Binge Thinking

Stupid Self-Talk - Ros Palmer

Honestly, if I spoke to a friend the way I speak to myself daily I would be pretty lonely! Especially late at night or in those waking moments (I don’t sleep well so I can give you a run down on how the birds sound from about 3am onwards some days); I can have some pretty awful ‘self-talk’.

Being a relatively developed being I do catch myself in the act of verbal self-abuse and have developed some visual techniques to park the ones that just loop back again and again. My most recent visualisation technique is queuing up at the deli counter at Sainsbury’s and taking a ticket and then going off to do other shopping until the ticket number comes up on the illuminated sign to tell me its my turn. I tell my brain that the number will not be illuminated until the next day and then when I’m at work amazingly it works!

And I should know that good self-talk is really important to not just happiness and a good night’s sleep but to success in home and work life. That non-stop voice that buzzes inside your head usually is about either yourself (as in “I am such a muppet…when will I ever learn!”), about others (“He does my head in!”) or about a situation (“This is going to be really embarrassing!”). Of course the talk can be positive but just as with the parenting adage that we tell our kids lots of negative stuff and forget to praise them enough we do the same to ourselves. I don’t often lay awake at night going, “Wow, I really really rocked today when I did such and such.” Which is a shame isn’t it?

At the weekend I watched a 17 year old video of a friend’s wedding. I love weddings. Call me old fashioned but they are a time when people get together, have a great time and basically say really great things about each other. The father of the bride usually tells his daughter how beautiful she looks and how proud he is of her – probably something he has failed to mention before or for a very long time.

So...sort out the conversations in your head or else it is probably not a nice place to be. More musings soon...