SELF-TALK AS SELF-STUDY
April 1, 2011. Do you talk to yourself? I do. All the time. And if you believe science we all talk to ourselves nonstop. The question beneath the question is more so about the "Quality of communication" you have in your self-talk.
"We all have voices in our heads which ?talks to us on an almost constant basis. ?Our voices give us messages continually, ?and what they say to us affects us." - Juliene Berk
In yoga we actively observe our self-talk and we study ourselves to learn about ourselves. This is known as Svadhaya. For most of us this is a huge paradigm shift. We grow up spending close to 100% of our time studying what everyone else has attempted or accomplished. We learn how to be more interested in what others think about who we are than what we think of our own opinion. I look back at all the hours spent worrying and intensely studying how others talked to me than what I was saying to myself and now realize the emphasis was in the wrong place.
John Lembo says "Every waking moment we talk to ourselves about the things we experience. Our self-talk, the thoughts we communicate to ourselves, in turn control the way we feel and act." In yoga we not only observe our thoughts but we practice talking to ourselves on purpose, with purpose. "Self-suggestion makes you master of yourself." (W. Clement Stone) We learn that what we say to ourselves and how we say it impacts how we feel. We learn that we are responsible for creating our world from the inside out.
“Watch your thoughts for they become words
Watch your words for they become actions
Watch your actions for they become habits
Watch your habits for they become character
Watch your character for it becomes your destiny!”
The other key learning that becomes transportable from our yoga is the way we talk to ourselves is how we talk to other people (our partner, our children, our friends). These are never two separate things. Our communication is practiced with ourselves from ourselves first. Then the more life affirming our self-talk is the more positive we are in how we talk to everyone! Love yourself, love your day, love your life, Silvia