We all have a voice inside our head that chatters to us constantly
about the day-to-day situations we find ourselves in. It’s one of the
three primary ways that we interpret external data by constructing
conversations internally with ourselves.
Although we all have a voice (or quite often several different ones)
we have our own particular versions some of which can be more helpful
than others.
Does your voice support and encourage you when things aren’t going
quite as planned or does it become aggressive, whiny, rude, pessimistic
and thinks nothing of tearing a strip off you?
Is it often far more hostile and abusive to you than you ever would be to other people, even people you don’t actually like?
I once heard this voice likened to that of a bad tempered, miserable,
old duck! Yes that’s what I said, a duck. Close your eyes and you can
hear the voice in your head now quacking away at you.
The Duck
The Duck
You may not have noticed it’s duck-like aquatic qualities before, but now you can. Do you know why
you can? It’s because inside your own head you can hear whatever you
want to hear. You can of course hear your own voice in whatever tonality
that you care for. Or if you’d prefer you could be advising yourself in
the dulcet tones of Jimmy Stewart or James Earl Jones or even Oprah
Winfrey. The options are as limitless as your own imagination.
I regularly have clients tell me there isn’t any voice inside their
head. I usually respond with “So you’re dead then?” The fact is we’ve
had years to perfect our quacking and it happens so quickly and so
unconsciously that many people have stopped noticing it.
We mess up at something and the voice is sat there in the background
ready to chime in “Quack, you are a failure, you never do anything
right, you are an embarrassment” Even when something goes well it can
still undermine with “Quack, you just got lucky, wait until they find
out you’re an imposter”
It’s so insidious and so good at its job that its barely noticeable
but the over all negative effect on your emotional wellbeing can be
enormous. It has a drip-drip effect that serves over the course of time
to make you believe that what it’s saying is true, which in turn makes
it so.
So it starts to set your own reality for you. Yes! That’s what I said; a duck sets your reality for you. How scary is that?
Stop the Quacking
Maybe it’s about time to shut the duck up, or at least make him or
her a little bit more friendly and supportive. You do need a voice
inside your head, so let’s pick one that you like. You can drop the duck
or whatever you have now and choose a voice that makes you feel good or
maybe even brilliant!
You still want to be able to hear the message, so don’t make it so
chilled and laid back that you never take any notice of it. You can even
choose 2, 3 or as many voices as you want for different occasions. Your
voice should always support you, always be helpful, never aggressive
and it never puts you down.
Wouldn’t that be great, a voice that treats you with the respect that
you deserve, the kind of respect that you like to offer to other
people? If you perfect this, and it does need a bit of practice to start
to become more aware of your thoughts, then I guarantee you will feel a
great deal better about yourself.
Not only that, but you’ll start to realize you’re in control of what
goes on inside your head and nobody else. How brilliant is that?
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