Fifty degrees and sunshine provided the motivation for me to sit down yesterday in a local park and collect my thoughts. Basking in the unusually warm January sun, I closed my eyes and let my other senses be entertained by the urban activity going on around me. An unleashed dog, sniffing around my feet challenged my resolve to keep my eyes shut, but I persisted, confident that only a small and friendly dog would be roaming unfettered.
I enjoyed a few minutes of uninterrupted quiet before a woman’s voice filled the silence. She was loud, articulate and expressive. She asked questions and then answered them, and she augmented her oratory with occasional singing. I withstood the temptation to open my eyes once again. Instead, I tried to visualize her appearance. My effort was interrupted by a harsh voice of an elderly man. He was annoyed by the woman’s speech and demanded that she “Shut Up!” The attention only made the woman more determined to share her message.
Eventually the man tired of complaining and threatening and all that remained was the woman’s dialogue with herself. As I sat and listened to her conversation, sometimes light and other times impassioned, I considered the conversations that I have with myself on a rather regular basis. I am assuming that engaging in conversation with the voices in my head is a commonly shared experience - the difference between us and the woman in the park is that we don’t usually verbalize it. We hear voices that encourage or discourage, or that approve or disapprove and we quietly react to those voices consciously or subconsciously all day long.
The voices that we hear, the self-talk that is our conscious, affects our wellbeing. Is your conversation with yourself positive? Does it generally provide encouragement and support? Or, does it more often judge and criticize? Taking the time to stop and listen to your own inner conversation can be helpful in realizing how it affects you. It can also be an opportunity for creating self-talk that is more positive. Start by considering all that you have to be grateful for. Appreciate the present moment and the opportunity that it provides for you to do good and realize your potential. Do this every day and your inner-conversation will be positively affected. And, next time you sit down on a park bench next to a person who wants to share their self-talk with the whole world, you will have a new appreciation for how much you have in common!
Live WELL!
M. J.
Comments
Post has no comments.