What
is Voice Dialogue?
Voice Dialogue is a powerful, transformational technique,
which increases self-awareness and ultimately gives you
more freedom, choice and balance in yourself and in your
life. Two American psychologists, Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone,
developed this discovery process.
A Voice Dialogue session
involves two people: the subject and the facilitator. During
a session the facilitator engages in a dialogue directly
with the various parts of the subject's psyche. So the facilitator
can ask to speak with your Inner Critic, your Perfectionist
Self, your Pleaser, your Inner Child and the many other
members of your 'inner family'.
These members of your inner family are just as real as
the members of your outer family; they are complete selves
in themselves, with their own feelings, opinions and needs.
By communicating with them using the Voice
Dialogue method, you become aware of how they
have been affecting your feelings and behaviour. You also
discover what you can do to satisfy the needs of each self
so that each self works for you rather than against you.
Therefore, if you have been feeling that you are not expressing
yourself fully, or that one part of your personality is
dominating your life - maybe your Ambitious Self, your Pleaser
or your Lazy Self - you can get in touch with the relevant
self and find out why it is acting as it does. When you
have a good understanding of it and are no longer completely
identified with it, you can access an opposite of that self
which has probably been suppressed for a long time and is
dying to have a voice. When you become aware (or conscious)
of what is going on in your unconscious, you are then able
to take responsibility for your feelings and actions. You
have choice, rather than being compelled to act and feel
in a particular way.
The goal with Voice Dialogue
is to expand your awareness so that you can embrace all
the selves within you and so that your more aware ego can
start to drive your 'psychological car'. The results are
that you will experience greater personal freedom and choice
and you will develop self-acceptance and self-understanding
which will lead to a far more fulfilling experience of life.
- Astra Niedra and Mark Belfanti
VoiceDialogue.com
"It's not what we say but who says it..."
Hal and Sidra Stone
It turns out that the voices we try so hard not to hear
are the ones that cause us the most pain. From our usual
awareness they may seem mean, ugly or unacceptable and we
may be too ashamed, or afraid, to hear from them. Just as
we have body parts we are more comfortable with than other
parts so do we have parts of the psyche we are more or less
comfortable with. However, each of these voices carries
a gift, which becomes apparent once they are welcomed into
conscious awareness.
The Voice
Dialogue process is simple and it teaches us
to hear from, experience, and embrace the polar opposites
within us. The famous psychologist Carl Jung might refer
to this process as integrating the shadow. Voice Dialogue
reveals and heals inner conflicts in health, relationships,
work, finances, and many other areas of life by illustrating
how to make choices from a new place of awareness.
Read The
Awakening , the prologue to Embracing Ourselves; the
Voice Dialogue Manual, by Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone.
Heinrich Zimmer tells this story (of the awakening tiger)
in the opening of his book, The
Philosophy of India, and calls the young tiger's
roar the "roar of awaking." What is this "roar
of awakening?" It is the discovery that we are more
than we think we are. It is the discovery that we have taken
on identities that incorrectly or inadequately express our
essential being. It is as though we have been dreaming and
suddenly we awaken from the dream, look around, and become
aware of a totally different reality.
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