Ep 84 You Are Not the Voice in Your Head: How to Observe, Release, and Reclaim Your Peace

In this powerful episode of The ARTwork of YOU, Lori Gouhin explores what it means to truly separate yourself from the constant voice in your head.

Building on last week’s episode about “safetying” yourself through trauma, Lori shares what happens next when your body starts to feel safe, but your mind still won’t let go. Drawing insights from The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer, Lori unpacks the experience of becoming the observer of your thoughts and how that shift can change everything.

Through relatable stories, real-life examples, and practical techniques, Lori invites you to stop gripping so tightly to negative self-talk, outdated narratives, and emotional loops that no longer serve you. Instead, she teaches you how to reclaim your peace moment by moment not by fixing your thoughts, but by learning how to release them.

This episode will empower anyone navigating trauma recovery, overthinking, or the overwhelm of inner noise to begin practicing gentle self-observation, deeper presence, and conscious letting go.

Episode Highlights:

● Why you're not the voice in your head and how to become the one who hears it
 ● Lori’s personal reflection: Letting go of thoughts that used to control her days
 ● Understanding resistance and how it causes more suffering than the thought itself
 ● A powerful reframe: thoughts as clouds, always passing by
 ● How observing rather than identifying creates emotional freedom
 ● Weekly Practice: 3 small tools to help you break the loop and build peace
   - Name the voice
   - Breathe through the trigger
   - Let go in real time

You don’t need to control your thoughts, you just need to stop letting them control you. 

This episode is your reminder that healing isn’t about perfection. It’s about noticing, observing, and reclaiming the calm that’s always been available inside of you.

Book Referenced: The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer

Podcast Episode Referenced: Ep 83 You Are Not Your Trauma - Understanding and Healing from Childhood Emotional Wounds

Thank you for sharing your time with me and remember to show up in your life like the masterpiece you are because YOU are the ARTwork!!!

Please subscribe and leave a 5 Star Review.

Have a fabulous day!

Learn more and follow along with Lori at:

30 Days of Success Free Journal: https://www.theartworkofyou.com/registration

Website: https://www.TheARTworkofYOU.com

Website: https://www.lorigouhin.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theartworkofyou/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorigouhin/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/facebook.com/lori.gouhin

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/linkedin.com/lori-gouhin/

Grab your FREE Daily Accountability Journal
https://www.theartworkofyou.com/registration

Transcript

Lori Gouhin: [00:00:00] Hello, my friends. I am so glad that you are here with me today, because today I wanna talk about what happens after you start doing the work to feel safe again. Now, in last week's episode, I talked about trauma, specifically the kind of trauma that many of us grew up with. The yelling, the shaming, the silent treatment, physical punishment, manipulation, favoritism.

All the things, you get the point. And in that episode I [00:01:00] said something that you might not have heard before, and that's that you don't need to fix yourself. You need to safety yourself. And so if you haven't listened to that episode, I strongly suggest that you do. And because I got such great feedback on that episode and how it was so impactful and helpful to people, I wanted to almost do like a part two today.

And so today is about what happens after you start to safety yourself. After you begin to recognize the patterns that regulate your nervous system, and after you start to reclaim your peace, what happens when your body feels safer, but your mind still won't shut the F up? That's what I wanna talk about today because I wanna help you to stop getting dragged around by your thoughts, and if you'd like to explore this deeper, this topic deeper.

One of the best books that you can read is called The Untethered [00:02:00] Soul by Michael Singer. It really helped me to understand something that I think more of us need to hear, and that is you are not the voice in your head. I'm going to say that again, just in case you weren't paying attention. You are not the voice in your head, and that's what we're going to talk about today.

So let's talk about it. Let's talk about that voice in your head, and I am sure that you know the one that I mean. The one that narrates your day, like it's almost like a job. It's being paid to do it. The one that replays the conversation you had last week and tells you all the things that you should have said instead, or the one that tells you're not ready right before you're about to take a big risk.

Maybe the one that shouts at you that you've messed up. The second that something goes wrong, that voice is relentless and it talks whether you want it to or not. And for most of us. Especially those of us that grew up in environments where we were constantly scanning for [00:03:00] danger, judgment, rejection, et cetera.

We've come to believe that voice in our head is us. That it's telling the truth that it's keeping us safe, but it's not. And Michael Singer, he calls this the voice. He calls it your inner roommate. And once you start noticing it, you realize this roommate's kind of actually unhinged. It's inconsistent.

It switches sides. It interrupts your peace constantly. And again, it never shuts up, and yet you let it run the show. You believe it, you react to it. You let it set the tone for your day, for your relationships, for your self-worth. And here's the thing that I think most people don't realize until they do, you are not that voice.

You are the one hearing it. And that distinction literally changes everything because once you realize. That you are the one who's [00:04:00] listening, not the one who's speaking. You open yourself up to the possibility of not engaging. Every time it starts on with its monologue, you can actually start to observe it.

 So now let's talk about what it actually means to become the observer, because I don't mean disassociating or pretending your thoughts don't exist. I mean learning to notice them without becoming them. So when you hear that inner voice say something like, you're not good enough, or they're probably mad at you, or you'll never get it right, instead of grabbing on to that thought and reacting, 

I want you to start to build space. You don't fight it, you don't agree with it, you don't spiral down with it. You just watch it. In other words, become the observer almost oh, that's interesting. That voice is showing up again. And maybe this will help you visualize. Think of it like I don't know if [00:05:00] when you were a kid or maybe you still do it now, you watch the clouds go by in the sky.

They're just passing by. You don't try to push them out of the way. You just notice them and you let them move. Just move on. And the more you practice this, the less those thoughts define you. Again. You don't stop having them, you just stop believing them. And that's how things will begin to change.

And just so you understand I'm not saying you need to control your thoughts. You just need to stop letting them control you. And I know that's easier said than done, believe me. Especially again, if you've spent your whole life inside of that voice, assuming it was the truth. But once you start observing instead of reacting, You step into the kind of freedom that you probably didn't even know existed, and you realize that you get to choose what you do next. You get to decide whether to take action or to [00:06:00] pause or to breathe, to just let it pass. And this is the beginning of inner peace. Not because everything's quiet. Again, the thoughts will still come, but because you no longer get tangled up in that noise, and this is especially powerful if you've done trauma work because when you've lived in survival mode for a long time, it's easy to think that your thoughts are facts.

When really they're just an echo chamber of your old patterns and observing them is how you break that cycle and you start healing in a whole new way. another one of the most powerful things that Michael Singer talks about in the book is the idea that we suffer not because of what happens to us, but because of the way we resist what happens to us.

And let that sink in for a second. It's not the thought that causes the pain. It's the part of us that clings to it and [00:07:00] argues with it and tries to control it or tries to stuff it down or make it go away. That's resistance. And resistance shows up in so many sneaky ways. like we talked about last week, it may look like perfectionism over-explaining, shutting down to protect yourself.

Or maybe like staying busy so that you don't have to feel what's underneath, but all that resistance, it just creates more suffering. And if you want to be free, you have to learn to let go. And again, I know how that can sound, but remember letting go. It doesn't mean pretending that you never have negative thoughts.

It means you stop gripping onto them so tightly. And you stopped gripping onto that story that you create because of them. And it means you stop trying to control every outcome or every reaction. You do it moment by moment, not all at once, not forever, [00:08:00] just one moment at a time. If you feel something rise up, maybe you feel anger or fear or jealousy or shame, just recognize it and then breathe.

Don't resist it and don't shove it down, or don't blow it up. You just say to yourself something like, this is energy moving through me. I don't have to attach to it. That's the shift. That's how you reclaim your peace, not by fixing everything, but by releasing, and here's something that I've noticed in my own life, the more I let go.

The more space I create space for insight, space for calm, space, for creativity and space, for the truth to come in instead of the old voice that's playing on a loop. It's not easy, but it's simple and it's always available right in this moment. Alright, so let's make this practical because it's one thing to [00:09:00] understand these concepts and it's another to actually live them

so here are a few simple, tangible ways to start practicing what we're talking about. Number one, name the voice. When your inner dialogue kicks in, especially if it's critical or anxious or self-doubting, that kind of stuff, don't try to silence it. Just name it. Just say to yourself, that's the voice. Again, that's the old programming.

You don't have to fix it or analyze it. Just recognize that it's not you. It's a thought. It's passing through. You are the one witnessing it, or you are the one hearing it. And when you have that moment of naming it, it'll give you just enough space to not get pulled in. Number two, just breathe. When something triggers you or when your body tightens or your heart races, or your mind starts spiraling with thoughts again, don't fix [00:10:00] it.

Don't explain it. Don't run from it. Just pause. Inhale, slowly. Exhale even slower, and just take one breath than another. It's like your breath can become your anchor. It can allow you to just pause, because sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing. Just stay with yourself for a moment without reacting.

And then number three. Practice letting go in real time. You don't need a journal or a retreat, believe me, to let go. All you need is a moment of awareness and a willingness to question your thoughts, and so the next time something upsets you, maybe an offhanded comment or a moment of self-doubt, and you start getting thoughts swirling in your head.

Try asking yourself, is this something that I need to believe and hold onto? Or is this something I can let just pass through me? Because not [00:11:00] everything requires your attention, and certainly not every thought deserves a reaction. Again, you can just let it rise and then you can let it fall away. And so to wrap it up these steps.

They're not complicated, but they really are powerful, especially when you use them consistently. And no, you're not going to get it right every time, but that's not the point. The point is to start reclaiming where your attention goes and where your energy goes, and where your peace can go moment by moment.

Because when you do, you start to feel less controlled or overwhelmed by your thoughts that aren't serving you, and you begin to feel more like you because who you really are is the one who notices it all. The one who can choose something new, the one who is safe enough now to just observe, release, and return to [00:12:00] self.

And yes, some days that will definitely feel impossible, and some days the voice in your head will feel louder than ever. But again, even on those days, you still have a choice. Not to force yourself to be calm or happy or positive, but just to observe what's happening with a little bit less judgment. To stay with yourself instead of abandoning yourself.

That to me is the deepest kind of healing because when you stop identifying with your negative self-talk. You stop recreating it. So much of the noise in our heads isn't new. It's just, again, recycled old, outdated fears, outdated stories, and familiar patterns that just keep playing over and over again.

But the more you observe them without grabbing hold, the more you realize that they have less power than you [00:13:00] thought. They're not you. They're just habits of your mind. And the more you practice watching rather than reacting, the more you build a quiet kind of confidence one, from knowing that you don't have to believe everything you think.

And again, that's freedom. At least to me it is. So this week, give yourself permission to listen differently, to notice the voice, but not follow it. And to sit with the discomfort but not collapse into it. You don't have to shut your thoughts down. You just don't have to go where they want to take you. And if this episode gave you a new perspective or made you pause in a good way, I'd love to hear about it, and I'd love for you to share it with someone else who needs to hear it too.

I. [00:14:00]