, it comes down to distraction. 

Being alive is wild, exhausting, confusing, and exhilarating. It’s tough being the only species on earth that is aware of its own awareness.

As much brilliance as our self-awareness adds to our lives, it also adds an equal amount of existential heaviness. So, we look to entertainment to put our brains in airplane mode, like our phones when we’re flying. Being entertained takes our minds out of our heads and puts them into our phones or TVs so we can ignore our human struggles. 

While taking a break from our minds can be pretty great–and necessary–a problem that arises is that it’s addictive. Not being present in our own reality temporarily solves the problem of our daily stresses and difficult emotions. So, we look to do it more and more, and with so much content being blasted at us from every direction, it makes it effortless. We then get addicted to filling any empty space in our lives with distraction. 

The TV is always on in the background while we’re scrolling aimlessly on our phones in the foreground. We take a walk but have a podcast playing on our headphones. While exercising, we have our music pumping. And who wants to eat dinner without putting another episode of whatever series we’re obsessed with on again? Then, we finish the day by scrolling while lying in bed and maybe checking our email or social media a few times before putting on sounds to go to sleep.

Constantly being entertained might not seem like too big of a deal, but if we look deeply, we can see that it makes us unable to hear ourselves. Consider this: if there is always content going into your mind, then where is the room for you to exist? 

Being mindful of creating the space to hear ourselves is crucial. To process our thoughts, feel our emotions, and tune into our deep intuitions, we have to be able to hear our inner voice. We have to be able to think, allow insights to arise, and clearly see the big-picture direction in which we want to move our lives.

This, of course, is why meditation and stillness practices are so valuable. Setting time aside to be quiet, calm, and look inward is an invaluable way to maintain a close connection with your inner voice so you can navigate life with purpose, clarity, and confidence. 

Maybe you’re not into meditation or don’t think you have the time. That’s fine. But I want to share a practice I do that is always illuminating. I love podcasts and music as much as the next person. Still, I recognize how having a steady stream of noise flowing into my brain influences my perception and ability to think and experience the world with greater presence and clarity.

So, at least once a week, I pick a day where I listen to no music or podcasts, and I don’t read or stream anything. I keep my phone scrolling to less than 15 minutes for the day and only return essential emails. It’s an amazing way to cleanse your senses and reignite the power of your mind. Of course, if you try this experiment and are working on that day, you’ll still need to do what you need to do, but the key is keeping the frivolous mental input down.

Experiencing life without digital saturation may feel odd at first. The silence will feel loud, and there could be a sense of discomfort. But remember, this is an experiment. Have fun with it. Get curious.

Instead of listening to a podcast on your walk, listen to the natural sounds flowing around you. Rather than putting music on in the car, focus on the physical nature of driving. When you find yourself sitting calmly in the evening, notice what thoughts are flowing through your mind and think actively about how you’re feeling, what you might want to plan for the future, or simply what you’re experiencing in the present moment.

Taking a break from stimulation like this is guaranteed to be enlightening. After you do it a few times (especially if you do it several days in a row), you’ll quickly notice how much sharper your mind feels, how connected you are to who you are, and that the distractions you use to entertain yourself are way less entertaining than simply being present in the authenticity of your own existence. 

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