When I was 16 years old, I scored what I then thought was the best job I might ever have: ice cream scooper at a family-run parlor in my hometown.
Clad in a denim apron, emblazoned with the shop鈥檚 logo, I set to work learning the ins and outs of the ice cream business. I learned how to polish stainless steel hot fudge dispensers so that they sparkled and just the right way to hand off a sprinkled cone so that even the toughest customer revealed a smile. I also discovered that I talk to myself.
As I buzzed about the parlor on a busy Friday night, I felt the hum of electric ice cream energy flow through me. Feeling good about myself as I closed up the shop with one of the owners 鈥� an intimidating father of two who was well over six feet tall and who my teenaged-self imagined all the taller 鈥� I deflated as he turned to me and remarked, 鈥淵ou know, you talk to yourself.鈥�
I did not, in fact, realize this. Feeling my face turn the color of cherry cone dip, I reviewed the evening in my head. Suddenly I heard my inner dialogue spring forth. I had, indeed, been repeating the orders out loud to keep track of them.
Ashamed and a little embarrassed, I played it off as totally normal and not a sign that I wasn鈥檛 fit for the job.
Years later, having expanded my horizons beyond ice cream retail, I bristled when a therapist suggested that it might be helpful to talk aloud to myself as I worked through particularly vexing interactions with a coworker. Despite my hesitancy, I found myself during my commute home one afternoon, spontaneously telling myself the story of an encounter.
The first few sentences felt silly (who was this crazy woman jabbering on alone in her car), but soon I discovered I had something to say. To myself, I spoke assurances and also named my own culpability. As I kept talking, another voice soon entered the dialogue: God.
That voice, even though it held my own timbre, spoke differently 鈥� with confidence and care I might not otherwise offer myself. It made me laugh. It cut to the heart of things 鈥� at times racing beyond the spoken word and into silence. No matter. I could hear it still.
I knew this voice and this voice knew me. It pressed me onward, to hear what I was thinking and feeling.
Sure, I was talking to myself, but there was something new and lifegiving in these dialogues. What began as a therapeutic practice, soon developed into a prayer practice. My own voice became a companion. Hearing myself speak, I could untangle my false self from my true self; I could recognize patterns of behavior, literally giving voice to events and deciphering what was real and what was simply in my head.
Talking to myself wasn鈥檛 crazy or self-centered, it was liberating. When I felt drawn to speak aloud, I found God was there. The inspiration was of God. Together, we listened.
Now when I talk to myself in prayer (or on the drive home), I鈥檓 less embarrassed by the whole endeavor. The act is an invitation to attention, as sweet as any sundae and meant to be savored as such. Breaking through the silence, I hear my voice as beloved, one with the One who has called me to speak the truth loud and clear.
