What’s going on in ‘hear’ (Part 1)
It’s that time of year when a lot of us decide to make some resolutions and reflect on our lifestyles of late and whether we need to change them at all… “I need to start training and get rid of this festive flab” will probably resonate with many…
This is one of a series of health related articles that will talk a little about what we talk about in our heads… The way we structure our thoughts… And the ways in which we can be our own worst enemy at times without actually realising it…
Among many other things contributing to people not wanting to go to the gym at times Internal Dialogue (iD) can play a major role in stopping you in your tracks. Basically Internal Dialogue (iD) is the way we talk to ourselves within our minds. And as you think about what I’ve just wrote you may even realise that as you read this you’re actually talking to yourself… Yeah go on, go back and read the last sentence again and ask yourself some questions about that voice that you can hear here, got it?
Have a quick think about this… When you are considering for example your next trip to the gym… What are you saying to yourself? Where is the voice located? What is the Tonality? etc… I mean is it a “yeah bring it on baby let’s go pump some iron”? Or is it a more solemn vow like “I really must try to start doing some exercise” with a nice big sigh…??
Even before we get to the gym we may be in the process of telling ourselves a 1001 reasons (why we shouldn’t go).
‘Why’ is a subject in it’s own right but we’ll not go there yet. Why? I hear you say! Well BECAUSE it’s too hard at the moment for me to think about ‘why’ and write about what may or may not be going on in our heads at the same time… Maybe the next post will talk about language on a deeper level but in a nutshell the question ‘why’ is great for smoking out beliefs (some of which may be limiting an individual). Why? Because we tend to defend what we say with a ‘because’ statement when asked the question why…
E.g Why did you get out of bed this morning?
OK, Back to the topic and let’s… <— Rewind <— … To where we’ve just decided it’s time to go to the Gym and (iD). “I don’t have the energy”, “I didn’t fuel enough”, “I’m too busy” yada yada yada. I’m sure everyone can relate to the above statements at times in this context. I’m also thinking plenty of other contexts/situations where you may find yourself having a ‘good old conversation’ with yourself, that’s not proving to be effective. In this sense I mean you end up probably telling yourself a fantastic reason ‘why’ you shouldn’t go to the Gym and the reason is Soooooooo good you take
comfort in your own well reasoned justification.
Now… is that ‘voice’ any different to the one that reads bedtime stories to you? Go check… When you get [ANGRY] does your internal voice say in a real seeeeeexy
tone, “yo georgeous iiiii’m soooooo annnnngryyyyyy”? with me or far beyond me so far?
The ability to reason with ourselves is comforting and the fact that you can justify certain things means that you can keep a level head and make healthy decisions based on your current experience. However, beware of the emergence of the mostly useful PATTERN that doesn’t serve you. You see, as human beings we are very quick learners and our unconscious mind doesn’t take long to generalise information so that rather than having to think about certain things our (Autopilot) kicks in and away we go.
Brilliant if you want to get dressed on a morning. I mean can you imagine having to go through the process of getting dressed every morning and having to think about how you do it?
Take a moment to think about how you normally get dressed. Can you detect a pattern? Which leg goes in your trousers first? Dress your top half or bottom half first? Hair done before clothing or after?
Why is it like that? Well it’s like that because we are extremely good at developing patterns that serve us and assist us in our day to day living. However, we may have developed some patterns that don’t do us the justice we now deserve and NLP is a fantastic tool for changing those unwanted patterns of behaviour.
Anyway… If we get into a pattern of making excuses to ourselves on ‘why’ we shouldn’t go to the gym today, guess what? yep, we’ll struggle to get there because inside all the excuses and reasons for not going and giving it your ‘all’ are other elements of language that we use to talk ourselves ‘out’ of doing certain things.
There is a well known and easy (NLP) way to change the way we talk to ourselves… And hear is the thing… It’s so simple even I can do it… Change the voice… That’s right you heard correctly change the voice, make it absurd… Have fun manipulating your (iD) by using your imagination… Become chinese if you are a well spoken Yorkshireman like me, one of the dingles or even bungle from
Rainbow… It doesn’t really matter as long as you don’t take what is being said serious… Yes that’s right, YOU HAVE TO HAVE FUN. Listen to the way you talk to yourself and if you don’t like it CHANGE IT.
OK so we’ve had a little play and there’s much more to explore that’s beyond the scope of this post, but there’s a little insight into the (NLP) world of (submodalities) and how we can make adjustments easily and effortlessly… Next we’ll talk about other ways of dealing with the ‘chattering monkey’ inside but easy tiger let’s take it one small step at a time.
Oh… One last question if you wouldn’t mind asking yourself?
How many ways can you start to imagine now that the above process can be useful in a multitude of different situations?
“Never mind the Gym, I can’t go today I’ve got to write a post about how we talk ourselves out of going to the gym”…
Stay Well and look forward to hearing your comments..
In the next post i’ll be talking about the ‘chattering monkey’ some more and sharing a couple of easy ways to quieten down… Shusshhhhhhh…
Wayne
December 29th, 2009
Posted in NLP - Hypnosis | No Comments »
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