Steve Andreas - Help with Negative Self–talk Volume I

The whole exercise takes about fifteen minutes when I teach it; it requires less than five minutes when they do it on their own. I suggest that they do this for about a month or so, and notice the results.

Once again, the idea is to connect that appreciative and smiling state to all the usual things and people in the person's life. It does not paste a fake smile on their face; it increases the chances that the person will generally appreciate and smile and be happy everywhere.

Paul Ekman's (15) very detailed research has shown that even if you ask someone to smile artificially — or simply hold a pencil between their teeth, which requires the same kind of muscle movements around the mouth — that elicits happiness because that muscle position is unconsciously associated with smiling, and smiling is associated with pleasure and happiness.

Vikas' instruction is more subtle than asking someone to deliberately smile. It first asks you to see something externally, and then to say some words of appreciation internally, creating a natural context for a spontaneously smile.

In this chapter I have presented a number of ways that you can talk to yourself without contradicting what you might already be saying to yourself. They are elegant and graceful ways to change your experience.

Next we will explore how to replace an existing voice with a new voice that is more useful. We have to be cautious when doing this because there is always a potential for conflict.

In previous chapters, you have learned how to change nonverbal aspects of the direction, location, volume, tonality and tempo of a troublesome voice in order to reduce its impact on you. You have also learned how to add music or a song to a voice in order to change your response, and in the previous chapter you have experimented with several ways to talk to yourself that are useful and effective.

Now we can begin to use some of these methods in combination to make a useful change. For instance, once you have reduced the volume of a troublesome voice, you can then replace it with a more resourceful and supportive voice without creating significant conflict. The following example is from Ron Soderquist, an NLP–trained hypnotherapist in the Los Angeles area:

A middle–aged woman called to say she wanted her husband to come in for hypnosis to change his attitude. "I am sick and tired of his negative attitude." I was amused, and asked her to have him call me. She was right. When Bill came in for an appointment he said, "I grew up in a very negative, unhappy family. There were no 'Atta boys' in our family; there was only criticism. They were unhappy with their marriage, and it was a rare day when Dad or Mom laughed or showed happiness." He went on, "My wife complains that I come home from work grumbling and complaining. She says I'm just like my parents, and she's probably right, but I can't seem to help myself. I don't see how you can help me change. I don't like being so angry with the kids, and I don't like having an unhappy wife. If you can help me change, great."

After some questioning, Bill identified his parents' negative voices in his head. I asked if he could imagine a room in his head with the voices coming from a radio or some device over by the wall. He was able to imagine a radio. Then I wondered whether he would like to go over and turn down the volume, or perhaps put a pillow in front of the radio to muffle the sound. As he did this, he gave a big sigh, and visibly relaxed. "What's going on?" I asked.

"My head is quiet for the first time ever," Bill said. I told him, "Since it's your head, you can put in anything you want. For example, because you are thankful for your family and your health, you can fill that room with your own thankful voice, if you wish." To his surprise Bill discovered he could do that quite easily. We rehearsed him in reviewing his thankful thoughts while driving home from work, so that he could greet his wife and children with joyful energy. After some rehearsal, he felt confident he had installed new voices in his head. Bill's wife called later to report she was enjoying a new, positive Bill; he had changed his attitude.

Ron Soderquist, http://www.westlakehypnosis.com/

I think it is pretty amazing that you can change a pervasive, life–long negative attitude in a few minutes, just by changing an internal voice — without extensive therapeutic time–traveling back to the traumatic origin of his voices.

However, I want you to think about what would have happened if Bill hadn't reduced the volume of his negative self–talk before adding in a resourceful and supportive voice. If there were two loud voices in his head, they would conflict with each other, setting up an internal battle. Most people have enough conflict in their lives already; they don't need more of it.

Many people seek help because they already have chronic unpleasant internal conflicts like this. A common troubling conflict is between some version of "Be sure to do what others approve of," and "No, be independent and think for yourself." A conflict like this often puts you "between a rock and a hard place," because whatever you decide to do, afterwards the other side will torment you. "You just went along with the crowd again, you wimp," or "You sure 'blew it' with the guests by telling that racy joke."

Another common conflict is between indulging in a present pleasure on one hand, and its future consequences on the other. One voice may say something like, "Go ahead and treat yourself by eating that dessert; you deserve it," while another warns, "If you eat that, you'll get fat, and no one will want to be around you." Whether or not you eat the dessert, the other side will badger you with the consequences later. "You denied yourself a simple pleasure that would have made you feel really good," or "Now you've done it; you'll have to watch what you eat all next week in order to lose the calories in that cheesecake."

However, a number of well–respected therapies — and most books about negative self–talk — strongly advocate talking back to a critical internal voice as a way to lessen its influence. For instance, David Burns is a student of Aaron Beck, who is sometimes described as the "father" of Cognitive Therapy or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (11). CBT has even deeper roots in the work of Albert Ellis, whose work was originally called Rational Therapy, later Rational Emotive Therapy, and finally Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (16) as it evolved over the years. As early as the 1950s — half a century ago! — Ellis advocated actively verbally challenging a client's self–defeating beliefs and behaviors by demonstrating the irrationality, self–defeatism and rigidity of their negative self–talk. Burns is one of many Cognitive Therapists who advocate countering a troublesome voice:

"Talk back to that internal critic! …

a) Train yourself to recognize and write down the self–critical thoughts as they go through your mind;

b) Learn why these thoughts are distorted; and

c) Practice talking back to them so as to develop a more realistic self–evaluation system." (12, p. 62)

In this process the client is taught how to notice the content of automatic thoughts, identify the kind of distortion, and then generate a rational response. For instance, if the automatic thought is "I never do anything right," the distortion is overgeneralization, and a rational response is, "Nonsense, I do a lot of things right."

"This shows what a jerk I am" is an example of the distortion called labeling, and a rational response is, "Come on, now, I'm not 'a jerk.' " These rational responses disagree with and oppose the troublesome voice. Other people don't like to be disagreed with, and internal voices are no different; they are likely to become defensive and redouble their efforts to convince you of what they are saying.