We think about ourselves around 1400 words a minute. We are only aware of about 200 words a minute. These words, the ones we are unaware of, control the mood, the feelings and the beliefs we have. Experiences we have during our childhood define these words. We often are not able to put words to these experiences until we are older. We feel them as children, but can’t explain them. Then we often use words that “explain or justify” the experience because we filter these experiences with our belief systems.
Here is an example of how self talk is formed. We are taught that we should honor mom and dad, yet when a parent was an alcoholic, or a raging angry lunatic, we decide that we should not be angry at them. We should honor them with kindness and love. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking creates a mind where we are the “bad one” and our parents are the “good ones.”
This kind of self talk creates thinking such as self-blaming, followed by feelings of shame or guilt. We feel like a bad person because we assumed if our parents are always right, then we must always be bad. This isn’t something that is intended by our parents, but more often than not it is the result of how we were parented. The result is our deep inner language is highly negative. Belief systems come from these negative events and negative emotions.
Evidence of this belief system is apparent when we are unable to control our anger. We have a huge amount of anger inside us, and as it connects with the current event, we then act on that huge anger, not just the emotions of the moment.
When my children were young, I used to be really, really angry. I would say things like, “I am so stupid” while I was acting out my anger. My children would say, “Why does dad say he is so stupid?” It was because when I did or experienced something that was similar to what I experienced as a child, my mind would feel the same way I did as a child. I believed that when I did silly things or made mistakes, especially if they were big mistakes, I was just stupid. And I would state that fact because I felt it was true.
Feelings, when attached to wrong thinking, produce faulty beliefs.
I no longer believe I am stupid, this belief just never occurs anymore. I seldom get angry, and I never feel stupid.
Negative self talk molds us into someone who believes things that are not true, like that we are really bad. We make excuses like “I’m not that bad” or “my childhood wasn’t that bad” when we have a melt down. We excuse the effects of our childhood on our current belief system.
Because these thoughts are so familiar to us, we do not see them as an issue until an event brings them to the forefront of our minds. When working with many adults who were raised in good homes, I have heard often that they “were raised so well, why do they feel this way!” The reason is not one specific thing, it is more about a process of events that were all intended to guide them toward being a good person, when in fact it did not create the inner thinking of a healthy brain.
When children are made to follow the rules – and are not allowed to make choices of their own, it really affects their minds later on. They will, later, want to have things their way, or they will be very unhappy because nothing goes their way. You can not predict the outcomes of how you were parented–we only see the results of parenting in how our minds work as adults. Remember, you are an empty black slate and what you experience tells your mind how to react and behave has an adult.
Since our minds do not judge words as good or bad, they just log them, and we later connect logic to them. This logic is often not accurate logic because our minds attempt to make sense of the events we experienced. This logic is an explanation of what happened, and can often lead to a false belief system.
Think of a stream. Within all streams there are basically three levels of currents. The current at the bottom, called the benthic zone, moves slowly. It is where most of the aquatic life is located. We can imagine this as being the deep parts of our mind, the hidden memories and experiences, etc.. That is important because it is this benthic current that really influences all the other layers. Here is where there is not only aquatic life, but the bottom layer of soil and rocks and debris that effect what happens on the layers above At the top layer, the place where we tend to see stuff happening, such as rapids, smooth flows, or swirling eddies, we can imagine that being our conscious mind. What is really determining what that looks like are the rocks, the fallen tree limbs, even garbage below.The top third of the water, then, is the stream of consciousness that you are aware of–it also happens to be the place where the water is moving the most quickly. Another interesting aspect of this is that one of the fundamental skills to being a good fisherman is learning to “read the water.” This also applies to our own skill at learning to “read our minds” or being able to see underneath what is happening at the moment to get to the bottom of the experience.
And what that translates into is when an event touches these old memories, the emotions attached to these memories flow to our behavior. The more influential or huge these emotions are the more affect these old events have on our current behavior.
We need this as a guide because these old events are very important. They actually give us wisdom about how to behave in the future, in other words, they can be instructive. They do not have to have a negative, crippling influence on our mood.
When we have huge events in our past, they stir the water as it flows past these events (rocks) The ripple at the top of a stream is the really the water passing around the object just below the surface.
Since our minds are always flowing, when something stirs those rocks and the emotions are touched, we respond.
This self talk dictates our behavior. We say words to ourselves all the time, words that are connected to the events we have experienced as we have grown up. Words like:
I must not be good enough
I am just a silly girl
No one really cares for me.
I am a bad person
No one ever listens to me.
You are not important
You are not worthy.
These words, even though we might not know they are there, are just lurking around the corner, waiting. They are always present and they show up unexpectedly.
Research about the development of the mind has shown that both women and men get the majority of their self-esteem and self-talk during the age of 11 – 15. These are the years we are most influenced by the adult male in our lives. Research again and again exposes us to the idea that there is a strong correlation between good self-esteem and the way we interact with a healthy adult in those teen years.
Since we need affirmation in those years, the words we say to ourselves from our earlier experiences are either affirmed by the experiences between ages of 11 – 15 or they are rearranged as possibly faulty. Both boys and girls need words of affirmation, time, non-sexual touch, good interaction with an adult male. These interactions seem to affect us more than some of the previous interactions.
When dad says “I love you” and he looks directly at you, it affects the child’s mind and soul. When a father touches his child on the arm, and hugs the child, they feel safe and are able to move toward a more safe feeling within themselves. When dad says “good job” they feel it more than if it is not being said by dad. All these interactions have an affect on the development of the mind.
There are exceptions to the rule, but by and large, when these adult male influences are present the brain accepts this validation and we seem to be healthier in our self talk.
When this influence is not present, the self talk of the adult brain in more negative.