How Does Internal Dialogue Affect Us? 7 Thoughts You Should Avoid
Did you know that we are the most influential person in our life? How do you treat yourself? Do you limit yourself or help yourself grow? Discover how our internal dialogue affects us and how to change it.
If you could write down everything you think at the end of the day, you would see that we are having a conversation with ourselves. This is made up of our opinions, evaluations, emotions, desires, expectations and judgments about the world and about ourselves. But how does our inner dialogue?
He internal dialogue It is a pattern of thoughts that we have towards ourselves and towards others. These annoying ‘voices’ or ‘thoughts’ that make up our internalized dialogue are at the root of a large part of our behaviors and attitudes.
In many cases most of us don’t even realize we are having this conversation. This inner voice It can offer you both positive and negative affirmations. These types of thoughts have more power than we could recognize. In fact, the words we say to ourselves can fill us with positivity or negativity. So much so that what we tell ourselves can lead to self-actualization as well as self-sabotage.
Why do we have this internal dialogue?
It is believed that the ability to have a internal dialogue It develops during childhood in what is called ‘private speech’. As children acquire language skills, they also learn to engage in internal feedback. These inner voices from childhood can even appear in the form of imaginary friends.
However, in adulthood, this internal dialogue It continues to support our working memory along with other types of cognitive processes. Within science, it is suggested that this internal monologue helps us complete everyday tasks.
Still, not all people experience these types of internal dialogue Instead, you may have inner thoughts, but this does not raise the same inner speech where you can ‘hear’ your own voice expressing them.
He inner dialogue It can affect the functioning of our brain. These conversations we have with ourselves can have a profound impact on the way you see the world. That is, what we tell ourselves can moderate our experiences.
Why does our internal dialogue affect us?
Even though our inner dialogue tells us things in our mind, our brain treats this internal speech as if they were words spoken out loud. This is because Broca’s area, the region of the frontal lobe responsible for speech processing, is active in both cases.
Hearing yourself say something in your mind has the same weight as hearing yourself say something out loud. Therefore, the more you repeat it, the more weight this thought will have because you have accepted it as the truth. This is why repeatedly telling yourself that you’re fine can make you feel better when you’re nervous. Your brain hears you say it and then has a physiological and hormonal response to that mantra. Consequently, the things we say to ourselves can also trigger stress and anxiety responses.
Types of negative self-talk
Many of our internal dialogues They may be affecting us right now. In fact, many people become permanently trapped within loops of negative self-talk. In these cases, we must keep in mind that our internal dialogue affects us more than we can imagine. Mainly, people often experience the following types of negative self-talk:
Alright: When things are going well, it’s good to be grateful for it. The problem arises when something negative is happening and we tell ourselves. Telling yourself ‘it’s okay’ when something isn’t can perpetuate a state of discomfort. This happens because by telling us that everything is correct, our brain stops looking for alternatives or solutions to the problem we are facing.
It is easy: Seeing a difficult task as ‘easy’ may be sabotaging you. When you think something is easy, it is because you have the necessary skills and enough knowledge to tackle the problem. But when something is difficult and complicated, labeling it as ‘easy’ could make us less likely to succeed.
It has always been like this: When you have the habit of approaching things from one perspective, it is good to keep it if it really does you good. On the other hand, thinking that your attitude or thoughts are static, that is, they cannot change, is negative when you experience a negative self talk
I don’t know: By telling ourselves that we don’t know, we are raising a sign of defeat. In fact, we are preparing ourselves to not be able to find a solution. This is the mental equivalent of being a person who complains all the time, but never does anything about it.
I don’t feel good about it: In this case, when our internal dialogue tells us this, we also stop looking for solutions. But also, by telling you this you also feel miserable. If something doesn’t feel right to you, then there’s probably a reason, but by telling ourselves this, we’re not stopping to figure out what we don’t like. Leaving our comfort zone, when we don’t like it, is the best step we can take to improve ourselves.
This is impossible: It is obvious that there are things that are impossible, but if we refuse to make an effort or try to reach these goals, we will never achieve what really makes us happy. When you say something is impossible, you allow this negative thought pattern to dominate your perspective. This happens because your brain only seeks to make things easier for you, therefore, when you hear ‘this is impossible’ it works to corroborate this statement. This confirmation bias causes you to find evidence to support what you already believe.
These are some of the thoughts that affect our inner dialogue These negative patterns, as we have mentioned, can constantly sabotage us and even cause us to end up suffering from stress, anxiety and even depression. If you think that your negative internal dialogue is affecting you, it is important that you go to a professional psychologist as soon as possible.
Can our internal dialogue be changed?
For many, the internal dialogue It interferes with your thoughts without being able to ‘get away’. This in psychology is what is called ‘autopilot’, since it allows us to operate without having to ‘think’ about it carefully. But, when we have negative self-talk, it is essential to interrupt these negative and counterproductive thought patterns. Any time you catch yourself repeating a negative mantra, it’s important to pause it and try to find a better solution. For example, if you say to yourself ‘I don’t know’, then try changing it to ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out’. By turning your negative affirmations into positive ones, you can allow your brain to reach its full problem-solving potential.
How to treat yourself?
If you pay attention, you will see that you talk to yourself, you give your opinion about what you do, you lecture yourself, and you may even reprimand yourself or perhaps congratulate yourself. Whatever the dialogue with yourself is, the point is that you talk to yourself and tell yourself things. Therefore, we are the being most influential with which we relate, since we are with ourselves 24 hours a day. In this way, when you detect your automatic thoughts, it is important to analyze whether they are good or negative for yourself:
Did these help me learn from the mistake or did they plunge me into despair?
What are you saying to yourself?
Do you think you are understanding and compassionate with yourself?
Or do you hit the whip of demand?
Does it help you learn and grow, or does it beat you down with a heavy hand?
This internal dialogue It is vitally important to realize how we treat ourselves. Obviously, there are many things that could be the cause and it is not so easy to stop treating ourselves as we have always done. Many times we have to treat the root of it, see what happened, how it affected us and our internal dialogue.
