Longing for the lost small voice within

“I just wish someone would tell me what to do!”

My client was at a crossroads. It wasn’t a crisis, not yet, but risked becoming one if she didn’t make a decision soon.

Surprisingly, the feeling of not knowing what to do is fairly recent, at least in evolutionary terms. According to work by Julian Jaynes, our ancestors never felt such anguish. When they needed to make a major life decision, their God commanded them.

Under this theory, the two sides of our brain functioned separately. The left brain handled routine tasks. The right managed higher-level decision-making, then passed commands to the left for execution.

While this notion sounds fanciful, it’s commonplace in our great literature. Think Athena telling Achilles to fight Hector. The Lord revealing the Ten Commandments to Moses. The still, small voice whispering to Elijah. Allah dictating the Quran to Muhammed.

At the close of the Bronze Age humanity suffered a catastrophe. One casualty was God’s voice. The right-brain's stress-resolving commands ended. From now on, we had to decide for ourselves. We became conscious. We had free choice. We were Adam and Eve expelled from Eden.

Today, routine decisions remain straightforward. For some problems we can make a quick, rational calculation (“this route is faster”); for trickier dilemmas we’re likely to ‘feel’ the answer, then add a rationalisation (“It’s fattening but I deserve a treat”).

For major life decisions, though, those methods can fall short. Like my client, we revert to our ancestral mode of wanting someone – a commanding voice – to tell us what to do. Yet at a deeper level, what we really want is to find our own, true voice within.

At those times, many options are at hand to help. One is coaching. There are endless definitions of coaching. For me, at its best it’s about filtering out the chatter and tuning back to that still small voice inside.

If you think coaching might help you, or are curious to know more, always feel free to get in touch for a friendly chat.

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