**2022 New Year's 1st Episode - recorded from Aegina Island, Greece**

"It’s natural to think of ourselves as a single person. We have – after all – only one body and answer to only one name. But inside our minds, we are in truth far more like an assemblage of voices or – as we might put it at its starkest – of ‘people.’ We could picture our minds like a theatre, much of it sunk in darkness, with a brightly illuminated lectern and microphone at the center of the stage. At different moments of our days and nights, contrasting characters will seek to step up to speak and interpret the world unfolding before our eyes. What unites these characters is that they are, in their diverse ways, very keen to speak and very very unhelpful.

But we need to keep a surprising idea in mind, that we all also have – though we are not quite aware of the fact and therefore rarely do anything to encourage them to come forward – an adult inside us. The adult may be lingering in the wings, they may be in a seat at the very back of the theatre or in some dark winding corridor backstage. But they are there. 

When we can allow them on stage, the adult brings some key virtues to the microphone in our minds. They are, above anything else, resourceful. In the face of trouble, they look for solutions. They know there can be some way through. They don’t despair at the first hurdle. It might be hard right now, but things will work themselves out eventually; they always do. They are practical too: at moments, they will simply but authoritatively tell us to go to bed, not to think about it till morning and to make sure we are eating properly.

The good news is that however unused we are to hearing the adult speak to us on the stage of our minds, they can – with patience – be coaxed into doing so far more regularly than they do right now. We can develop how often, and how loudly, the adult inside delivers its verdicts. And what’s more, encouraging this adult voice requires no particular technical skill or arcane practice. 

We can thereby, with a little practice, come to see that we invariably have a choice about who speaks inside us. Of course the Panicker, the Depressive and the Self-Hater will always be offering their services to make lengthy speeches to us about our failings and our dark prospects. But we have an option to call time on them and request someone else to take to the stage. 

Now the challenge is regularly to check in and ensure that the adult has as much of our airtime as possible. It’s entirely within our remits to shape the running order of who speaks to us and when. The adult is already inside us, now we need to give them the stage – and ensure we listen to the wisdom they, and therefore we, already well know about how to lead the rest of our lives."

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