Self Talk - Part 2
One of the most important areas of self-development is self talk. Most problems and issues experienced by people in their physical lives could be reduced, even eliminated altogether, by taking control of that relentless chatter constantly expressing itself as internal self talk.
Strange as it may seem, we all have a variety of sub-personalities that exist below the level of consciousness. Collectively they are identified as the self . . . the ‘you’ that stares back from the mirror. The identification others observe as you. However, these sub-personalities are often gremlins. Gremlins that never agree with each other and whose objective is destructive. . . . One always insists it's right, another becomes angry and argues, another just wants to please everyone and one who is always the victim etc, . . . the result plays out in our head as our self talk, and subsequently who we believe we are! Naturally self talk dominates our thoughts . . . angry self talk expresses as angry thoughts. The content of an evening's TV you choose to watch can determine and influence your thought patterns. Watch programs that are humorous and uplifting and your thoughts will tend to follow. The important point is that we consciously choose what we want to watch by the channel button you select. How irritating is it when another person switches channel without you knowing? Stop for a moment and recall the programs you watch and you will see the influence they have. Learn to understand that we are each totally in charge of what we choose to watch or listen to, and ultimately to what we think about. The importance of this cannot be too strongly emphasized if you are to take charge of your life and its conditions. Negative self talk must be contained at all cost. Like a disruptive child it will go to any lengths to dominate your thoughts, and get its own way, then cry and whine when things go wrong. So how can this be changed? If you are driving through a bad district that makes you uncomfortable you find another route! Even if the new route takes longer, even in another direction, you avoid that danger area. You created a change. To begin with you may not feel comfortable with the change because it is unfamiliar, but you soon get used to it. But, most importantly, you are no longer bothered by feeling uncomfortable, the danger has been averted. With self talk, new patterns and programs brought into play create a new stimulus . . . a new route to where you really want to go that avoids the old disruptive track. How to program a new self-talk pattern We all have five senses, vision, touch, hearing, taste and smell. One of the five is the dominant. For men, the dominant sense is often visual. They get the greatest stimulation from what they see. Women are most often tactile. For them, feeling is their first sense. There are always exceptions . . . these suggestions are very general. In fact we use all the senses of course, but in general the first three will serve to illustrate how we can use them to create new and stimulating self-talk patterns. We want a method that is convenient and easy to access. Here is a simple technique that really works. When we want to bring our self-talk and thoughts under control we will use sound as the anchor vehicle. Recall a piece of music that is stimulating for you. I have several that make me tingle and really feel motivated. I have located them all together in a private little file on my MP3 player that is just a click away! To set the technique up . . . play the tunes/songs and as you feel the stimulation they generate, visualize or feel those things that are the greatest ‘turn-on’ for you . . . as you do this, associate and identify the music with the visual images or feelings. Link them together so one connects a link to the other. Whenever the music plays you automatically identify the images and/or feelings. The more you work with this, the more powerful it becomes, and the stronger the handle you get over your self talk. We all have many of these links already running in our consciousness. Many of them fathered by the thoughts that we allowed others to lay on us. Many are contorted into unhelpful gremlins whose only objective is to lead us off track. These unhelpful gremlins are not content unless they are arguing, fighting and running amok like unruly children in a candy store. These anchors are at work the whole time and are rarely in line with what you’d like to be thinking. . . . Whenever I smell the tar of roadworks, childhood memories flood back. Listening music, you may hear couples say, “They’re playing our song!” and cuddle up a little closer because of their strong links to it. That is what we want to create but on purpose, so that when we become aware of the negative self-talk gremlins, we can click that private little ‘tune file’ and let an entire file of good and positive stuff flood back. So easy and effective . . . Try it and you will see for yourself.
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