Self Talk
Take-aways:
- Become aware of your self-talk.
- Acknowledge the content and tone of your self-talk.
- Don’t fight negative self-talk. Accept it. This is how you feel.
- Clarify how you would like your self-talk to change.
- Keep practicing the acknowledgement and clarifying your desire for change.
- Don’t waste time on affirmations that you don’t believe in.
Self-talk
Let’s continue on the theme of opening our minds to change with another topic that could easily occupy its own entire book or book series: self-talk.
Self-talk is the little voice in your head that fills the silences. It judges other people and yourself. It points out interesting landmarks. It pipes up with reminders. It plans, schemes, and gossips. You know the voice of self-talk. It’s what you hear when you close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears.
It’s the voice that said: don’t be silly, get your fingers out of your ears, people are staring.
We want to make our self-talk more positive and encouraging. The first step to better self-talk is being aware of what you are saying to yourself. That is, what is your mind telling itself throughout the day.
Consider creating a little journal or note pad to write down the tone and content of the various chatter that pops into your head. The point is to develop an awareness of what you tell yourself throughout the day. It might be frustrating to notice that a lot of your self-talk is negative, but hey, one of the reasons you’re reading this is to change that, right?
During your meditation practice you will be interrupted by a lot of self-talk. You may notice that the thoughts that spontaneously arise are largely negative: I can’t believe my boss denied my raise, why do I root for the Bills when they always lose, clearly I’m a loser/idiot, etc. I’m sure you can fill in the blanks quite well on your own. I know I can.
Wouldn’t it be great to eliminate this negative chatter once and for all? Well if you find any solution easier than a frontal lobotomy, you let me know, okay?
Here’s the bad news: there is no easy way to flick a switch and flush the negative thoughts away forever.
There’s good news though: there is a way to reduce the frequency of negative thoughts and diminish the impact of them when they occur.
To do so, first acknowledge the negative thought. For example: "I feel like a coward for not having the courage to ask Josy-Lynn on a date."
Second: accept the way you feel (it may help to physically shrug while you say or think the acceptance): "This cowardice makes me feel worthless and angry at myself. It’s painful."
The third step is the tricky one: let the feelings pass. Though in this particular example, our hero should realize that he would feel better, as scary as it seems, if he just picked up the phone right now and called Josy-Lynn.
But it’s not working, you exclaim!
This procedure takes practice, just like meditaiton, just like a sport or a field of study. It must be repeated.
Be aware of the reason that this does and will eventually work for you: First, by acknowledging a negative thought we starve it a little. Negative thoughts feed on denial, rejection, anger.
"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
– Yoda
The negative thought wants you to get angry at it, thereby experiencing more negative thoughts, because this gives it power. It becomes a downward spiral.
Accepting the negative thought causes it to starve. The negative thought would rather you try to reject and bury it.
The negative thought is likely the common reaction to the situation you’re in. Why do we try to reject what is natural? Well, because it’s painful.
"Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
– The Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride
It’s not necessarily comforting to know that lots of other people have gone through the same experience you are going through, but it’s true. Yep, lots of other people have had trouble at work and taken out their anger on their spouse. It happens. Accept it. Recognize that the guilt you feel as a result of the action means that you don’t like your own action. Acknowledge this too and not only accept it, but embrace it. "I feel guilty about my action or non-action. I want to behave differently in the future. In the meantime I may suffer from these feelings. I accept that."
Be careful not to develop an attitude of self-flagellation. That is, beware of desiring painful negative emotions out of a sense of guilt. You are not deserving of punishment. Self-abuse is not productive. You don’t need punishment in order to change.
What you need is to make amends as soon as possible. Fix, or at least patch up, the situation and move on so that you can do better next time. Repairs are only made more difficult by having a diminished self-esteem born out of a desire to punish one’s self.
Self-talk summary
The first step is awareness. You may not be ready to modify the self-talk yet. Don’t force it. Don’t scold yourself, "you big dummy! Why are you having all these negative thoughts." That’s counter productive. The way to avoid the downward spiral into negative thoughts is to acknowledge the negative thoughts and let them be. This takes practice. Self-talk helps. Just say or think: I’m having negative thoughts. I recognize that. I have a desire not to have negative thoughts.
Tips:
Consider ditching the daily affirmations.
Although it would be nice to tell one’s self beautiful positive affirmations all day long, these usually feel hollow. Such affirmations are nicely satirized by Lisa Nova.
Here is a litmus test to determine if positive affirmations are genuine:
Do you believe you could pass a lie detector test while saying the affirmation? If so, keep it up. If not, spend your energies elsewhere.
When examining your negative self-talk, ask yourself, "is there an invisible ‘should’ or an invisible ‘will always be’ in what I’m saying?"
If you think, "I’m such a weakling." Are you affirming that you should be stronger? Or that you will always be a weakling?
What if the ‘should’ judgment is wrong?
Imagine a world in which the ‘will always be’ is wrong. Think about how to get to that world.
