We talk as though there is only one self within when there is, in fact, a committee of personalities living within each of us. The members of your internal committee represent different parts of yourself, competing sides of your personality, a multiplicity of inner voices sometimes clamouring for expression.

“I keep a journal,” a writer once wrote, “in order to stay in conversation with the many women who live inside me.” That’s as good advice as any on the wisdom of journaling. We all carry around within our heads voices that vie with each other about what’s best for us. Each voice has value and a role to play in your life. Taking time out to committee within is good for the soul. Which is why it’s important to get away and take time to hear yourself (your selves, I should say) think.

Call time out, go inward, and call for a committee meeting.

How do you negotiate the clamouring voices within? Get to know the different members of your inner committee by writing about each one of them (your bold self, your shy and timid self, your reflective self, your wounded self). Who exactly are these parts of yourself?

–Renita Weems