We all talk to ourselves. When I said that to a client, she said “I don’t think I talk to myself. Do I talk to myself?” Clearly the second sentence was evidence that she talked to herself. We all do it. The critical issue is: what conversations are we having with ourselves?
For some people, the predominant voice that they have in their head is positive, whereas for others, they have a powerful negative voice dominating their inner dialogue. It would seem that this inner demon can make them very unhappy. Yet we feed that demon. It may not seem that way, but we created this demon, and allowed it to exert influence in our lives.
How often is that inner demon talking to you? Or, to rephrase that, how often are you letting it run amok? There are 86,400 seconds in a day. It has been estimated that:
- We have around 30-60,000 thoughts a day,
- A lot of these thoughts are the same thoughts as we had yesterday,
- Many of these thoughts are negative.
There are two important things to consider.
- If we are having lots of negative worry thoughts, then we activate the fight or flight mechanism, and if we are doing this frequently, then we risk all sorts of health issues. Insomnia, digestive problems or fatigue can be signs that we over-activating the stress response.
- Whatever we practice, we get good at. if we frequently talk to ourselves in positive ways, we get better at doing that, if we keep practicing negative thinking, we get better at that. Some people spend a lot of time talking to themselves negatively, and are brilliant at it.
You can read more about how the fight and flight mechanism can affect our health in my report ‘5 threats to resilience and performance that career driven professionals must avoid’- even if you are not a career driven professional! www.resilience.uk.com
In week 4 of the Self Esteem Challenge, I talked about the idea that one strategy to boost your self-esteem is to develop skills and capabilities, and in order to do this we need to be aware of our thinking, and when necessary to challenge our thoughts and beliefs.
Actually we need to pay attention to our thinking on a moment by moment basis. Imagine that there are two parts of you. One that is prone to unhelpful thinking, for instance worry, stress, overly analysing things, anxiety. For some people, this is very extreme, as if they had a demon inside their head. The other part is more inclined to deal with things in a calm, rational way, keeping things in perspective. The brain is like a muscle, the more we exercise a particular muscle, the stronger it gets. So we need to think about what part of the brain we are exercising, and allowing to get stronger.
Getting To Know Your Demons Exercise
Try the following exercise to get clearer on this. You may want to read through it first.
- First of all get two chairs, preferably at least one of them being a comfortable chair, placing them facing each other.
- Sitting in the comfortable chair, close your eyes and get in touch with the part of you that is wise, calm, collected, that part of you that has responded to situations in a resourceful way. Imagine if that part of you was a person, an animal, a cartoon character or something else. Who/what would it be? What does it look like? You may want to recall a time when you responded to a situation feeling that way, remembering it as if you were there. See the things that you see, hear the sounds that you hear and the feeling you felt. Really get in touch with these good feelings.
- Now move to the other chair, and connect to that part of you that can respond to things in unhelpful ways. Imagine if that part of you was a person, an animal, a cartoon character or something else. Who/what would it be? What does it look like? Now remember a time when you responded to a situation in an unhelpful way. It might be that you got annoyed when you made a mistake, for instance you broke a plate. Remember what you said to yourself, or if you can’t remember, then guess.
- Now move back to the wise part of yourself. Think about what that part of you would say in that situation. It might say something like “We all make mistakes. I can get another plate.” Feel how it feels to respond to this situation in a calm way, recognizing that you will have forgotten about this incident in no time at all.
- Get to know that negative part. From now on, any time you catch yourself stepping into that unhelpful voice, listen to it, thank it for sharing its point of view. Imagine that every time that behavior pops up, you respond calmly, saying to it “Hello again. What is it you want to say?” Let it have its say and then thank it. By responding in this way, you are not giving it power. You may want to think about where it came from, how you learned to talk to yourself in a negative way. Did you learn it from a significant other, a parent or sibling? Is it a bad habit you got into, despite not having a negative role model to learn from? Then step into the wise self, and get in touch with that part of you, and listen to what it has to say. In one to one sessions, I do deeper work to help understand this unhelpful part people have, so they can resolve the conflict between these two parts.
In the Free Report ‘Six Steps To High Self Esteem, which you can download from my website, I discuss more strategies for cultivating a positive inner voice.
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I’m doing The Six Week Self Esteem Challenge. If you want to do it too, check out the first post here, and sign up at www.inspiringchange.co.uk for more free stuff.
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SIMON PIMENTA is a hypnotherapist, coach and trainer working with people to boost resilience and performance, and minimise stress.
After working in a demanding job as the Director of a Housing Trust, he went off sick and remained unable to work for the next 8 years.
He discovered a pioneering approach to resolving health issues and quickly got back his health, and now trains others using these same techniques, to help them become happier, healthier and achieve their goals.