self-talk Tag

Posts tagged 'self-talk'

Children with the Auditory Communication Style

In my child assessments, I check children’s communication styles. I have been doing this for so long that my family members can sometimes identify the kids with auditory communication style right away, because they talk. A lot!

I usually pay attention to the way they use verbal stimulation to memorize things, if they whisper as they work and if they can repeat numbers and sounds. I also check the way they respond to verbal encouragement. Generally, they do much better when they can control their auditory space than when they are restricted.

Auditory kids are very influenced by the sounds around them and are unable to block them. They are very sensitive to arguments, shouting, yelling, crying, whining and scolding. Some of them say they feel pain when their teacher or parent shouts. Communicating with them in a loud voice may cause them to shut down completely. On the other hand, speaking to them in a soft, calm voice supports their learning greatly.

Children with the auditory communication style can learn anything, as long as it is associated with sound effects, a funny voice, an accent or even a lisp.

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How to Overcome Hard Times with Mindfulness

Hard times are part of life. Even the happiest and most successful people go through hard times. When they describe their successes, they typically share the hard times and how they got over them. When you are in the middle of a difficult period, it feels all consuming, like end of the world. It feels… hard!

Unfortunately, negative thinking can make the hard times feel even harder. Think of it as driving a car. Good times are like driving in a flow, when all the traffic lights are green and it feels like you are cruising. Hard times feel like there is a stop sign or red light at every intersection, and driving seems to take forever, because the cars in front of you cannot move forward, while you are running late for an important meeting.

When your thinking is negative, it feels like you are driving… backwards.

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Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover

Over the past 5 years, I have been working as the director of a not-for-profit organization dealing with diversity education. I have had the honor of working with over 20,000 kids in primary and high school and taking them through a process that helps them realize that underneath the look, the clothes, the skin color, the gender, the religion, the language and accent, there are amazingly wonderful people.

I ask all my student to fill out a feedback form. The form asks them what message they took from the workshop/presentation/activity. I have received over 20,000 feedback forms with amazing things kids write. More often than not, they write “don’t judge a book by its cover”.

In my workshops, the opportunity often presents itself to discuss our own self-judgment. I bring up the fact that it can be damaging to consider ourselves inferior based on what we look like on the outside. To illustrate my point, I share the water story. It is a great way to understand what is important in life and why what we have inside is much more important than the outside.

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Happiness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

My mission today is to convince you, my readers, that even though we dedicate most of our energy to changing the circumstances of our lives, we would better off using most of it to change the beliefs that are causing them.

Every thought in our minds is either weak or strong, healthy or unhealthy for us. It is amazing how much energy we dedicate to strengthening each of our beliefs, whether they are healthy for us or not. This is done at a completely subconscious level. Whatever we think is an interpretation of the things around us, which we distort and delete to support our beliefs. If we think we are awesome and wonderful, we will interpret, delete and distort what is happening to us to strengthen this belief. Next time, our belief that we are awesome and wonderful will be even more solid. It is unfortunate that in the same way, if we think we are worthless and helpless, we will interpret, delete and distort what is happening to us to strengthen this belief. The thought that we are helpless and worthless gets more and more solid.

As you can see from my example, strengthening our beliefs works to our advantage only if we have healthy beliefs. It causes us discomfort and pain if we hold unhealthy ones.

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Inspiration for Success: A Frog and a Parrot

When those around us do not support us, we can try to get rid of them. But sometimes they are the people we love, those who are close to us. If we got rid of all the people we feel do not give us love, cannot give us care, consideration, encouragement, motivation, hope, inspiration, kindness, empathy, compassion, or forgiveness, we would probably be a bit lonely. If they stay around us, we need to develop selective hearing. The best way for me to explain what I mean is through the story of the deaf frog.

Once upon a time, a group of small frogs decided to have a climbing competition. Their goal was to reach the top of a very tall tower. The frog community was very happy and excited. Many frogs gathered around the tower to watch the race and cheer the competitors on. The tower was so tall that no one in the crowed really believed the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. Throughout the competition, the crowd said things like: “The tower is too high”, “Oh, way too difficult”, “They will never make it to the top”, “There is no chance they will succeed”, and the tiny frogs began collapsing, one by one. At those who kept climbing the crowd continued to yell, “It is too difficult! No one will make it!”, “Just give up!”, “What needs to happen, for you to understand that you cannot make it?” and more and more tiny frogs got tired and gave up. But one continued to climb higher and higher. This one tiny frog refused to give up and kept on climbing. With a final big effort, he reached the top. When the winning frog came down, all of the other tiny frogs wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it. They asked him how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal. It turned out that the winning frog was deaf!

This post is part 2 of 2 in the series Inspiration For Success

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The Art of Letting Go: Negative Self-Talk

People think in words. Every thought, feeling and idea we have, we give it a name. Naming (or labeling) is a very easy way to experience the world. Think of the color pallet. If you work with computers, you know that when choosing a color, it is not good enough to say “red”, because there are many shades of red, but in our life as humans and not computers, whenever we talk about scarlet, burgundy, ruby, magenta, maroon, coral or rose, we simply say “red”. Life is so much easier that way.

Words can be empowering or limiting. They can be our protectors, our guardian angels, or our demons, our tormentors. People who value words very much and find their power may wonder, “How can words be limiting?”

I think they are limiting for two reasons: they cannot describe the whole range of human experiences they make it difficult to recognize change.

When making a choice about letting go of some of our habits, letting go of the power we give words is highly important and can provide a lot of comfort and peace of mind. Think about it this way: using words to describe an experience is like trying to fit a giant into a space large enough for a grain of sand.

One of the ways in which words can limit us is negative self-talk.

This post is part 8 of 10 in the series The Art of Letting Go

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How to Keep an Open Mind

As soon as you start any personal development, you bump into the term “beliefs”. These are thought patterns that are set in our mind, mental shortcuts we use to make decisions quickly. The catch is that by not questioning our beliefs, we no longer have an open mind about everything and sometimes, keeping an open mind is just what we need.

Imagine you are learning to drive. Every little task requires mental effort and after driving around for half an hour, you get out of the car feeling exhausted. Over time and with practice, however, you get the hang of it and then you just go where you want to go.
Now, imagine you have been driving on the right side of the road for 10 or 15 years and you move to a country where driving is done on the left side of the road. Continuing to believe in your training and to assume that everyone drives on the right side of the road can be fatal.

Life is the same. As babies, we have to figure everything out, often with enormous effort, until we know it and start doing it as a matter of course. When we grown up, the circumstances change – we go to school, we grow in size, we move to another environment, we become adults, we have children, we grow old. Holding on to beliefs from our first years of life may not be fatal, but it can seriously complicate our life.

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More About Self Talk

Two weeks ago, in part 6 of “Save Your Marriage”, I explained the influence of negative self-talk on relationships. Last week, in part 7, I gave an example of Sally talking to herself about her frustrations regarding her weight. In every relationship, when people talk to themselves about their problem with others in a negative way, things can easily be blown out of proportion.

Self-talk is a natural way of dealing with what happens to us in life and it is typical for men and women alike. It is when the self-talk turns all dark that things start going wrong.

This week, I want to let you in on Allan’s self-talk when planning to hang out with the guys.

Hanging out with the guys

Sally packed her bag and rushed to pick up the kids from music school. The phone rang and Dave was on the other end of the line.

“Hi Sally, I can’t get hold of Allan. Is he home already?”

“No”, said Sally, “He has a meeting till 6”.

“Can you please let him know we are planning to hang out with the guys on Friday?”

“Sure”, said Sally and hurried to her car. The thought of not having to cook on Friday was pleasing. She could take the kids out for a pizza, she thought happily.

This post is part 8 of 32 in the series Save Your Marriage

Marriage and Self Talk

In “Save your marriage (part 6) – How to get things wrong”, I explained how negative self-talk becomes an obstacle in a marriage.

Although the story about the Jack was about a man, self-talk is typical for men and women alike. In this post, I give you two examples of such imaginary scenarios that can lead to relationship breakdown. I hope that you will be able to recognize yourself in them, learn to “catch yourself in the act”, and switch to positive self-talk and open communication with your partner.

Going Out for a Romantic Dinner

Allan called home from work and invited Sally to a restaurant for dinner. They had discussed this some time before and had both agreed they needed some time out, to refresh and renew the romance between them. Allan invited the babysitter, booked the restaurant and there was nothing Sally had to do but dress for the occasion.

This post is part 7 of 32 in the series Save Your Marriage

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How to Get Things Wrong in a Marriage

One typical topic appearing in each couples’ counseling or coaching session is the lack of communication between them. It is not that they do not talk. They do, but they talk to themselves in a never-ending self-talk that happens to be negative.

One theory about the reason for marriage breakdown is that one or two of the married couple seem to be trapped in a conversation, in which they talk and they answer on behalf of their partner. In this conversation, their partner is critical and demanding, which makes them treat them with anger later on. When I ask them about their communication, they are very surprised to discover they never actually had these conversations with the other person.

Self-talk is a natural emotional outlet for people. Self-talk is the internal conversation a person has with himself or herself. It is the way to verbalize a person’s thoughts. Self-talk is a good way to handle stressful situations. When they are too overwhelming, people talk to themselves to find ways to handle the situation. They tell themselves the problem is not that big, they tell themselves they have solutions, they tell themselves things that will encourage them to “survive” the situation. Self-talk can be very helpful.

The problem in every relationship appears when the thoughts are negative and later on, the attitude towards the partner can be hostile and negative. People fearing a reaction may tell themselves things on behalf of their partner and react to them as if they have already happened.

Negative self-talk gives freedom to many feelings that do not support marriage like fear, jealousy, anger, frustration and even hate. Such feelings are fertile soil for divorce. It is impossible to find a divorcing couple having feelings of joy, happiness, love or satisfaction. In many cases after divorce, it takes years for people to awaken such feelings.

This post is part 6 of 32 in the series Save Your Marriage

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