Conversation Babushka

Look who’s back! Back again! … With a new resolution. 

To write more consistently and I plan on achieving this by writing more often and shorter pieces at a time. 

Today Nathan and I are headed on a little breakaway for the week … before getting back to the grind next week. 

On the way to our first destination, we are listening to ‘Chatter’ by Ethan Kross, an American psychologist. It is an extremely interesting book on how to harness your inner voice. He describes the role of each person’s religion, culture and familial history as “Russian nesting dolls of mental conversation”. 

I love this quote for a few reasons: 

• I love babushkas! 
• I often find my inner voice sounding like the people most important to me – especially in times of crisis or stress. 
• I imagine my conversation babushka as my inner voice, inside my mother’s inner voice with hints of my husband, aunts and sisters, inside her mother’s inner voice, inside her grandmother’s inner voice – and that’s mighty fun to imagine. 

My inner voice and imagination has always been very active and the ‘chatter’ referenced in the title is the negative self-talk that can easily render us unable to complete necessary executive functions. 

I’m hoping to learn how to quiet my own chatter to focus more on the imaginative and peaceful inner voice of my conversation babushka.