Inner Voice reduction method

Hi, this is Jiro.

Do you think the same thoughts again and again, trying to stop them but unable to?

Well, I do.

That’s why I read books about this phenomenon called chatter. Still unsatisfied, I came up with my own way of stopping it, which I call the inner voice lowering method.

I tried it on nearly one hundred people and found that it is simple and easy to practice. Better still, you know instantly whether you can do it or not.

The gist of my method is this.

Try to say inwardly, “How are you?”

First, cry it out at the top of your inner voice.

Next, say it very loudly.

Then loudly.

Next, without crying out, whisper it softly.

Then whisper it very, very softly.

For the last step but one, whisper it barely audibly inwardly.

And lastly, reduce your inner voice to zero volume.

All of this is done, of course, with your inner voice.

Did you get it?

Then try it! I’ll wait until you have.

Can you do it?

The funny thing is that nothing else changes even after you have done it. You register the same sensory data from outside—the same scenery, noises and bodily sensations, even fragments of thought—but now you feel as if there is a newly felt inner silence, free from annoying chatter, for as long as you can maintain it.

No one else can see or detect your inner silence, at least not yet. But you can, and you know that is good enough for you.

I became a member of this inner silence club, as it were, not through trying to reduce chatter.

I reached this vast territory through learning English, which led me into this world of silence by a narrow path between languages.

I’ll show you how. It won’t take long.

Now read a short passage of English aloud.

Any passage will do, as long as it is easy enough for you to read aloud comfortably without the help of translation.

Read it through aloud. If you managed it smoothly, you probably made no midway stops to translate it into Japanese.

Then read the same passage silently, but this time in a nonstop, very loud inner voice. OK?

Ready, GO!

Did you make it? If you read it nonstop, you probably translated none of it into Japanese along the way.

Now can you see what I mean?

Whether aloud or silently, reading directly in English means, at least for those moments, that your Japanese has gone quiet. Its volume has been turned down to zero.

I once had a chance to talk to a young author of a book on how to control the mind and body, who also leads workshops around Japan aimed at raising bodily awareness. I discussed with him my idea of reducing chatter by controlling the volume of the inner voice.

He seemed impressed by how simple and straightforward the idea was. His reaction gave me some confidence that I might be onto something.

I would like you to remember this little experiment of mine. It may help make your mental life more robust and richer—and it may even take your English learning a little further.