BE AWARE OF SELF-TALK

Modern lifestyle is flooding us with information, entertainment and inspiration. Generally we live a more thought-based life than people used to in the old days, when nature and physical work sat the pace. Stress, overthinking and rumination has become part of our modern mental lifestyle. We are mentally more active and  overactive then ever before. Listening to our inner self-talk can be a quite overwhelming experience. Our minds are constantly active, our thoughts going at a 100 km per hour and one starts to wonder how to ever find peace within. It is a very important step on our path to inner peace that we become consciously aware of all the noise, judging, over analyzing and talking that is going on in our mind. Creating mental noise is actually one of our most energy consuming habits. We often find it difficult to just experience a situation without mentally judging, analyzing or commenting on the experience and on our own performance. So let us look a bit closer at all this self-talk.  How can we cope with it and how can we reduce it?

Two types of self-talk

I find it helpful to distinguish between two types of mental noise. The first type is the everyday inner chatter that basically consists of mostly unimportant superficial thoughts on small stuff. The second type is the reoccurring and more serious grumbling about situations, people or decisions that are unresolved in your mind. They still bother you and they are typically connected with more heavy emotional charges. Those unresolved emotions are fuelling the mental ruminations. That’s why the two types of mental noise need to be treated slightly different.

For both types of self talk it is important to become aware of it as soon as possible, before it turns into rumination and then develop into a kind of mental and emotional avalanches. They start small and get bigger and more and more devastating the longer they are allowed to persist. It is therefore important that we cultivate an ongoing awareness of our mental processes. We want to become aware of our thought processes when they arise and before they have evolved into self destructive avalanches. 

Developing the “awareness muscle” is a gradual training process pretty much like going to the gym to get stronger and more fit physically. Be patient, it can happen again and again that thoughts turn into rumination and possibly into emotional avalanches.

Once you find yourself mentally and emotionally involved with analyzing, judging, discussing or interpreting any situation, be aware of your reaction. Getting frustrated or blaming yourself just makes it worse. You now punish yourself for having discovered the mind game. That can make it worse and initiate a new cycle of rumination on your weaknesses. 

It is much better to give acceptance to the rumination as soon as you realize you are experiencing this. Accept that you right now are witnessing these somehow crazy aspects of the mind and appreciate that you have been able to become consciously aware of it so quickly. That’s already a significant step towards changing the way you interact with your thought patterns.  

If your rumination is of the inner chatter type, you can easily observe it with a compassionate smile and then bring your attention to your breath. With your exhale you will easily just let go of the thoughts and then concentrate again on the task at hand. You can add some mental instruction like: “I will think about this later” or “ this is taken care of by other people/the future…” or “ I want to concentrate on my task at hand” 

You can add a mental picture like a garbage can, a box or a pin board where you place the thoughts and then continue to focus on your task at hand. 

The superficial inner chatter about things we do or have to do is the easier one, more complex is the grumbling type of self talk. This is the repetitive, emotionally charged kind of self-talk where you are dwelling on heavier life issues. These are stories we repeat again and again in our heads and often also in conversations.

As with the first type you want to become aware of it as soon as possible. Thereafter it is important to accept and appreciate that these bothering thoughts, you have observed, for some reason exist. They come up again and again, because they want you to listen more deeply to yourself. Making yourself feel wrong for producing them makes things even worse. Trying to put them aside won’t help. They will soon come back with an even greater emotional charge. Therefore acceptance is key to resolving those heavy mental patterns. Once you no longer run away from these bothering thoughts, you can welcome them with a sense of friendliness and openness for exploration. Now I will show you how you can work with the emotional charge that is fuelling your more persistent mental ruminations.

How you transform the emotional charge

When you become aware of a very heavy and repetitive rumination, as mentioned before, start with accepting and appreciating the fact that it is here to help you to heal an issue, a theme, an experience in your life. Start with observing the thought chains and the mental pictures that pop up in your mind. Take some deep breaths and gently bring your awareness to your body and be aware of the feelings and bodily sensations that come along with your self talk. Maybe you experience some kind of tension, pain or restlessness in the solar plexus area. Diving deeper into the sensation you might experience an emotion, it could be fear, anger or sadness. It is now important to stay present with the emotional experience, feel what wants to be felt, while you continue to breathe consciously and gently into the sensations. Stay open and give acceptance to your experience. Be aware of your breath and gently breathe into the painful sensations. This will help you to stay aware and focused. Your breath is your anchor and at the same time it brings awareness and healing. Gently abiding with the breath, the emotion and the physical sensation, you will observe how the tension in your body gradually releases and the emotional charge is reduced.  Stay with your breathing for a while and focus on letting go of all thoughts and sensations with the exhale. Let your breath flow freely through your whole body and finally give space for resting in a relaxed and peaceful state.  This is how you gradually can transform the emotional charge that is connected to strong and repetitive ruminations.

What you should be aware of:

Abiding with the sensations will give you some deeper insight into the emotional aspects of your persistent mind games. Endless inner discussions with your ex might be powered by anger, jealousy or hurt. Constantly ruminating about your finances might be fuelled by a deep rooted fear of failure or a feeling of insecurity and lack experienced in childhood. Possibly you might come into contact with deep rooted emotions fuelled by traumatic life experiences. In this case I really recommend that you search for the assistance of a certified therapist. Sometimes we need qualified and compassionate support to feel save in the process of resolving deeper issues.