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«Who do you think is your worst enemy?» is a question once asked by psychology professor Hal Hershfield to a thousand people. And half of them answered: «I myself.» How to build relationships with yourself and learn how to use your own support resources, says psycholinguist Irina Medvedeva.
Man’s relationship with himself is a large and complex topic that receives little attention. Most of us are used to living in the world of external communication, solving questions: “How to say?”, “What to answer to another person in order to save a relationship?”, “What to answer to hurtful words or criticism”, and so on.
On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with this, on the contrary: this is how we adapt to the social environment and build meaningful relationships. On the other hand, when we completely ignore internal communication (and our psyche also communicates with itself, regardless of whether we notice it or not), we are faced with two problems.
- Due to the fact that we think more about how to talk about our experiences to another, all our resources go to external reaction, and not to experiencing emotions and self-support. As a result, feelings and restless thoughts go unnoticed and can become an obstacle in moving towards a goal or even cause illness.
- The work on personal feelings and anxieties is only on the external level: someone else is always involved in it besides us. From here arise both dependence on the opinion of another, and problems with a sense of inner support, and the inability to cope with one’s condition on one’s own, and vulnerability to criticism.
We are taught to establish relationships with other people from childhood, but they do not teach us to negotiate with ourselves at all. Therefore, even by the age of thirty, few people know what kind of person he is for himself and how these mysterious relationships can be established in general.
Why we don’t get enough support from loved ones
When we lack self-confidence, we intuitively try to compensate for the lack of internal support by using other people to do this. This strategy has limitations.
- Support inaccuracy. The people around us may not always know what kind of support we need. Duty remarks “everything will pass”, “don’t worry”, “enough snot to wind your fist” rarely help a person recover.
- burden on loved ones. Taking care of the mood of another person is a difficult job that requires internal resources and knowledge. It’s easy to get tired of this.
Internal dialogue: interrupt or listen?
The attitude towards inner speech (and inner dialogue in particular) in literature and in all sorts of discussions is ambiguous. When I talk about what I do, people usually join the discussion with interest. But the most common question I hear is: “How do I silence my inner voice?”
A myth has taken root in the minds of many people that internal dialogue is something hostile. This is fundamentally the wrong approach. Our psyche reacts not only to the outside world, but also to itself, thus, each person is immersed not only in external communication — with other people, but also in the internal, with himself, or, to be more precise, with his thoughts and experiences. .
And the question here is different: how does our psyche communicate with itself?
Internal dialogue is different
Destructive internal dialogue distracts from solving problems, lowers self-esteem and causes unpleasant feelings. Resource — similar to a wise friend, with its help you can guide and support yourself.
One day my friend shared her experience: “Recently I finished a big project. That was great. But at work, I did not receive any words of gratitude or praise for the result. I was very offended. For several days I was worried and worked through force. Injurious thoughts flashed through my head that my work was not appreciated, that what I was doing was not needed by anyone — and all sorts of other nonsense that spoiled the mood.
But then I managed to pull myself together and explain to myself: “What a waste? It was important for me to do this. Yes, I am upset that I did not receive feedback, but this does not mean that I am not appreciated or that I am a bad employee. And then, if I need feedback, you can somehow tell the manager about it … ”From such reflections, it became easier for me, I went to the boss, talked — everything turned out to be not so totally bad and unfair as I imagined. I calmed down.»
It was a process of communication of a person with himself — an internal dialogue. The first part of it was a reaction to an unfavorable situation — annoyance that there was no expected response to the result. The second is a resourceful, constructive response to what is happening and one’s condition, which subsequently led to positive changes in the outside world — a conversation with the leader, as a result of which the situation became clearer.
Unfortunately, often in such circumstances, our conversations with ourselves develop according to an unfavorable scenario: we fall into pessimism, self-criticism and exacerbate our anxiety.
How to make the internal dialogue resourceful?
- Notice your psychological deficits (heavily experienced states). In the internal dialogue, the need for support usually sounds like: “I’m embarrassed”, “I don’t understand”, “I made a mistake”, “I feel bad”, etc.
- Try to respond to your feelings. The main reason for the loss of peace of mind is related to the fact that our experiences either remain unanswered, or are accompanied by critical and pessimistic statements: “I was wrong. How could I? I’m always wrong! .. «
- Be Excessive in Your Support. There is no one single phrase that would work in all cases. Come up with 2-4 options for responding to your experiences, so you will be more likely to change your state.
- Refer to image. Ask yourself, “What would my friend/therapist/Lao Tzu say to that?” It is much easier to control inner speech if you use an image. Try to mentally imagine yourself in the place of a person you trust, and try to answer yourself on his behalf.
- Support yourself at different levels. Often a problematic situation requires us to undergo a complex restructuring: it is important for us to transform feelings, thoughts and actions. Keep this in mind as you construct your support phrase.
Any inner work associated with restructuring the mindset and forming a new habit takes time. And if at first you «move out» to the usual negative internal monologue, do not despair. By continuing this practice, over time you will notice positive changes.