“Stop talking.” She said it so many times I wanted to bang my head on the floor. She was referring to the constant inner chatter that runs incessantly in my head—planning, strategizing, debating, assessing, critiquing, self-judging, questioning, doubting. She pummeled me with the phrase, thousands of times: “Stop talking.” And at some point, just before sunrise, I noticed it: silence. My inner roommates had stopped talking. It was euphoric.
