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| Reducing and Eliminating Harmful Head Chatter |
By:
alexander serra |
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Head chatter is something that only recently people have been recognizing consciously. These days, if I ask people if they have bothering or harmful head chatter, they know exactly what I’m talking about, and then they also spend an hour telling me how this is a source of stress, bad emotions, disempowerment, and sometimes even depression. What I found more amazing is how people describe it. They talk about their brain as if it was an enemy, which was out to get them. This is where I pull out my 'Brain Operating Manual Version 1.0' and simply teach them how to adjust and control their head chatter. What astonishes me the most is how people initially react to having a quiet mind. For all the people that meditate, you all know what I mean. This is the best feeling in the world. If added to that is also the confidence and knowledge that the head chatter to follow will be controlled, structured and positive, well, now you really have something. Essentially NLP training teaches us this by combining a few exercises. The KEY is exercise. Yes, exercise! I'll repeat it, EXERCISE. Society spends billions a year for physical fitness and so far has ignored mental training and fitness.
Eliminating Head Chatter is an exercise. Meaning this is something to practice every day. And believe me, it’s worth it. Quieting your mind is a skill that will reduce stress; create mental balance, better communication, far better sensory acuity, and much more. So, what can you do? Right now! Here is an exercise for you to practice:
Now, read this first, then do it. It's simple. Sit quietly and take a deep breath. Then, listen carefully for a background sound. Pick something that is in the background, such as traffic going by outside, if you are in a house, or the air conditioner. Make it something that is hear-able, and at the same time you have to focus to listen to it. Then LISTEN! Listen very carefully to that sound. Focus all your senses on it. Then smile (I'll explain later about the smiling) Go ahead, do it....
What happened? Was there head chatter as you were focusing on hearing the sound? My guess is no. If there was, shift your focus to the outside of your head. I love going to coffee shops and listening to other people's conversations, 4 tables away. Again, this is practice. Blind people have amazing hearing and excellent auditory sensory acuity out of necessity, you can do it to eliminate your head chatter. The more you practice it, the better you become, and the less head chatter you will have. It's a pretty simple equation. If your brain creates a pattern of you using those specific auditory sensory skills, it will reinforce those pathways. This is what automates behaviors, going from something you have to practice to something you just do. This is why I recommend you practice this one in public. Practice at work, at home, everywhere! This is because it’s easy! By sharpening your listening skills, you will reduce head chatter. Wax on, wax off Danielsan.
Controlling head chatter is also easy. I keep reminding people that the voices inside their head belong to them. It's your brain! It doesn't plot against you, doesn't go out of its way to make you miserable, it only does what its told, by you. The trick is telling it what you want it to do. Again this comes down to training. Training and humor are the solution here. Many people's internal talk is negative, with tones and voices that make the person feel bad. I simply ask them to adjust the voice and make it a funny voice like 'Sylvester the cat' or 'speedy Gonzales'. Most people laugh when I tell them this. Then they do it, and they start laughing as they do it. I ask them not to change the dialog, just the voice that's telling it. And it doesn't have the same effect anymore; they often start laughing when it’s Sylvester the cat telling them they are this or that. Then they can't go back to feeling bad when they think about it. Imagine what would happen if they changed the content of the dialog too? Remember that what goes on in your head is built by you. So make better voices, have better tonality. All you have to do is will it, its your brain, and it does what its told by you. You have a sound studio for internal auditory, and a movie studio for internal visual. You are the producer and director of anything that goes on internally in your mind.
Practice this exercise:
Take a deep breath. Focus on an external sound to quiet your mind. Then, imagine just the voice of an authority figure that has affected you badly in the past. Hear the voice, and notice how it makes you feel bad, for the last time. Simply change the voice to a funny cartoon character, and picture the person as a mix of themselves and that cartoon character. Yes, this will probably make you laugh, and when it does, problem solved. And if the voice comes back....change it again. The lesson here is in teaching you that you have control of your head chatter.
Practice these skills. Play with your head chatter, change it, add music, you can do anything you want with it. I highly recommend quieting down as a practice, remember to smile as you do it to lower that brain temperature. Smiling is like a built in brain coolant. The more you do it, the more natural and automated it will become. Good skills! |
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