The basic strategy of first acceptance and viewing and later considering analysis and possible steps to prevent, alleviate or undo difficulties and challenges underlies these ideas:
-
Watch my worrying, observe it
-
Notice, better yet, record when I begin worrying and what the worry is
-
Wait
-
In an hour or a day, I will be past the worry stage and can then:
-
Suffer for points, that is, realize while stewing, cussing, objecting and feeling full of woe, that suffering is part of life and may gain us points of noble character or better conditions in heaven
-
After a short time for sensing and tasting, apply analytic brain to the worry to see what might be done about it
One of the most intriguing things I have read lately is the comment from Julia Sweeney that she learned from Kelly McGonigal's book "The Willpower Instinct", that self talk is received internally much as talk from others is. So if I tell myself that I am too flighty, the comment gets handled by my internal processing much as the same comment would be if you told me that.
One of the reasons that gets my attention is that I had just noticed a day or two earlier that when I tell myself something, say, "That shoelace is too loose. Re-tie it", the command feels like one that comes from the boss or my parent or some authority I obey.
I can sense the shoelace looseness and the need to retie it but giving myself a clear-cut directive feels more focused and more powerful. Of course, it is possible that I wait until I am actually ready to act before delivering the direction to do so. One implication from this idea is that negative comments from me to me carry weight. If I am trying to train myself to be both less flighty and more accepting of my personality, making impolite negative comments will not help the project.
It does seem that self-talk matters and that there is an actual difference between what I plan to say to myself and actually saying it, whether silently in my head or aloud using my voice. This idea seems to relate to the notable excitement an experienced teacher like Cheri Huber found when her students and clients employed tape recorders (or the free iPad apps that record) to give themselves advice and encouragement. They said to her that listening to what they had recorded was extremely helpful. That procedure is a little different from the usual meaning of self talk but Huber has found it to be very powerful.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
