Talking to myself

I've been thinking about this lately. Not the kind of talking you do out loud when you are doing chores or that kind of thing. I mean the kind of talking to yourself you do inside your head.

I can identify two kinds of talking I do to myself inside my head. The first kind is when I talk directly to myself. I think, after discussing this with my husband, that many of us do this kind of talking. I tend to tell myself how I've screwed up or what I feel is wrong with myself. I have caught myself doing this over and over. I think we should all start talking to ourselves in the way God would. I know from my little knowledge of the Bible that God has lots of loving grace when dealing with the imperfections of us humans. Why can't we give ourselves that graceful unconditional love and forgiveness? I want to make an effort to start talking to myself with love and graceful compassion. I want to start talking to myself as if I do truly believe I am special and worthy of love. Think of how much better life would be if we could each just build ourselves up by reminding ourselves of how special and lovable we truly are.

The second kind of talking I do in my head is directed at other people. I catch myself redoing old conversations or planning out future ones. Sometimes I am defending myself over and over using the same words yet never feeling closure. Sometimes I am just planning what I hope will be witty banter or enchanting conversation with people I plan to spend time with. This kind of talking to myself is the kind that ends up making me feel a little batty. It's like going around and around in my head with conversations that never happen and only keep me from my own peace of mind. I began experimenting with a new method of ending this senseless cycle of non-conversation. Today I have had a lot of luck with replacing these 'head conversations' with affirmations. I think there is a part of my mind that just craves the cycle of churning words, and I have been successful at appeasing this desire with repeated positive affirmations. Today I began at one point saying 'I am healthy and have a strong immune system' over and over in my mind and the words took on a musical rhythm in my head that felt both positive and very zen. My mind was no longer feeling open ended with the words of conversations which never take place. Suddenly I looked up from what I was doing and realized that much time had passed and I had only been concentrating on the task I was doing and the words I was musically repeating in my mind.

I wanted to document these ideas because I am really hoping that these are lessons I have learned in a permanent way. I spend much of my life learning lessons through living and lately I have felt that I am learning the same lessons over and over again. I am hopeful that I can start making this knowledge more permanent and continue to grow as a person.