chris – absolutely! you know, this really brings home the difficulty with blog posts. in a way, they’re little aphorisms – unless you turn the post into a 2000 word essay (or a 20,000 word book), it’s difficult to look at all the different angles of a topic.

i agree with everything you say, particularly with moving with the negativity if it helps.

i guess that was the martial artist speaking, huh?

Forget everything you think you know about the negativity of negativity. It that voice is pushing you forward, feel grateful for it.

If it refuses to assist you, then you now have a rock-solid reason to ignore it.

Chris | Martial Development’s last blog post..In Defense of the Dojo Kun

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1. Listen to the negative self-talk and heartily agree with it—but roll your eyes, wink, chortle, and use other derisive body language to indicate that you’re just patronizing the self-talk so it’ll think it’s right and leave you alone. This also works great when you want a bit of extra space in a public place.

2. Ask the negative self-talk if it’d please continue in Punic, Cornish, Ge’ez, or some other extinct language, rather than English. Tell it that you know it’d have no trouble doing that because it obviously knows everything. When I do this, my self-talk either (a.) shuts up in embarrassment; or (b.) rattles on in an approximation of one of the extinct languages, which is much easier to ignore.

3. Whenever the self-talk says anything, reply, “I know you are, but what am I?” in your best Pee-Wee Herman impression. (See “public place” note in #1.)

4. As you’ve mentioned, it does work well to write down everything the self-talk says, then throw away the paper. However, if the self-talk speaks too quickly, try saying, “Will you hang on a second? I’m writing this down and I don’t want to miss anything.” I find that the self-talk is usually flattered that I’m giving it so much attention and is glad to let me catch up. By pretending to write v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, you can make the self-talk add huge delays between utterances. This also makes it even more fun to destroy the paper later (which I usually accompany with an evil “nyah-ha-ha!” like Snidely Whiplash in “Dudley Do-Right”).

4a. (Variation on #4) Write down just the first letter of each word the negative self-talk says, then look for secret messages, drawing elaborate circles, diagrams, etc., like the guy in “A Beautiful Mind.” The self-talk hates this.

5. Pick a secret word, then excitedly wait for the self-talk to use the word. When it does, play a few loud notes on a trumpet, shout, “You’ve said the magic word!”, and tell the self-talk it’s won a valuable prize—an all-expenses Bahamas vacation, a new car, etc. Tell the self-talk that all it has to do to receive the prize is to listen to a one-hour time-share condo presentation. Then begin the presentation immediately and watch the self-talk run away screaming.

6. Turn the self-talk into a story. Example:

[Self-Talk:] You can’t do anything right.

[You:] …said Harold’s wife, as Harold’s croquet ball ricocheted off the birdbath and into his boss’s shrimp cocktail.

[Self-Talk:] What do you think you’re doing?

[You:] …his boss sputtered, wiping the cocktail sauce from his face with a monogrammed silk handkerchief.

[Self-Talk:] So you think this will shut me up, do you?

[You:] “Why, no, boss,” Harold stammered, feeling the sweat trickle from his armpits. “I… I guess I’m just a bad shot with the old mallet, that’s all. We don’t get much croquet practice over at the trailer park.”

7. If you’re at home, close the curtains and/or turn down the lights to create a 1950s film-noir atmosphere, then walk from room to room, repeating the negative self-talk in an ominous-sounding, Humphrey-Bogart-style voice, as if you’re narrating a detective movie. Wear a fedora if you have one (you may wish to obtain one for this purpose). Add other imaginary characters as necessary, and don’t be afraid to rough up a few of them to solve the mystery.

I have lots of ideas like this—and God knows I’m just sitting around here in the suburbs, so it’s not like I don’t have time to share more of them. Let me know.

Cheers, Andy

lol, difficultpt – you know, my motto is, whatever works, works. we don’t have the time to process absolutely everything that comes our way – so, hey, if pretending those thoughts aren’t there works for you, all the power to you!

re the blogging – i had a post that talked a lot about that a few months back.