YOUR INNER VOICE IS YOUR GUIDE

Your Inner Voice

By Dan Moyane

Picture this: a 10-year-old boy is lying on the grass in the backyard of his parents’ home in Soweto, gazing at the moon, trying to see the American astronauts who are reported to have landed there, as if it were possible to spot them so far away in space. It’s all over the news and the boy’s curiosity makes him think that he might see the men on the moon. The news about the US moon landing in 1969 stirs something deep inside the boy, a voice that would intensify as he grows older. As a 10-year-old, he cannot articulate it as clearly as he would come to do in his teenage years. But the message is loud and strong – I don’t want to die

unknown.

Later, as the years went by, the voice would guide me when I faced unfamiliar situations. Well, I have called it an inner voice but it’s really like a voice in my

head or a feeling deep inside my gut

that pops up at crucial times in my life.

Looking back, I remember how, as a 10-year-old boy, I heard this inner voice saying something like, “Well, the American astronauts will forever be known as the first people on the moon. Wouldn’t it be sad for me to have lived on this earth and die unknown or known only to my immediate family, relatives, and friends?”

As I grew older, the sentiment intensified. It guided me. I cannot pretend or claim that it was easy to follow, because sometimes doubt creeps in. So how do you know for sure that this inner voice, this thought or deep feeling, is for real? What role does your environment play? I grew up in a tough environment in Soweto in the 1960s and 1970s, but this did not stop me from dreaming of a better life for myself and my family. We all want a better life for ourselves. Only you can shape what it looks like. I wanted to be a medical doctor when I grew up. But I ‘fell’ into the media space because I needed to find a job and earn a living after I arrived in Maputo as a 20-year-old in 1979, running away from apartheid security police. I used to write what I regarded as poems, and one day in 1979 I found the courage to go to the offices of the local weekly Tempo magazine to ask them to publish a poem I had written about Soweto. I did not know anyone at Tempo, which used to dedicate several back pages to poetry. The possibility of rejection was real. But something from deep inside me propelled me. I tell this story not because Tempo published the poem under my African name, Tsakane, in a September 1979 edition, but because I listened to the voice from deep within, and that act alone opened the door to another opportunity – and a bigger one, at that.

We all have an inner voice. What we need the most is to “trust it when it speaks.

It speaks to us in different and unique ways. With me, it sits in the depths of my gut, gnawing away - unsettling until I acknowledge it and act accordingly.

My father died in December 2007 and for weeks before his death, I had this deep feeling that I needed to move on to a new chapter in my career. I had no idea what that would be. I even had a brief conversation with my dad about possible change. My inner voice grew louder with each passing month until my father passed on. After his funeral, I returned to work and resigned from my job. His death marked a new beginning for me. The voice went silent. Sometimes it takes life-changing or significant occurrences in our lives to respond to our inner voice. Being brave

is uncomfortable, but when you listen to your inner voice - somehow things naturally fall into place.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Moyane is a South African journalist, talk show host, radio station manager and CEO of Primedia best known to television viewers as an anchor on the 24-hour news channel eNCA.