When I pranged my car, the inner chatter started taking over, ‘stupid idiot, how could you do that? you shouldn’t be driving’…….on it goes.
The ‘old me’ would have lamented over these thoughts for days, if not weeks. Yes, I cried when I called my husband, feeling stupid and his response, naturally, “is everyone alright?” I meekly replied, “yes, no one is hurt, it’s a slight dint to their car and a minor scratch to ours”.
“It’s only metal and rubber”.
In the big scheme of things. It is just metal and rubber. What is the point in my inner narrative berating me for weeks over this. What is the point of my reflecting on this over and over again when there is nothing I can do to change what has happened?
The old me’s mental chatter would consequence in being pissed off with myself, letting it ruin my day and week, and allow the negative angst to intrude on everything I needed to do, including writing this blog.
However, once I sat down and took the situation for what it was, slight damage to metal and rubber, I realised the truth. The truth that it is nothing, a slight inconvenience, another thing to sort out but in no way should I allow it to impact on other areas of my life, or more pointedly, my confidence.
Why am I wittering on about this? To provide an example in everyday life that causes us to draw upon past experiences, past confidence (or lack of…) reminding us of other things we’ve done wrong, mistakes we’ve made, dealing with situations not as well as we could.
And this, this is the habit SMC can help you to break. The patterns of our brains taking over and shaping our future from past experiences that we can help to change.
The past hinders our actions, our goals, what we say, and how we do things, but it doesn’t have to.
If there is something to be learned from a bad experience, or confrontation then acknowledge it, move on and only use it when it’s essential and pertinent.
You can turn poison into medicine and change how your inner critic behaves.
5 ways to recognise and battle your inner narrative
- Realise what your inner voice is saying to you most often. Look at the pattern of when your inner critic appears, what ignites it and why? This is just habit, it can be unlearned.
- When you catch yourself conversing in that way, interrupt it and take a physical action, pull your hair, do a jump or tap your arm.
- Rephrase your inner narrative. Once you acknowledge the pattern of negative chatter you repeatedly tell yourself, change it for something self-endorsing, liberating and helpful, this is transformative and unblocks action.
- Create your own rules and allow yourself to battle with the inner narrative, don’t just push it away without confrontation. A common distraction is thinking of what you ‘should be’ doing next, but instead focus on the task in hand and you allow for a clearer mind.
- Trying to evoke more good thoughts in what you read, see, and hear. Knuckle down that one thing that will trigger you to stop the inner critic.
There is a constant battle between our mind and brain, the negative chatter and repetitive self-limiting thoughts make us stressed and use up so much of our energy. It shapes everything in our lives and what we believe about ourselves, how we act and impacts everything we do.
Once you can recognise these for what they truly are, it empowers you to come up with ways to reduce those thoughts and acknowledge yourself for the good shit. You can thrive in so much more and free up your headspace.
I for one, would still be swimming in the negative chat instead of recognising the situation for what it was and moving on.
Try the steps above for 7 days, see what you can realise about your own inner narrative and how it impacts you, in your everyday.
Want to know more? This article, What the voice inside your head says about you on the BBC site.
