Steve Andreas - Help with Negative Self–talk Volume I

Now focus your attention on your bodily feelings — the temperature, your posture, your breathing, etc… .

As you do this, you may find that parts of your body have been in one position too long, and have become a bit stiff, motivating you to shift your position a bit to relieve that. Even when you are attending to your bodily feelings, you have probably been ignoring some of the messages coming in from different parts of your body, like the small of your back, the soles of your feet, the backs of your knees, etc. However, as soon as I mention those, you have to notice them in order to understand my words. You have only so much attention; as you attend to those bodily sensations, that withdraws attention from other feelings, and from the sounds around you, and all the other things that you could be aware of.

If you are watching an engrossing movie, or reading a fascinating book, you may find yourself almost completely oblivious to your bodily sensations and events around you. This principle, called figure–ground, or foreground–background, has even been used by hypnotists for over a hundred years to help people deal with intense chronic pain, by teaching them how to attend to other aspects of their ongoing experience.

Most of our problems and difficulties don't exist in the "here and now"; they are usually either memories of the past, or imagining what might be happening right now in some other place, or thinking about the future. In many ancient meditative traditions, attention is focused on some aspect of our present experiencing — your breathing, or a candle flame, or a religious object — in order to withdraw attention from whatever is troubling us.

Our memories of past troubles only exist insofar as we resurrect them and bring them into the present moment. It is too bad that they happened even once; continuing to recall them means that they keep happening over and over again. Wasn't once already too much? Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped, tied to a tree, and sexually abused for nine months in 2002 when she was 14. After being rescued, she said that the key to her readjustment was letting go of the hate she felt toward her abductors. She said, "Nine months of my life was taken from me, and I wasn't going to give them any more of my time." That is a very useful attitude for anyone who has had bad experiences, freeing them from having to re–experience them over and over again.

This morning I was troubled by a potential legal problem that could result in a loss of a considerable amount of money. Although that is a problem in the real world, and I needed to do something about it, it does not actually exist in the present moment. I have not yet lost any money; that is only a possibility that might occur in the future. As Mark Twain observed, "I am an old man and have suffered through a great many troubles, most of which never actually happened." Once I had done what I could to prevent the possible future problem, it made sense to return to the present moment, where everything is fine and I can relax.

Another way to refocus attention on the present moment is to engage in a sport, or some other activity that requires us to be in the present. If you are hitting or catching a fast–moving ball, you have to perceive it in the moment in order to do that. If you are cutting down a tree with a chain saw, you really need to attend to the saw, and which way the tree is likely to fall. Once I knew a woman whose guru told her to get a job chopping vegetables in a Chinese restaurant, a job that required her to chop vegetables very fast, with a very large and very sharp knife. That motivated her internal critical voices to be silent so that she could attend to the present moment and avoid losing some fingers.

Attending to anything in the present tends to withdraw our attention from an internal voice that talks about the past or future, or about present events in some other place. Learning how to redirect our attention in this way can free us from being helpless prisoners of our thoughts. This undoubtedly accounts for the popularity — and immense variety — of programs that advocate learning how to "be in the here and now," some of which are thousands of years old.

The major difficulty with most meditative methods is that they typically take years of practice, and many people find them only partly effective. Another difficulty is that the idea of "being in the present moment" has sometimes become a universal prescription, applied to all self–talk, whether negative or positive. A voice that remembers a horrible past can also remind you of treasured memories and satisfying successes; a voice that predicts future failure and misery can also encourage you by forecasting pleasure and happiness. If you were always in the present moment, you would lose an extremely valuable source of support and optimism that can carry you through rough times.

Internal voices can be very destructive and disorganizing, or they can be very useful and supportive — and everything in between. This book will help you become aware of how you talk to yourself, and how you can change that in order to feel differently. We will be exploring a number of ways that you can transform your negative self–talk into something positive and useful.

For simplicity and ease of understanding, each chapter will be devoted to one or two methods for doing this, beginning with some very simple nonverbal ways that can be surprisingly rapid and effective. We will be exploring a number of ways to alter the voices themselves, both the words that they say and how they say those words, so that they become resourceful allies, instead of difficult obstacles.

Most people pay attention to the words that an internal voice says, and it can often be very useful to change those words. However, the nonverbal sounds that are used to convey those words are often much more important than the words themselves, and they are often much easier and simpler to change. So we will start there, with how a voice speaks, and only later show how to change what a voice says.

Almost everyone can easily think of a troublesome voice, but very few people notice where it is located in their personal space. The location of a voice turns out to be a major aspect of its impact on you, and it is one of the easiest things to change.

Listen now to a troublesome voice that makes you feel bad in some way, and notice its location in your personal space. Most voices are located either somewhere inside your head or in the space immediately surrounding your head… .

Is it located somewhere inside your head or outside? …

Is it in front or behind, left side or right side, above or below? …

And which way it is pointed — toward you, away from you, or somewhere in between? …

Take some time to identify all these different aspects of your voice. It may help to first gesture with your finger to where the voice is, and the direction it is pointed, and then find a way to describe what you discovered.

When a troublesome voices is located outside your head it is almost always pointed toward your head. Now that you know the location and direction of your troublesome voice, you can experiment with some changes, and notice how they change how you respond to it.

First change the way the voice is pointing, and find out how this changes your experience of the voice. For most people this is quite easy; it is just not something they ever thought of doing. If you have any difficulty, simply allow that voice to change direction. First try allowing that voice to reverse direction (usually this will make it point directly away from the head) and find out what that is like… .

Then find out what it is like to listen to the voice when it is pointing half way between toward you and away from you… .

Notice if there is any difference between when it is pointing straight up and straight down, …

Or between pointing left and right,…

Or forward and back… .

When the voice is pointing away from you, usually the volume is less, and your response to it is less intense. Most people feel better when a troubling voice is pointing away from them, and this makes it easier and more comfortable to listen to what the voice is saying. When it is pointing half way between those extremes, the intensity of your response is usually somewhere in between when it is pointing toward you and away from you.

Notice that I used the word "usually" and "most people" in the previous paragraph. I will often offer generalizations about how people respond to their internal voices, based on my experience of making these kinds of changes with a large number of people. However, you may sometimes have a different response than what I outline here.

Whenever you response is different than what I describe, that is very important information. Your response is yours, no matter what I may say is "usually true" for "most people." It isn't "wrong"; it's just that your brain works somewhat differently. I will be offering you many changes to try out, so that you can find out what works for you — even if it is different from what most other people experience. Whenever you discover a change that is useful, that adds to your choices about how a voice sounds, and how you feel in response to it.

Simply changing the direction of the voice is only one small way that you can learn how to have some control over the intensity of your response to it, and this is a choice that you can now make at any time. Now return your voice to its original direction, so that you can discover other ways that you can change your response to a voice… .

First, listen to the voice again, and notice your response… .

Is it any different than when you began reading this chapter? …

Now experiment with changing the location of the voice in a variety of ways, to experience the impact of hearing the same voice coming from different locations in space, and how your feelings change when you do this. Again, most people find this quite easy; it is just not something they ever thought of doing. If you have any difficulty, simply allow that voice to change its location.

Now hear that voice coming from your left elbow, and notice what that is like… .

Most people find that when their critical voice comes from their elbow, it is less impactful. The voice may also change in tonality when you do this, perhaps becoming quieter and higher pitched, and your feelings probably also became less intense.

Next I want to offer you a number of other choices about where you hear that voice coming from. Some of them will probably make the voice less unpleasant, while others may make it more unpleasant. Your job is to simply to try out each suggestion that I offer you, and pause to discover how it changes your experience.

Now hear this voice coming from your stomach or belly, and notice what that is like… .

Now hear that same voice coming from your right kneecap, and notice what that is like… .

Next, hear that voice speaking from your heart, and notice what that is like… .

Now hear that voice coming from your left big toe, and notice what that is like… .

Next, experiment with hearing that voice coming from some other part of your body, and find out what that is like… .

Finally, return that voice to its original location and direction… .