Becareful What You Say, Big Brother Is Listening
Many, many years ago I was given a book by a trainer with the title ‘What to say when you talk to yourself’. Which as a title I thought was hilarious back then. I even chuckled at the author’s name, Shad Helmstetter. I can hear myself saying now, as clear as I did back then “But I don’t talk to myself, I am not mad”…
We all talk to ourselves; we all have an internal voice, an internal dialogue running all the time, a ceaseless chatter that goes on in our heads, an inner voice, a running commentary. It is not someone else’s voice inside your head telling you to behave; it is the collection of your own experiences and influences fed back to you auditorily in your own mind. The good news is, you can change it. Here is a simple test. Count from ten to twenty in your mind. Now do it again missing out the odd numbers, and again this time in a squeaky Mickey Mouse voice….
Its time to put a change to what you say to yourself, and if you decide not to, you will continue to feedback to yourself what other have told you, even if it is untrue or unhelpful.
Imagine a child on the first day of school, nervous, eager to please, maybe a bit scared too. The parents have told him to listen to his teachers and to learn things. A teacher very helpfully tells him, “You can’t do that,” and maybe adds in little humiliation as an example to the class to set out who is the boss, “You are too stupid to do that.” It does not take many repetitions of people saying you are stupid for your brain accepts this and feed it back to you, “I am too stupid”
Do you know any adults who say, often out loud to the most casual of acquaintances, never mind those who are actually close and have a loving protection towards them – “I am so clumsy” or “I am no good at that sort of thing” or “I just cannot remember names” or even “I am too fat to use the stairs”.
Medical professionals too are very skilled, (inadvertently), at doing this type of programming. I recently visited my dentist for a tooth extraction, after the x-rays and the prodding, he indeed agreed an extraction was the best way forward, and we set a date for him and his pullers. He outlined how quickly, and easy it would be, and then what could happen. He painted a most vivid picture for me of bleeding gums, ulcers, holes in the jaw up to my sinuses, “which are easy to fix with a stitch or too, they take six months to heal after that…” Note, he said a definite six months to heal, not about, or up to, but a definite six months to heal… After a few moments, I caught myself sinking in to his scene, and with a start blurted out, “have you got a f*cking crystal ball then?”
The good dentist, and he is a good dentist, was doing what he had been trained to do. It is called Informed Consent. He was telling me all the things that could happen, so he is covered for his own liability. He was making sure I agreed to surgery in the full knowledge of what could happen. The only problem was, he was pitching it like he was a fortune teller and this is what was definitely doing to happen. I wonder how many people believed him before me, after all, he is the professional. How many patients dutifully had bleeding gums, ulcers, and stitches that took six months to heal? He nearly got me too.
It is important to think in terms of what you can do, and do better, and never in terms of what you need to stop doing.
How do you deal with a negative voice, a critiquing voice in your mind? I am always astounded at the crap some people allow themselves to say to themselves. I will challenge you if I catch you doing it. “Would you allow a stranger to speak to you that way?”
Imagine if you will, the fair came to town and out on the edge past the helter skelter is the black tent, with the stars and the moon sewn on it. Rosie Lee, fortune teller. In you go, in to the dark dusty interior, with the exotic smells, and as she stares into her crystal ball, she says to you. “Dearey, I see important things in your future, things that only the stars reveal to me. I will share these secrets with you if you cross my palm with silver. I see doom and gloom, a black cloud is following you; it is written in the stars, you will show yourself to your friends as the fool that you are, your work colleagues will ridicule your incompetence, your wife hates you and the cat is going to leave home.”
Would you indeed cross her palm with silver for a fortune telling like that? No… I would not either. However, have you ever heard a person say the same things of themselves; “I am fool – nothing good ever happens to me - I am so stupid – I am no good at going that – No one can love me – nobody (even the cat!) wants to be around me, I have no friends”
How do you accept compliments? “Oh it was nothing really” (all the while thinking ‘I only flogged my guts out, breaking my back, getting up early and working weekends to get that report just perfect for you!’) or “You shouldn't’t have, I don’t deserve this, it’s too much.”
There is a much better way; it’s very simple and elegant way, whilst being of great benefit to both the giver and the receiver of the compliment… Just say “Thank you.”
There is a wonderfully simple way to deal with a negative voice in your head. Firstly take note of it, go inside your head and tell the negative voice to SOD OFF.
Your brain responds to your inner voice too. If it says you should feel bad about being fat, then you do, after all you don’t want to call yourself a liar!
Your brain only responds to positive commands, we are ‘hard wired’ that way. If you are given the task, “do not to think of a Blue Bus,” your mind goes on a search, called a Trans Derivational Search, and finds all the ’files’ in your mind that are labeled or associated with Blue Buses. This is all it can do, this is the way we work, and our brains cannot handle negative commands very well at all. Please try this now “Do not think of a Blue Bus” – and tell me is it single or double decked, the one you did not think of, and is it a dark blue or a light blue, is it a ‘bendy bus’ or a small city bus? Just for fun, type that exact phrase in to Goggle too…… You will get a web site all about the Big Blue Bus of Santa Monica California!! Even Goggle can not do a negative command.
In the same way, if you say to your brain, “don’t eat too much” guess what message reaches your brain? All it hears is “eat too much.” Say to a child “don’t spill that” and all it hears is “spill that.” Next time try saying to that child “put your drink somewhere safe” or even “carry that with safe hands” and see what happens. Use a positive command. For yourself, Instead of saying, “don’t eat too much” how about “eat a bit less now.”
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
Linguistics are very very important, especially in what you say to yourself. The old saying goes ‘ What you do speaks so loud I can not hear what you say’ the pre-cursor to that is ‘what I say to myself speaks so loud I can not hear what you say to me.’
Telling people what you are doing is important, but nowhere near as important as what you tell your self.
Consider these two sentences. “I am on a diet” and “ I am looking after myself better.” To be ‘on’ something, allows the possibility to come ‘off’ it again. However, if you say you ‘are’ something, it has the state of permanence to it. ‘I am’ is a very powerful phrase.
Consider also these two sentences. “I am going to start eating in a good way” and “I am a healthy eater” What’s the difference? In the first one, it is something you plan to do, but when? In your mind, tomorrow never comes; it’s like the sign outside the bar in Oodnadatta Australia, “Free Beer Tomorrow.”
The Spanish language is wonderful in that it has two verbs for, ‘To Be’. To say ‘I am happy’ or ‘I am a man’ would use two entirely different verbs. One to denote a temporary state of being, a temporary state of happy ‘I am-ness’ and the other to denote a permanent unchangeable state. (‘Estoy feliz’ and ‘soy un hombre’). Which ‘I am’ do you mean when you talk about yourself? Which one do you mean about you? Does that part of you that is listening, your own Big Brother know the difference?
“Oh, I did not really mean it” – So none of the words count then do they? Your Subconscious mind is a very faithful and very pedantic servant. It will keep operating on a command, a belief, long after you have consciously forgotten all about it. "I just cant say no to chocolate" - Your subconscious mind remembers this, especially the next time you re on a diet.
If you find yourself making negative statements, ask a positive question on the end to turn it around to a positive statement, and therefore a positive response to your behaviour. “I am fat” becomes “ I am fat, so how can I become slim…?” If your answer to that is “Go on a diet” – Go straight to Jail, do not pass GO do not collect $200…
“How can I become slim and enjoy doing it?
What If…it is these two words that cause so much misery and pain in the world. “What if that noise in the midst of the dark cold night is a…” Hey, you know how to fill in the blanks don’t you? Now consider this, What If…what if this all works, what if the things you read do start a chain reaction of emotional triggers…
What if in small, subtle, and significant ways your behaviour does change and What if profound happiness is yours now and for ever… what if…
Be careful what you say, you could be listening!
Is it a Failure?
Have you failed at something or simply found a way that does work? Is it failure or is it feedback? You may say, “I tried and I failed,” but that is not true; to try means to start, and what is a ‘failure’. It is feedback. What you have done is simply started a process and gained some feedback.
The word try is a poor quality word, to try allows for the possibility of failure? - Yoda in star wars said “Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try.” It is better to do, and gain feedback along the way, or do not. The word for that is commitment. “
“I will do it, I will do all that is required”…and most importantly, make sure you add in many ways to enjoy doing it as you go.
Richard Stone 0208 647 7441
Richard.Stone@ModernHypnotherapy.co.uk
