Changing your self-talk
Richard spoke assuredly once more to begin the afternoon session. Joe felt more and more relaxed as the resonant tones of the speaker’s voice travelled through the room. Welcome back! Now, a lot of people learn from me how to communicate with others better. What’s even more important than that is learning to communicate better with yourself. We all talk to ourselves every day. Forty years ago you could be called insane for admitting to talking to yourself. Back then, if you told a psychiatrist that you talked to yourself he would say to himself, ‘Mmm, this person is engaging in self-talk. He must be crazy!’ Richard’s movements were measured and graceful. His tone was strong yet genuine.
The way we feel is influenced not only by the images or movies we make but also by the way we talk to ourselves. Now, most people are aware that if you say bad things to yourself, you’re more likely to feel bad. What they don’t know, however, is that it’s not just what you say to yourself but also how you say it. For example, when you’re chastising yourself, it’s likely that you use a different tone of voice than when you’re congratulating yourself. It’s often your tone of voice when you’re speaking to yourself that affects your mood. Some people speak to themselves in a horrible manner, and yet they wonder why they don’t like who they are. You have to learn to change how you speak to yourself. The critical voice. Joe had tried to silence it, but he never seemed to be able to do this successfully. He had occasionally tried some of the ideas he had heard from TV, books or friends, such as thinking positive thoughts, visualizing beautiful images or saying supportive words. However, his positive voice was almost always drowned out by his negative, critical voice. Let me explain a little secret that’ll help you to do this. Think about something nasty that you regularly say to yourself, something cruel that you use to complain about yourself. Now, notice the tone of voice you use. That’s right. Next, I want you to repeat it, but do so in a ridiculous tone of voice. Imagine the same horrible criticism in a Mickey Mouse tone of voice or a Sylvester the Cat voice. Notice how it feels different. This works because it’s the tone of our voice that often carries much of the feeling of the words we use. Lots of people say different things to themselves and wonder why they feel just the same. Remember, it’s not what you say as much as how you say it. This struck a nerve with Joe. Was this the reason why he had been unsuccessful in changing this inner voice? Now, as he tried making the negative comments to himself in a Mickey Mouse voice, he began to giggle. He sounded ridiculous, and more importantly, the negative comments themselves sounded ridiculous. When you use a different tone, it carries a different feeling. Actually, let’s do this as an exercise. Get into groups of two. I want you to get your partner to think about a number of situations in his life where he has criticized himself. Once he has identified them, have him repeat the criticisms in a few different ridiculous tones of voice and notice how he feels different. When you do this a few times, the negative voice will start taking on this new attitude, and you will, quite literally, feel different. And the good thing is that the negative voice, after this exercise, will never be the same. Joe immediately avoided eye contact with Ross and Anna and got up out of his seat. He turned and saw the brown-haired woman sitting only three seats away. He imagined his brilliant square
and he stepped into it. Just as he was about to make his approach an older woman who looked like she was in her fifties stepped in front of him. ‘Hi. Would you like to do this exercise with me?’ Joe looked over the woman’s shoulder and noticed that the brown-haired woman had just been approached by someone else to do the exercise. ‘Sure. My name’s Joe.’ He quickly brought his focus back. ‘Teresa. Nice to meet you.’ She brushed back her curly hair and flattened the underneath of her long spotty dress as she sat down gracefully beside him. Joe learned that Teresa was a doctor from Ireland who had trained extensively with Richard. She seemed pretty down to earth and had a warm, motherly quality to the way she talked. Joe also liked her accent, a typical Irish brogue. ‘I used to have panic attacks a few years ago,’ Teresa explained, ‘so I looked for ways to take control over the way I felt. By learning from Dr Bandler I became aware of the fact that when I panicked I made an internal movie of myself not being able to breathe, stuck in the situation, and even dying, and of course that made things worse. Then I learned how to take charge of what happens inside my head. It didn’t happen overnight, but bit by bit I started to get the hang of taking control over the images I made inside my head, and I felt better as a result. Anyway, let’s try this exercise.’ Joe really wanted to try this one. He desperately wanted to change the tone of his internal voice. Teresa brought him through things first. He did OK at first, but then started struggling with the exercise. The more he struggled, the less focused on changing the critical voice he became, the harder everything was. ‘I can’t get how this works. I don’t know if I’ve understood the exercise.’ ‘Can I make a suggestion?’ Teresa offered. ‘Of course.’ ‘Use a different tone of voice also when you say to yourself that you don’t understand it.’ It seemed simple. Joe applied the silly voices to these statements and found instantaneously that they, in turn, seemed ridiculous. He continued and found himself able to make changes to lots of negative things that he’d been saying to himself. As he practised more and more, the anxiety that he had carried around with him for a long time seemed to become less and less. Teresa and Joe had a nice chat after the exercise, and Joe made a mental note that he’d like to talk with her more later. She was very friendly and Joe felt that there might be some more to learn from her. Another break came again in the afternoon. Joe decided against going for a smoke and again stayed in his chair. The ideas made sense to him, that was for sure. But he still felt sceptical that such simple ideas could make such a massive difference. He flicked through the manual in front
of him. He had long heard that change rarely lasts and is often slow and painful. When he looked up from the text he saw, a few chairs away, the brown-haired woman looking across at him. He caught the gaze of her large green eyes and saw her smile straight at him. He held his breath and noticed his heart pounding against the inside of his chest. It felt like his mouth would not work. She continued to smile across at him as she got up out of her chair. He regained control over his facial expressions just long enough to smile back. She began to walk towards him. Before she could get there, however, the Gorilla’s friend cut off her journey. Joe’s heart sank. Was this ever going to happen? But there was still hope. That smile meant that she wanted to meet him. It must have. Then, right on cue, the critical voice inside his head started to speak to him: Come on. Are you kidding? Someone as beautiful as that woman being interested in you? Give me a break! Joe’s chin dropped to his chest and he slumped into his chair. But then he shook himself and remembered what they had just been doing. He repeated the scolding in a ridiculous voice. It was Mickey Mouse. He chuckled silently to himself. This time he looked over towards the brown-haired woman and beamed a cheeky smile. She noticed and returned the sentiment. Joe then turned back to the manual, a warm buzz in his belly. As he thumbed through the glossy pages, he thought about the idea of personal freedom. Did he really have the ability to become happier on his own? Could he really have control over his life? Part of him said that he couldn’t control what happened to him, but another part said that he could control the way he thought about his experiences and represented them, and that was exactly what Richard had been talking about. Joe wondered about the extent of control he had over the images and movies he made in his mind and over the way he spoke to himself. If he could just practise that more of the time, then maybe he would find ways to become happier with who he was and with his life.