I was speaking with my friend Ron in Switzerland the other day and he mentioned the term Über-Ich..My German is a bit wobbly.. but good enough to understand that literally it meant ‘over i’ or ‘super I’.. i looked it up and realized (d-oh) .. it was Freud’s term for what he called in English the ‘super ego’ .. I found a definition online that

“… the superego is the component of personality composed of our internalized ideals that we have acquired from our parents and from society. The superego works to suppress the urges of the id and tries to make the ego behave morally, rather than realistically.”

Actually.. the better word for it I know from my meditation training is the ‘monkey mind”.. the little voice in your head that is constantly reanalyzing the past and worrying about the uter. The voice that masquerades as ‘you’ to convince you to to behave.. or in most folks case.. to convince you that .. no you should not have had that last piece of cake.. or that yes.. you are going to fail that calculus test tomorrow.. or perhaps that those jeans do make you look fat..     It’s that running dialog in our noggins that keeps us all runing around in a worried or regretful state much of the time..

I used ot have it pretty bad . whenever  the outside of me was quiet, the inside of me would go to work. .. the voice would start..runnign over the days events pointing out  what I might have done wrong.. .. or fretting about the nexts days work ..  it would (or soemtimes still does)  start cataloging  my character flaws .. or physical shortcomings.. or failrues in life… Soemtimes it would chase itself around in a circle  on the same theme.. or other days i’d have to admit . the voice could be pretty creative… it could come up with amazing new things to worry about (i still walk around worrying about fishhooks.. or about eating ball bearings) ..

anyway.. it’s better now.. .. daily meditation and running for exercise have both helped but ofetn at work it creeps back in.. or when I’m doing some mindless task. like mowing the grass or painting..   I’m practicing  listening for it.. and consciously turning it  down or off  when it comes…

that’s what I was doing when I decided to sit down and write.

Do you have a voice like that ?

nite all, nite sam

-me