I think you have heard the phrase “you need to listen to yourself” more than once. And they even agreed with her. And it seems that it is easy. But then, left alone with yourself, one of you sighed sadly and said to yourself: “Well, this is, of course, right, but how to do it?” Let's talk about why this is important, why people lose or do not acquire this skill at all and how to still acquire it, in the end. Every person has needs that are transformed into desires. There are physiological needs: sleep, food, water, excretion, breathing. And sometimes we think: “I want to sleep!” That is, the need turned into a desire, and the desire into a thought. Of course, rarely does anyone think: “I want to breathe,” although in a stuffy room it’s quite possible to think something like this. Another type of needs is spiritual: communication, new information, self-development, love... Hence the desires: “I want to get married!” “I want an interesting job!”, “I want a new dress!”... In general, people have a lot of “wants”. But not everyone hears them, these “wants”. Why is this so? The reason, as a rule, lies deep - in childhood. It happens that a child grows up in a family where opportunities are very, very limited. And it is extremely rare that parents manage to satisfy the child’s needs. Looking at how poorly parents live, how they literally tear themselves away from themselves in order to give the child what he wants, he may begin to be ashamed of his desires, and then completely stop feeling and realizing them. That is, this very mechanism of “hearing yourself” stops working. Or the parents made it clear to the child: your desires are not important, my desires are important. For example, a summer day, mother and daughter are walking in the park. The girl says: “Mom, I want water.” Mom replies: “Let's buy ice cream?” Why ice cream? Most likely, my mother wanted him. Or she wanted it when she was little, but it was not given to her, so she reproduces her childhood situation in this way. But it is impossible to explain to a child why, when you are thirsty, you need to eat ice cream. By the way, such an inverted “fulfillment” of desires often leads to the replacement of real desires with “fake” ones. And in this case, the closure of the neural circuit may well occur: “If you want to drink, eat!” And from here it’s not far to food addiction. Not only parents could participate in this. For example, at school, especially at first, it is very difficult to sit through a lesson lasting 45 minutes. In addition, physiological needs do not sleep. The child reaches out his hand: “Can I go out?” Teacher: “No. There are 5 minutes until the end of the lesson, be patient” or “Now you’ll miss an important topic.” That is, the teacher’s wishes come before my needs. And the child unconditionally believes adults and gradually turns off the “hear himself” mechanism. But the mechanism of “hearing others” turns on perfectly. Another “dangerous” period when the mechanism “hearing oneself” is switched off is the birth of a child. The whole life, without reserve, is dedicated to the baby, his needs come first. You need to feed him, put him to sleep, entertain him, wash him, take him for a walk, do homework with him, get him out of the army (just kidding), buy an apartment, a car, get him a job, get him married (also a joke, though...). And here the mechanism of “hearing the child” turns on in full, and “hearing yourself” gradually atrophies. Sometimes the body and soul rebel: you want to leave everything and go wherever your eyes look! Then the psyche somehow copes: it’s okay, we’ll be patient. Or like this: “When I retire, I’ll live!” In the meantime, work, provide for your family, take care of your husband, children, and grandchildren. It’s okay, we’ll live later! What do they say there? Today there is no time, tomorrow there will be no strength, and the day after tomorrow we will not be there... So how does it feel to hear yourself? What needs to be done for this? Here is a step-by-step plan: 1. Shut up. Sounds weird? And yet: during this silence, hear how many other people’s voices are in your head (mother, husband, boss, children...) This is important, because among these voices it is very difficult to hear your own.2. 10 minutes of silence. Go outside and take a walk, sit on the balcony and get some fresh air, light up!