Control Your Self-talk If You Want to Control Your Life

Despite being a positive, successful, and attractive person, Pamela would avoid looking in the mirror for long periods.

Note: This article is based on the work of Rande Howell, in which he tells us how to change our lives by becoming aware of and changing our self-talk.

This girl would focus on what she was doing when she combed her hair or put makeup on her face, but without looking at herself directly. She often fell victim to a series of negative judgments that she made about herself. If Pamela could not ignore these thoughts through distraction or preoccupation with anything, these negative self-judgments would become so strong that she becomes convinced of them.

She would tell herself, “My nose is very ugly, my skin is bad, there are many visible wrinkles under my eyes, and I am clearly obese. No one will want to get to know me because of my ugly appearance. In fact, I also need plastic surgery to appear acceptable.” Meanwhile, stress was draining Pamela’s energy, and she began to doubt herself and her ability to achieve a satisfying life. The strange thing was that Pamela knew there was no truth to these harsh judgments. Pamela had a graceful figure, a beautiful face, and clear, flawless skin.

Over time, Pamela tried refuting these negative judgments, stopping thinking, and repeating positive motivational phrases and positive thinking, which she felt she had to do to resist negative thoughts. These methods worked for some time, but then returned. They invaded her mind and made her doubt herself.

The solution for Pamela was to deal with the distress these negative thoughts were causing. This is the common solution for many, which is to avoid confronting these thoughts by being busy with work or other activities that she does alone or with her friends. The bottom line is that she was trying with all her effort to distract her attention from the harsh negative judgments that she was making against herself without her will.

Self-talk: Know that your thoughts do not necessarily represent your true identity

What Pamela experiences in the example above is a state that can be likened to her self-talk, which takes the form of thoughts.

When this happens, people enter into a state of conflict, and their self-doubts fuel the negative judgments launched against their will. The opposite is true, and like Pamela, we all have some difference between what we want to be convinced of and our doubts about its validity, whether we want to admit it or not. The solution lies in identifying and distinguishing this internal conflict from our true self. Suppose you have ever thought about something and felt hesitant to judge its validity, and you have two conflicting opinions. In that case, you have experienced what we call dialogue with the self directly.

Most of us do not care about these thoughts; they are just weak thoughts that come and go on their own. However, just because you are not aware of your thoughts or do not understand them does not mean that they will stop controlling your life. So, be confident that these ideas have enough power to design your life. if you ignore them, it is not guaranteed that you will reach the desired results, and it is up to the possibilities as long as you are at the mercy of these ideas.

Self-talk: the dangers that arise from not realizing it

Most of us notice this type of self-talk, but we ignore it and do not reveal it to anyone for fear that they will criticize us. In doing so, we exacerbate the problem. We must be frank with ourselves about these types of thoughts and reveal them to someone. This is necessary to achieve happiness and discover a higher and meaningful goal in our lives. When we learn to understand the meaning of the thoughts that come to us, we can change anything in our lives.

Recognizing the meaning inherent in our conversation with ourselves is very important to bring about a radical change in our lives. There is a great risk of losing many opportunities when we do not learn how to listen to this internal conflict, and remaining without a goal makes us move through life without a destination. Things happen without us understanding their cause. What Pamela’s conversation with herself shows us, for example, is that our selves consist of many aspects, some of which are supportive and positive, and others are negative and destructive; many of us do not realize that there is a conversation of this kind going on in our minds.

This heedlessness exposes you to being a victim of life events that you call luck or fate. While it is the result of your lack of awareness of this struggle, the people who have completely lost control of their lives are those who are unaware of the self-talk that is going on in their minds and the impact it has on their lives. Some of them realize little of what is going on inside them, while one group is fully aware of their self-talk to themselves. Yet, they ignore it because of the feelings of distress and discomfort it leads to, and this limits the possibility of living their lives to their fullest potential.

Self-talk: How do we fall into the trap of the comfort zone?

People often ignore their self-talk, so they do not completely ignore it. Most people occupy themselves with work, entertainment, exercise, video games, and everything necessary to avoid the distress resulting from stepping out of their comfort zone. Many people fear the negative judgments they make about themselves in this type of dialogue with the self. So, they lock themselves in their comfort zone to avoid noticing these conversations.

The comfort zone indeed gives you a feeling of security. Still, at the same time, it deprives you of opportunities to develop yourself and makes you stuck in repetitive and familiar patterns, leading to repeated failed attempts, which is called a self-fulfilling prophecy. Very few people learn how to monitor their conversations with themselves, refute their claims, and understand the meaning inherent in them.

By recognizing these thoughts within our minds, we free ourselves from their control over our lives and can benefit from our potential to the maximum extent. Some negative aspects of the self must be noticed and confronted, and some positive parts of the self must be activated. By activating the positive aspects of our personalities, we can change our destiny forever.

We have to realize the conflict that erupts in our minds. Once we realize that thinking is essentially a vital process, the basic question becomes: What is the part responsible for controlling the device of perception and thinking that we call “the mind”? The answer will surprise you. Although thinking is very important, it is an aspect of yourself that controls the thoughts that prevent you from achieving your fullest potential and limit life opportunities.

Self-talk: the intellectual patterns that shape our perception of the world

Being aware of the negative talk in your mind allows you to design your life as you wish.

We were all raised with certain methods of perception that have become our way of learning about the world around us. These cognitive methods affect how we understand the world and what we believe we can achieve in our lives. These methods represent the stories we convince ourselves of and later form our comfort zone.

These conversations become an essential part of our personalities before we can realize them. Once it is created, it becomes the world in which we live. The truth is that our conversations with ourselves govern our perception and control our lives. If you want to change your world, you must learn how to determine the conversation that controls your thinking and how to eliminate the influence of the narrative you tell yourself in your life.

How to do it?

Here's a practical example of how to achieve this:

I work with a lawyer who works at a large, influential law firm, but he is very dissatisfied with his life. He has become depressed, in fact, and has lost hope. However, if he could think of his depression as a conversation with himself rather than an illness, a new world that is ready for change would appear to him, and the client would feel like a victim. This is evident from his talk about being a victim, as he was always forced to sacrifice his needs to please others.

With his wife and children accustomed to an expensive lifestyle, he tells me things that suggest that he is forced to work at this job, which is the reason for his frustration. He does not see a solution to this dilemma, and he scolds himself when he wants to change his life. He works throughout the week to have some time to dream of owning a small farm. As the weekend ends, he feels despair again because he will have to go to work at the beginning of the week.

When my client developed the ability to monitor self-talk and noticed that he was talking to himself as if he were a victim, he began to realize that these should not be the thoughts that control his life. He even used his experience in law to describe the “parties” of this self-talk, such as the plaintiff who seeks to convict him and the victim who berates herself for not being competent enough.

Identifying these two modes of self-talk and distinguishing them from his true personality gave him a great deal of freedom. He then discovered that he could listen to other ideas contributing to his dialogue with himself. He found that he possessed courage and self-confidence, which are the two things that could contribute to changing his self-talk. In fact, he discovered a sublime spiritual side within himself that he had not previously been aware of, despite his belief in the Lord.

When he developed these aspects, his self-talk changed, and he no longer talked to himself as a victim; he could summon his courage and self-confidence when talking to himself, which gave him the ability to live a new life. Then this man began, instead of living life without a conscious will, learning how to design his life. That is, he began to participate in creating his destiny, and moved from being a victim of unknown patterns of perception (comfort zone) to designing patterns consciously and in a way that helps him shape his life.

In conclusion

It is your opportunity and your decision. Rather, it is your responsibility to contribute to creating your life. What is required is the motivation, development of your skills, and discipline necessary to learn how to observe the patterns and self-conversations that take place in your mind, which control your life and limit your potential, and then begin to develop new patterns and conversations consciously, and the ability to participate in making our lives, which is the greatest gift given to us as human beings.

The secret lies in knowing this gift is not intended to serve our ego. We aim to accept this gift, develop it, and mobilize our latent energies to change the world. At this moment, your journey begins to become a fully human being, as Nelson Mandela put it in his inauguration speech in 1984:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; we are too strong and will not serve the world by avoiding courageous endeavors. Each one of us is born to be courageous. When we allow our higher self to emerge, we motivate others to act in the same way, and after you are freed from your fears, you become a source of freedom for others.”