HOW CAN I LOWER THE VOLUME OF MY NEGATIVE SELF-TALK?
Posted in Uncategorized on 07/10/2008 09:28 pm by davidby David Delaney
Constant negative thoughts…
It’s our first meeting, and Peter (not his real name) is sobbing and obviously quite embarrassed. He feels that his life is out of control. He has anxiety, feels depressed, and has lost his once good concentration and motivation. What have replaced it are constant negative thoughts, and he can’t over-ride them as in the past. He says that this is causing him to loose his confidence. He recently lost his composure at work and he is panicking that he might be fired.
A natural human phenomenon…
Negative self-talk is actually a natural human condition, especially when we are under pressure. Anyone who has to perform well in inordinately pressured circumstances, as Peter does as a money manager, most likely knows this experience well. But when you add internal personal crisis to this mix, it can FEEL like you are out of control. This is a state of body and mind where we feel threatened and our normal relaxation state is replaced by high arousal that won’t let us calm down even though we want to.
When we are overloaded, in order to manage the pressure, there is an automatic, protective survival process that takes over. This process is accompanied by automatic feelings, emotions, and thoughts that have a life of their own. Mankind has been working to solve this dilemma for millennia. A trained meditator, or Olympic athlete, or Broadway actor might how to work with this situation; the average person with no training does not.
Enter- Our Changeable Brain…
Because the brain (or Central Nervous System) controls all our behavior and provides us with a sense of internal harmony, and because we now realize that the CNS is adaptable, we can re-train it to let go of negative events which are the outcome of inordinate internal stress and come back to a more quiet, internal balance that is conducive to performing optimally.
My parents were like this; I guess that I am doomed to be like this after all.
Just because your parents were like this does not mean that you are doomed to behave the same way forever. Because the brain is now known to be adaptable by its very nature, we can re-train it to recognize these negative patterns and let them go. It has an innate intelligence and naturally orients toward relaxation if we know how to show it to do so.
I am so busy now I hardly have time to accomplish what I need to do now, never mind add something else to the mix.
This type of thinking is actually another symptom of negative self-talk. Many people have thought just what you are thinking now and yet once they began training, learned that their brain is actually changeable and that it doesn’t take long to see results.
Client Case Example
From our first training sessions Peter announces that he is experiencing what he terms ‘quiet mind’ and that he is feeling his concentration and composure returning. After our 10th meeting, his wife asks him to convey to me that whatever we are doing is definitely working- it has ‘turned him around’ she says. ‘He is doing much better at home and work’ and she has not seen him in such good shape for quiet some time. He is positive and confident again. Peter is learning to let go of the negative self-talk and manage his internal overloaded states.
Summary
When we are overloaded, when stress has accumulated beyond our natural human limits, anyone can find her/himself with negative self-talk and feeling out of control and at the affect of stress. It is our ability to learn to manage this overload that is the key to reversing our condition and finding the peace of mind that is necessary to work at our optimal best.
Research now shows…
Research in the past 10 years is demonstrating how adaptable our brains are (what they are calling ‘neuro-plasticity’) and how with effective training, it can discover new ways of functioning that we never thought possible.
Next Steps
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