Serve others.

There are many ways to do this. Volunteer at your local church or food pantry. Join a band that plays at old folks' homes. Build houses for families in Mexico.

Find the right doctor who can give you the medication or mental health therapy that you need for your voices.

Take Sanskrit word for selfishness, it's swarth. It is a combination of two words--swa (soul) and rath (chariot), meaning you are innately a divine being with body as your vehicle/chariot. When you are conscious only of your vehicle (when you consider you are this body), it is called egoism/selfishness. Then you think in terms of me and mine--my body, my relatives, and my asset--you enter into a net called my, my, my... Then you develop DESIRE to add, if met with obstruction, desire turns into ANGER; if it gets fulfilled, desire becomes GREED. These three (desire, anger and greed) are called "gates of Hell." (Gita 16:21)

On the other hand, if you are conscious that you are a spirit being (because you are the child of Heavenly Father who is SPIRIT--John 4:24; Mathew 23:9), you begin to view others as your brothers and sisters, this means you have a PURE motive in dealing with them. This leads to PEACE and CONTENTMENT. These three qualities are the opposites of what makes Hell. They are the qualities of SWA (soul), hence characteristics of SWARGA (which means heaven in Sanskrit). Its all about change in attitude!

Hi @SR7 you ask "how can I be less self absorbed and more open minded? hmm, well first of all let's take a look at what "mind" means you can't be more open minded if you haven't a clear idea of what mind is all about.

Here's a general picture that can be resumed by the well known phrase "We are spiritual beings having a physical experience".

I'm going to speak in the first person because it's the only area in which I have real experience, I hope that you can relate.

My own personal experience is that the physical world is all that I can see through my human eyes such as chairs, cars, houses, the blue sky, other people etc I think you get the idea, and that includes my own silhouette. Other people can also see with their human eyes what I can see with mine.

When I focus inwards what do I see? I see a vast limitless, timeless space that is invisible to human eyes including my own and within that space things appear; there're thoughts, emotions (or feelings which are synonymous to emotions) and there're also bodily sensations. And that's about it. Truth is thoughts, emotions, feelings are all different expressions of the same raw energy for want of a better word.

All day everyday there's a stream of pure raw energy flowing through me that contains a lot of info most of which is automatically filtered by the mind which is a good thing otherwise my consciousness would be overloaded with info. I become aware of some of that info in the form of thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations, and here comes the really interesting bit ... in the past a lot of that info that filtered through to my consciousness was tainted raw energy, tainted by info that I had received especially during the first years of my life.

So really it's all about inner experiences for myself and other people too, that's where I live and feel sure that's where other people live too that is, on their inside. As humans we do have physical senses and means that allow us to communicate with each other verbally and with our bodies.

Take away the inner experiences, the thoughts, the emotions, the bodily sensations and we would all be just like humanoid shaped robots without feeling the joie de vivre.

From a tarot point of view your state corresponds to the "hermit", there are always two faces positive and negative to any blade. Positive aspects for hermit are a need of isolation from others to complete something important and negative aspects are you feel alone in the dark at a crisis, unable to concentrate, unwilling or unable to communicate.

I wonder if you have resolved your issue of hearing voices if not would you like to tell me a bit about them? If you stand facing north with your back facing south from which angle do the voices seem to come from? For example 90° is east, 180° is south and 270° is west. This is important because direction gives an indication of the real meaning of the voices, it gives the vibrational tone, the momentum.

Using my pendulum and a servranx ondiometre graph (graph used in conjuction with a pendulum for measuring the momentum of an energy)

http://www.servranx.com/Categories/Graphiques/DE-RADIESTHESIE/Ondiometre-superieur.aspx

shows that the voices SR7 hears have a positive polarity, that is an excess of energy, an excess yang energy in relation to yin energy. The disequilibrium mesures 40° which is a reasonable amount. In other words SR7 has a good level of energy that's available for physical activities but that energy is pent-up that's why the voices seem to appear 30 meters away, seem to coming from the outside world, it's yang energy that's being used up to project energy outwards.

SR7 says "I hear voices, not inside my head, but outside my head, about 30m away. They're constantly telling me I have no idea how much misery I am responsible for, and to stop thinking about myself." These voices are telling the truth about the situation and they also give the solution "stop thinking about yourself" in other words stop just thinking and start "doing" - "Just Do It" trademark of the shoe company Nike.

Here are some practical things to do to open the mind; realize that other people have fears too, other people also hesitate to communicate by fear of being rejected or actng stupid and being judged. No one is standing there watching, feel free to visualize without restrictions what you heart desires, then try a few simple things, growing is doing and it's in doing experience is gained and allows further growth. Whenever negative self talk arises be aware of it and consciously flip it into positive. And doing this often enough it'll become a habit then a belief. The end result is that "doing" will be synonymous to "enjoyment" :)

You need to drop the "I" factors from within you. If you considered yourself this and that. Then definitely you will be the victims of your own trap.

The most important be cheerful. It will open you up for entertainment.

SR7 VS cheerfulness , SR7 = cheerfulness, SR7 = SR7, cheerfulness = cheerfulness, Sch = CR7, Che = SR7, Che vs SR7 .....

Let there be light in your life. The light you experience and enjoy.