Five Ways To Control the Voices in Your Head — With Positive Self-Talk

Whether you think you can or think you can’t — you’re right.

We all talk to ourselves all day long. It’s perfectly healthy — until it becomes negative.

When I started meditating, I learned a lot about the voices in my head. Sometimes they were friendly, helpful, and upbeat. All too often, they were negative. So I made some changes.

I remembered the advice of spiritual traditions such as Zen and Advaita Vedanta. So beautifully summarized here by Brian Thompson.

1. Realize that ‘you’ are not the thinker, rather ‘you’ are being thought.

2. Thinking creates a mental image of ‘you’ that you mistakenly believe to be true.

3. You then self-identify with this false self-image and attach all of your emotions into it. — Brian Thompson, Zen Thinking

So you don’t need to take the voices in your head seriously — no more than you need to listen to a random person ranting on the street.

All of your self-talk is false.

You’re a child of the universe. Feel free to play with your thoughts and use them to thrive, rather than being used by them.

Use your thoughts to get things done, live with compassion toward others, and find joy and laughter in life!

1. “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.” — Henry Ford.

This famous quote emphasizes how much your attitude determines success or failure. Self-talk Is powerful, whether positive or negative.

You may not believe in affirmations, but you are saying affirmations to yourself all day. And what you say molds your thoughts and determines who you are and who you become.

What we allow to dominate in our minds determines who we are. And what could we experience without our minds? The Buddha…

“Preceded by mind are phenomena, led by mind, formed by mind. If with mind polluted one speaks or acts, then pain follows, as a wheel follows the draft ox’s foot.

… If with mind pure one speaks or acts, then ease follows, as an ever-present shadow.” The Buddha, The Dhammapada

Once we internalize this idea, we can change our lives by changing our minds!

Your consciousness will respond to whatever you think into it, whether good or bad. Everything begins with a thought — so be careful what you think!

2. It Takes Three Positive Thoughts To Counter a Single Negative Thought

When you’re trying to do your best, doubt and disappointment can be constant companions. Keeping your thoughts positive might be the difference between success or failure.

So you need to move your thoughts from: This sucks, I didn’t sign up for this, Why is life so unfair?”

To: “I can rise to the occasion. I’ve got this! ”

And you’ll need more positive self-talk than you might have assumed. University of North Carolina’s Barbara Fredrickson discovered “the positivity ratio.” The fact that it takes three positive thoughts to counter a single negative thought.

Three-to-one is the ratio we’ve found to be the tipping point beyond which the full impact of positive emotions becomes unleashed. — Barbara Fredrickson, PhD

Eighty percent of Americans fall short of the 3-to-1 positivity ratio that predicts flourishing. Try Fredrickson’s free, 2-minute quiz and see how you score.

3. Mindfulness Is the Key to Positivity

If you’ve ever gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, you know how quickly a few negative thoughts can quickly cascade into a long chain of negative thoughts, polluting your mind with unwanted negative emotions. And ruining your day.

The power of mindfulness is that it can sever the link between negative thoughts and negative emotions.

Looking at a negative thought with open-minded awareness, you’ll come to see that a negative thought is just a thought, and it will pass in time.

The best way to accept thoughts as “just thoughts” is to take up the practice of meditation. As soon as you notice you’re lost in thought, gently bring your mind back to your breath. You’ll need to do this many times, especially as a beginner.

Getting lost and coming back to the breath is not a failing — it’s the heart of meditation practice.

Over time, meditating like this, you’ll begin to notice an increased ability to see things with equanimity, with mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in difficult situations.

You’ll be better able to see both the good and the bad thoughts with equanimity and then act appropriately.

4. Challenge Your Negative Thoughts With Positive Affirmations

Since you’re already talking to yourself all day long anyway. Why not spend some time building yourself up with some positive affirmations.

Positive affirmations are positive phrases or statements used to challenge negative or unhelpful thoughts.

Affirmations have gotten a bad rap. Maybe because the idea seems too simple, and telling yourself how awesome you are might seem awkward. But the truth is, every time you repeat any thought in your mind, you are affirming that thought. And since you’re doing it continuously, it can make a big difference whether your thoughts are positive or negative.

Over time negative thoughts and beliefs can become your reality and your truth. Try reprogramming with some positive, helpful truths. I don’t want to presume what kind of affirmation would be best for you. It should be something that counters your negative self-views.

Just make sure your affirmations are grounded in reality. I think of it as prayer. When I pray, I don’t ask for a new BMW of a million dollars. I pray that I might have wisdom, the ability to respond skillfully to difficult situations. To say the right thing at the right time.

Here’s one I use to bolster my self-confidence, which is often lagging.

I’m confident I can meet every challenge—no matter how difficult — with skill, enthusiasm, and compassion.

I usually repeat this to myself during the first few minutes of my morning meditation. And before going to sleep at night. My affirmation is believable for me. I need to hear it often.

5. Laughter Is the Best Medicine

The best joke is one that takes you completely by surprise. It comes out of nowhere in a flash and sets off a kind of sudden enlightenment! Sometimes it happens in real life.

I was on the phone with one of the chair massage therapists working for me at a trade show in a major convention center. It was a stressful opening morning, and she, my supervisor, had called to say one of the three therapists was stuck in traffic and would be a half-hour late. And my client was upset. But I had an idea.

The simple solution, I thought, was for my supervisor to fill in and do chair massage until the other massage therapist arrived. I was frantically texting and about to press “send” when I looked down to reread what I had written.

… “Why don’t you massage yourself until she arrives.”

The surprise hit me like a jack-in-the-box in a toddler’s crib, and I began to laugh at that typo … I couldn’t stop … the mental picture of my supervisor, “solving” the problem by standing in my important client’s expensive trade show exhibit — massaging herself!

I laughed for 10 minutes, 15 minutes. It was so funny. I would finally stop laughing, and a few minutes later, I’d mentally review my words, and the laughter would start again.

Looking back on it, it was more than just laughter. It was a kind of major psychic letting go. A massive release of stress. It felt good. It lightened me up, made me happy, and probably flooded me with endorphins. (Plus, hearty laughter gives your innards a great massage.)

And here’s the best thing — it obliterated my self-talk!

Remember

• You are not your thoughts.
• Whether you think you can or think you can’t — you’re right.
• It Takes Three Positive Thoughts To Counter a Single Negative Thought.
• Mindfulness is the key to positivity.
• Challenge Your Negative Thoughts With Positive Affirmations.
• Laughter is the best medicine.