Devil Inside

The first thing she said when she heard I had to write an essay on positive self talk was “That’s ridiculous. You? What makes you an expert? You and your dime store psychology. Who wants to read that anyway?”  The next thing she said was “Don’t tell them too much about your negative thoughts, they’ll think you’re some insecure freak, which you totally aren’t. Are you?” I tried to remind her that I am a positive person with lots of friends, a family who loves me, a great job, and a love for life. I told her negative self-talk was just another part of being human. Everyone else will know just where I’m coming from because they do it, too. Plus, I reminded her, I’m generally peppy and I might have something helpful to say. I’m working on my positive self talk because I believe it will just make my already happy self, even happier. “Yeah,” she replied, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that whole peppy thing…it really annoys people, you know. And there are people out there who don’t want to hear how great your life is, times are tough. No one needs a bragger. Oh and before you tune me out, I just want to tell you this opening paragraph is corny and kind of sucks.” And so I shut her up, that ugly negative voice in my head, and tried to get some perspective.

 The other night Coach Alexa took us to a hill that my friend Mel, long ago, nicknamed Tibet. It’s one of those hills that seem steep just to walk, and unbearable to run.  I was running with a great group of ladies who let me join their gang even though I was usually a Saturday/Monday person and they were Wednesday people. According to the Wednesday ladies, Monday people have a reputation of being a little more hardcore than Wednesday people. I myself, thought these hill repeating ladies were pretty bad-ass, but before I could voice it, my mind started in loud and clear, “Oh my gosh, they are expecting someone I’m not. They think I’m a hardcore Monday gal, but I’m an imposter.” Things got worse when Alexa gave me a slightly more challenging hill assignment than the other ladies. Alexa is my coach, and a cool lady, and as such she is someone I really look up to and want to impress. My first thought at this hill assignment was “Wow, she has a lot of faith in me.” This was quickly followed by “Yikes, she has a lot of faith in me. She’s going to see how out of shape I really am. I’m about to be found out!” And so the negative rant began.

I am assured by several websites and a psychologist (or two) that self talk is perfectly normal. If you think I’m talkative on the outside, you should hear what goes on in this head of mine. My internal chatter rarely stops. When I was in college, there was this show called “Herman’s Head” on Fox. I don’t remember watching it with my dorm buddies, but I know that once in a while when I was home, my parents, my sister and I would laugh out loud to that show. It is very likely that we were the only four people on the planet watching, but still. The show was about a guy, Herman, who was in his twenties-he was working, dating, and so on-typical sitcom stuff. But the cool part was that they also showed what was going on in his head. There were these little people who each represented part of his psyche, living in his brain. There were four characters. I imagine in my brain there are more like 40, each trying to get a word in edgewise.  Therefore it’s hard for me to look at two categories of internal chatter-negative self talk and positive self talk- when I think there’s a whole range of things going on in there. I’ll do my best though.

 I’ve always been a fan of The Flintstones, in fact, I feel pretty sure that it was the first cartoon I ever saw with the conscience being represented by two mini versions of Fred on his shoulders- one the angelic Fred and the other a devilish Fred.  On my hill run the other night, I moved swiftly from berating myself about not being as good as the ladies imagined I was and entered right into the angel/devil self talk. “Psst,” the little devil began, “When we get to the bottom of the hill and the rest of the gang turns around to do hill repeats, why don’t we turn right and keep running. You know as in downhill and far away? We can run all the way back to the car, or better yet all the way to Suzanne’s bakery for a brownie.” (This may have been harder to resist if Suzanne’s hadn’t already closed for the day).  “No, not an option, we are going to head right up the hill with the rest of the group,” the angel announced firmly.  I overcame the temptation to flee and tried to focus on the task ahead. In doing so I engaged my positive self talk.  “What’s the big deal? I’ll just give it a try and when I feel like walking I’ll slow down, but not stop. I can do this. I’ve been running a lot, my pace is picking up, and my cardio is getting better. I’m just going to do my best. No one’s here to judge me.” Soon, I was off and running. It wasn’t easy and my mind was busy the whole way, but instead of criticizing myself for breathing too hard, or getting tired, I kept things positive. When my positive thoughts started to falter, I moved to distraction, which is a tried and true mood enhancer. I entertained myself with all kinds of silly thoughts that were not necessarily positive or negative, but definitely did the trick.

The funny thing about negative self talk is that I would never, NEVER, talk to other people the way that I can sometimes talk to myself. In fact, I wouldn’t even think the thoughts about others that I sometimes think about me.  I am actually quite empathetic, quite forgiving and a firm believer in loving people for who they are, not who I wish they would be. So when I am engaging in negative thinking, I try hard to remind myself that I am only human and that I need to cut myself the same slack I, so easily, cut others. That is usually enough to change my attitude. If it’s not enough then I will talk to a friend or my husband to get some perspective.  And if I really need a lift and an ego boost, my sister, my grandmother and my mother are only a phone call away; and boy those three ladies sure think the world of me.  

Negative thinking has the potential to be damaging to a person’s sense of self and can impact what they will do, say or try. For me, just putting it all down here, knowing that others will read it has been very challenging. I know I claimed to shrug off the negative talk in my first paragraph, but truly I have been fighting it this entire time. I have been frustrated with my ability to tie my thoughts together, to make it interesting and to get to a level of intimacy that I usually try to avoid in my writing. I’ve turned it around though and I feel proud of myself for getting through this. I hope my longer-than-I-planned-but definitely-not-long-enough-to-even-scratch-the-surface-essay has provided a bit of insight for some of you, as well.