Not only is there one, there are two figurative parrots at work on your insides. Let dissect your brain a little bit in order to explain and maybe they’ll figuratively jump out for you to see.

Your brain is made of webs of neurons that fire off in cascades of energy as we go about our existence. These energy webs of association are built off of every lived experience that we have had in our lives. You can think of it as the coding of a lifetime computer program that has been reinforced into strong associations, beliefs, opinions and perspectives. A bunch of if/then dependencies. The culmination of these interwoven structures is the first parrot called “Sub-ego.”

Sometimes called the default mode network, Sub-ego is an operating system of association that spins up your settings for any given thing you interface with in the world and then parrots your stored data about it to the surface. These can be associations of it being a good or bad thing at the most superficial level. It is like a well spring of information and has tremendous influence on the second parrot.

The second parrot is “Ego” the actor. It is your self identity that takes action from the parroted information of the sub-ego. The Ego parrots forward in the form of embodied behaviors such as spoken words and body movements. Often the second parrot (action) is in lock step with the first parrot (thoughts) creating a consistent parrot call. Day in and day out, “you” are often aloft with the chattering of internal parrots and you don’t even see it because it is seen as you, the “self.”