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I'm not mad, just talking to myself
"The second sign of madness is finding hair on the palm of your hand ... the first is looking for it." Anon
Society like to tell us what's not acceptable, but I like to question what's acceptable and ask why?
But that's not how I started talking to myself.
I wanted to overcome some personal issues, become a better husband, be a better leader, but I was struggling with issues of self-esteem and belief - that's when it clicked and I started talking to myself.
The thing is that we all have things that we know are "problems" that we want to overcome, but finding the link to overcome these problems is where we struggle. Maybe we want to loose weight, stop smoking, be a better spouse or partner, overcome a fear, ask the opposite sex out on a date, do public speaking, start a business, meet new people or maybe it's simple self esteem issues; you wish you could walk into a room with your head held high, walking with dignity and commanding respect.
You could go to a hypnotist to deal with these things, or you could struggle through life always thinking "I could do better than this if only ... "
That's when I discovered talking to myself, because it's better than listen to someone else lecture you about changing, or beating yourself up over your insecurities.
There's a proverb that reads "For as he thinks within himself, so he is." (Proverbs 23:7), and that sums the whole thing up - it's what we think that counts. But then that asks an even bigger question ... "How do I change the way I think, or what I think?"
Talking to yourself is how you change your thought processes. As a child growing up, you learn lessons as to who you are, what you are, whether you are good at something or not, all fed to you from parents, teachers, friends and relatives. These lessons fall into place when you say to yourself "I'm not good at that!" or "I am good at that!", or "I'm loved", or "I'm not loved!". We come into agreement with what we're told through experience or just plain acceptance - one way or another we form our Belief Systems. And our Belief Systems are "us".
I read once that in the U.S. in one year the sales of self help books totals $200 million! And they cover every topic from Self belief, controling stress and priorities to believing money will come to you, just by thinking positively. The trouble is that most people read these books, then go away and forget what they just read or think to themselves "I wish life was like that for me", and nothing changes. The problem is that last thought ... it's where you talk to yourself and say, "it'll never happen, I can't".
Like every lesson in life when you read a book or hear a message or get an inspired to do something. you need to make sure you constantly re-teach yourself the lessons or keep reminding yourself of the inspiration before it takes root. But we forget or don't reread the book and even then we don't tell ourselves that we can actually do it.
But there's still a step missing and that's actually making sure that subconsciously we are telling ourselves we can actually do it. Because that's where we stop, when the subconscious steps in and ... well nothing happens.
We need to create NEW thoughts about ourselves and the things we need to do or overcome.
The subconscious works like this:
- 1 How we are programmed
- 2 What we believe
- 3 Our attitude
- 4 How we feel
- 5 Our behaviour
And it runs in that order, starting with our "programming" - all the stuff that went on as a child, what was said and not said, and what we thought about it all. That affects what we believe, which in turn affects our attitude, which affects how we feel, which ultimately affects what we do.
We can get inspired at some conference or reading a book to do something, but once the inspiration wears off, we're left with the thought, "I knew I couldn't do it".
So we've got to go deeper, and change our attitude towards what we can do ... but we can't do that unless we actually believe that we can. And that's not going to change until we actually do believe that we can. So we need to change our programming. That's what Hypnotists try to do with varying levels of success, but why give someone else the control over your mind when you have the control in the first place? It's just knowing how to take control and start changing our thoughts.
Take Control
The thing is, if you haven't guessed already, is that we talk to ourselves all the time anyway, constantly reafirming what we believe, and forming new beliefs based on our perspective and past (programming). So let's take action and start linking this thing together.
We need to start removing ALL negative self-talk, it's where we say things like, "I can't", "I wish I could ...", "it's not my day!", "If only i could...", we cripple ourselves with these kind of thoughts and words. We use them to protect ourselves, but we're only doing what we've always done! And as you know if you always do what you've always done, you always get what you've always got!
Subtly we also need to stop say things like; "I need to...", "I ought to...", "I should ...", because these are actually saying that we can't as well. They are reafirming the really negative thoughts and they create guilt, disappointment and affirm your inadequacies.
So starters are to stop the above, then we can start changing our "thought vocabulary", by rephrasing the old "I cant's" and turning them into "I can". Capture your thoughts and when you hear yourself saying the negative forms, turn it around. You can start doing this straight away.
Action Plan
I started off by saying that we need to use this technique when we want to change something about ourselves, but to change we need to take direct action. Often it stops at the point when we've bought the book, heard the seminar or made a decision. But reprogramming takes a little more effort.
Start by taking the area you want to work on, for instance you want to start a business but you're too scared to take the plunge.
Then break down on paper every thought that you can imagine that is stopping you from starting a business i.e. "I'm not sure where to start.", "I don't like talking to strangers" ... the list will go on, but you must give it the time, sit down somewhere quiet where you can't be disturbed, and write them down. Be thorough as you need to cover every emotion and reason that stops you; you should have at least twenty
Then start converting them to positive self talk i.e. "I know where to start, and I can find plenty of them", "I am very capable of talking to strangers.", "I know my thoughts and I express them clearly to others.". Write them all down, you should also find complimentary one to add to your list.
Once you've written them down, start to memorise them. Then you can repeat them to yourself when things are quiet. Read them regularly to yourself, sometimes out loud. Pin key ones to places where you will see them regularly, like the mirror or the fridge.
Talk back to yourself when hear the negative phrases coming to mind. Stop them in their tracks and say, "no that's not true, actually ...", argue it out!
The key here is to have the new thoughts programming you as often and strongly as possible.
You can even record your self talk onto tape/CD/MP3 and play it to yourself while driving or sleeping ... or anywhere. Or get someone else to record it for you!
Go find those things, apply to every area you can think of, fears, personal improvement, finances, it's your life ...
Now you've got the keys, go forth and be mad ... keep talking!
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