3 - Who’s Really Talking Inside?

Toye Oyelese

You know, I keep coming back to this—when people talk about their “inner dialogue,” it sounds like that wise narrator in your favorite audiobook, explaining what’s happening, why you made a choice, or why you feel a certain way. But, here’s the thing: research—and I mean some very interesting neuroscience—suggests that conscious awareness actually lags behind the brain’s activity. That is, by the time I notice myself deciding, my brain’s already… well, it’s already gone ahead and started things up! It’s—how to put it?—like narrating a football match where the commentary always trails a few seconds behind the actual play. It really rattles the whole idea of, “I decided, then I felt, then I acted.” Instead, a good chunk of what we consider the inner conversation is really a kind of story—the mind trying to explain what’s already happened.

Toye Oyelese

Let’s talk about those residents we’ve been poking at over the last episodes. You remember how we discussed their origins—those early, wordless emotions and sensations that, as kids, we didn’t have the vocabulary for? Those don’t talk to us in words. A two-year-old can’t say, “I’m anxious about attachment,” but you’ll see tension, a racing heart, sweaty palms. And that doesn’t go away. As adults, when my stomach’s tight before, say, a big presentation, or clinic exam—heh, actually, here’s a memory. Back in my final years in Ibadan, before a big clinical exam, I’d think my head was just full of anxious chatter—“What if I forget everything? What if the examiner asks about, oh gosh, sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia—try saying that three times quickly!” But honestly, my mind was mostly narrating the chaos my body already felt. The tension, the sleepless nights, the heart thumping away in my chest—the “residents” spoke through my body first, only later dressed up in words by whatever story my mind slapped on afterward.

Toye Oyelese

So maybe a lot of what we call inner dialogue isn’t the raw decision maker at all. It’s just the late-to-the-party narrator, desperately trying to give things meaning—or at least, to make our discomforts digestible. Sometimes, I wonder if we’d do better to listen for the story-under-the-story—the sensation, the mood—before our favorite inner narrator jumps in. Where was I going with this? Oh right—what feels like “thinking” might actually be our way of translating the nonverbal language of these residents into something, anything, we can work with.

Toye Oyelese

All right, so if our stories come after the fact, who’s steering the ship? Here’s where things get muddy—frankly, I sometimes wish there was an easy answer. If you look at models like Internal Family Systems, they’ll talk about the Self, this sort of core leader inside that can, in theory, referee all the residents. Voice Dialogue has something similar: the Aware Ego, a kind of mediator. Schema Therapy talks about the Healthy Adult, keeping things on track. The promise is almost comforting, isn’t it? That somewhere, behind all the noise, there’s a truly neutral observer calling the shots.

Toye Oyelese

But… I’m not convinced it’s that simple. I mean, say you have a calm, spacious “wise self” that strives for everybody to get along inside. Sure. But even that part has a flavor—a bias toward harmony. Or maybe you have a part that’s hyper-cautious, endlessly on the lookout for danger, calling that “wisdom.” Both might feel like unbiased observers, but really, they’re just residents with their own histories, preferences, and anxieties. I always think, am I really being fair, or is this just another resident with a better vocabulary rambling away?

Toye Oyelese

So, is there a true ‘house leader’? Or are we endlessly cycling through residents, each taking the microphone for a spell, each convinced it’s the adult in the room? Sometimes it almost feels like being mayor of a city where the voters keep switching sides on you. I know it can be a bit uncomfortable to sit with—not having that one, solid vantage point. But as we talked about last episode, these “wise” observers—the Self, the Aware Ego—aren’t floating above the house. They’re just as much residents as the rest. We’re always interpreting from inside the system. It’s humbling, actually, and a bit freeing, too, if you let it be.

Toye Oyelese

All right, so if there’s no master key-holder, what do we rely on when the house feels chaotic? Are we just, I don’t know, floating along with whichever resident is loudest? Here’s what helps me: sometimes the only honest anchors are the things no single resident can fully spin. Your body, for example. I’ve seen countless times—both in myself, and, well, in clinic—where someone’s mind says, “All is well, truly, doctor,” but their shoulders are glued to their ears, sleep is a wreck, appetite’s down. That’s a sign the narrative isn’t matching reality. The residents might agree… but the body votes no.

Toye Oyelese

Or take this: ever work hard for something—a promotion, a relationship, a big goal—and when you finally get it, there’s a strange emptiness? That’s a clue, right there. Maybe one resident got what it wanted—a sense of achievement, say—but others, somewhere in the background, still aren’t satisfied. Consistent relational feedback is another; if, everywhere you go, friends or coworkers tell you the same story about your blind spots, well, that’s an anchor outside your internal echo chamber.

Toye Oyelese

But my favorite analogy—sorry if you’ve heard this story before—comes from my early days in rural diabetes care. I noticed the healthiest communities were never the ones that avoided conflict; they were the ones where people stayed in conversation, even when things got tense. If a new problem popped up—new cases, different patient needs—the best results came from stubborn dialogue, not from bulldozing silence. It’s much the same inside of us. Real harmony isn’t when the residents agree on everything or when one resident shuts down all the others. It’s when they keep talking, keep negotiating, keep adapting to whatever life throws at you. That’s a kind of resilience, actually—a system that bends with reality, instead of pretending everything’s fine until it breaks.

Toye Oyelese

So, let’s leave it there for today. No easy answers, but maybe a better question to ask: not “Who’s in charge?” but “Are my residents still talking?” Next time, we’ll dig into what happens when the walls of the house themselves dissolve—what that means, and why it might just change how we think about all of this. Thanks for being with me in the messiness. Catch you in the next episode.