The things we say to ourselves
“I have seen the enemy and it is within” Rosou
The following abridged article is taken from our book, Entitled to Respect. The myriad discussions we have with ourselves has an enormous impact on whether we believe things to be possible or not.
We can manage our feelings and thoughts to maximise the chances that you and I achieve what we want, hope and desire. The article begins…..
The mini tape recorder was strapped to Ben and Caroline’s wrist. Both young children were part of a research group; the entire project involved several hundred children.
At the end of each day the tape was removed and a fresh one inserted. At the end of the week the tapes were collected and all the conversations were analysed and categorised.
As much as 95% of what was said to the kids turned out to be negative in some way or another.
If this legacy is representative of a larger public, you and me, it’s a wonder that so many of us turn out to be essentially ‘OK’. We all, however, have ghosts in the machine, struggle and are blighted by old tape recordings and videos embedded deeply in our psyche that we play endlessly inside our heads.
If I asked you the question,” Who do you talk to most during your normal day?” you might be tempted to answer: your spouse / partner, your children, specific work colleagues or friends, your mum and dad, etc.
The answer, of course, is none of these. The answer is you!
The things we say to ourselves
If you are influenced by what other people say to you, imagine how much more are you influenced by what you say to yourself?
You spend your day talking to yourself inside your head. You remember conversations or past events; you conjure up dialogue or future situations. You then continuously discuss with yourself how you’ll behave and how these situations will turn out. If you’ve had a bad experience, or in some way let yourself down you replay the “tape” in an endless loop amplifying your every mistake and mishap.
Your inner thoughts play a significant part in establishing how you feel, which in turn determines affects how you act. (Fig.3)
What you THINK leads to how you FEEL
What you FEEL leads to how you BEHAVE
For most of us these inner conversations or self talk are verbal exchanges inside our head. For others it is less of a conversation and more of a picture or a movie completely uncensored, the Director’s cut.
However, these tapes or movies are going on in the background like mood music, shaping your expectations, setting the atmosphere with our unconscious mind in charge. When you do become aware of something happening inside it is often your feelings that alert you to the fact that “something isn’t quite right”. However, these feelings are brought about by our thinking process.
Certain sounds, sights and places can act as anchors and have the most enlivening and /or unsettling affects. These experiences real or imaginary are stored or anchored deep in our subconscious.
This causal model of behaviour shows the chain reaction that starts with thinking and results in behaving.
If I am confident and assured in handling a situation it is because I feel good about myself and I think I can succeed. If, on the other hand I behave defensively and nervously it is because I am feeling threatened and can’t cope because I think the other person is too strong and I am too weak.
When the results you are getting are not what you want, you are not destined to repeat history. You can intervene at the thinking stage or the feeling stage and thus change what you do and the result.
Read our Book, Entitled to Respect to see how you can influence the outcome by changing your inner conv
