That little voice inside of your head...

[dualman7]

Mine really knows how to make small things seem horrifcly big and bad. For some reason it's like 60% negative throughout the day. I am not really sure when I should listen, or when I should try to ignore it. I find myself battling with it throughout the day. How do you deal with yours.

[tres]

hmm... I get this everynow and then, especially during high stress days. Humans in general tend to focus on negative things over positive things.. What do you hear more often, the Doctor who screwed up, or the doctor who has never messed up and pulled of this miricle surgury. What do you hear more, the parents that have done an awsome job raising their kids, or the deadbeats? You never walk down the street gossiping that a celeb's marriage is going so well.. more often.. "did you hear Jlo and Ben aflek divorced"

Battling with the voices depends on how important the issue is. Is this self esteem? did yo screw up at work? with the wife?

I try to just figure it out.. are the voices helping you make your decision or are they just hindering you? Most of the time things arent as bad as they seem. Look at past problems, and ask youself... was it worth all that stress?? The voices are good sometimes because they keep you from telling your boss how you really feel, or punching the cop in the face that gave you the speeding ticket...

[dualman7]

One of the negative things the voice does, is replay things that I say in conversations, over and over and over. It gets to the point where I feel awkward about my choice of words, and end up being too self conscious. I am not sure if I should repeat the things the voice is thinking, or try to ignore them. On one side if I ignore them, I feel like I am restricting my "real" thoughts. But I am not even sure they are that. On the other hand if I do say what I am thinking, I over analyze it afterwards. I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[ckp]

I get that alot, too. For a fun exercise, though, just repeat a sentence aloud 50 times. Doesn't really matter what the sentence is, who said it first -- pick something really profound you don't mind sacrificing. After enough repetitions, anything is going to sound ridiculous. Generally, though, the only person who's paying that much attention to the specifics of what you're saying... is you.

Try to recall what a friend said to you earlier today. You probably have remembered a compressed or summarized version. Other people will be doing that to you, too. So you'll probably never sound as bad as you think you do.

As for filtering your thoughts... well, yes, yes you do have to restrict your "real" thoughts a bit to deal with people, to a degree. But when you have these thoughts focused on yourself, it's a bit different. I mean, you need to have awareness of when you really do say something hurtful or inappropriate. Does it seem like your inner voice will attack you regardless of what you do -- whether good or bad? Is this constructive self-criticism or destructive self-attack?

[dualman7]

it seems to be destructive majority of the time.

It starts out as constructive criticism, but the voice breaks it down so much that it turns destructive.

I had a phone conversation with a boss, and as soon as I hung up the phone, the voice starts replaying some of the things I said. After a while, I feel like I made a horrific decision by saying them.

You are right though, saying anything 50 times sounds ridiculous. Thank you for your reply,

You just have to break down whats happening, their is no seperation between what you are thinking and who you are. We are each a collective being.

I have control over my thoughts and listen to my emotions. It takes time but I am teaching myself to work through any obstacle that limits myself. Self confidence, self esteem, pride, arrogance, self loathing is just a few interpretations that limit people, what really matters is what you can do and what you can't do.

Try making a list of everything that you interpret as a negitive thought and reframe each statement into something that inspires you work at the problem? Look at it, read it and update it until you can't think of anything else to write down.

I feel like I have wasted a day when I don't produce art work. Instead of focusing on that thought that tomorrow I will have a productive day or that I didn't manage to get anything done today, I tell myself that now is the time to take action and I take out the pens and penicls and I get the sketch book and I force myself to form out another page in my book.

[tecoyah]

I just argue with mine....till one of us loses....usually me.

[Rodney]

What I used to do was tell myself, "It's all true. You're stupid and incompetent. Everybody hates you. You're worthless. They all laugh at you." On and on, until I'd realize that it was ridiculous. That'd usually break the feeling -- by overload, as it were.

[munchen]

I used to have that problem, still do a little bit but it is much better. What i had to realize was that almost everything that happens in your life is neutral.

Science. Two halves of the brain. One(left) generally deals with positive emotions, the other(right) negative. If your brain is trained to think more with the right things will tend to be more negative. You can train your brain to think more positive. Positive thoughts are also "real thoughts" and so are negative ones. Its which way to do you want to live?

thinking(voices) makes experiences good or bad. Example. I work with this girl who is incredibly slow at everything she does. I used to hate it, hate working with her. I would detest working with her. The days i had to work with her I would feel crappy and my head would be filled with things like, "man she is so incompetent", "how can it take anybody this long to do that", "We could have been done this an hour ago" and the day sucked. So I tried to reframe my thoughts and look at the positives. When i looked at the positives I realized that she was very friendly person and a good person to talk to. So I aproach working with her with optimism now and enjoy working with her. Thoughts like "she's fun to chat with", "cool, I get to spend work chatting with blank today" ect. I always look forward to working with her now. This can be applied to pretty much everything in your life. Whenever i start to get really negative now I stop myself and try and find the positive. The world is alot more fun when you can see the good in it.

[munchen]

Oh, looking at your past conversations. Relax. Who cares? its over. its done. I bet if you analyzed your bosses words you could find things he said wrong. Nobody ever says everything right, I'm lucky if I say 5% of things right, even with revision. You just have to let yourself off the hook, perfection in not attainable. If you say something really bad you can always apologize. Learn to love your faults

[squirrelyburt]

Ignore it, do what you think is right and you don't have to worry about it. Basically, if it's not hurting anyone, it should fly!!