The practice of meditation helped me understand that the voice in my head isn't me. If I meditate, I can recognize those thoughts as something that happens inside of me, but those thoughts are separate from me. It's like the difference between being immersed in a movie, vs noting that I'm absorbing photons bouncing off a screen into my eyes, and feeling the vibrations of air molecules against my ear drum. I am not really in the movie. I am watching it. I am not really in my thoughts, I am receiving them.

When I choose this perspective, I have to wonder: who am I? Well, I think I am the one receiving these thoughts, and choosing which ones to tune into and which ones to skip past. I'm the one choosing to commit to my action and attitude based on my chosen reception.

I can also note that there are common elements to some of these thoughts in my head. I like to think of them as voices. When they get to be fairly reliable, I give them names. I have a scorekeeper, a prosecutor, a judge, a defense attorney, a clown, and a whole host of other characters living in my head. And we'll talk about some of them over the next few days.