The Inner Coach

The voice in your head likes to pretend it wants you to figure things out. Mostly it doesn't. What it really wants is to peel away from whatever you're doing and vent, and then vent again, repeating the same tired lines you've told yourself a hundred times, the ones that leave you feeling bad about yourself, bad about the situation, or just stuck in place.

So start with the mechanics. When you invent an awful picture in your mind and then narrate it to yourself in a harsh, demanding, scolding tone, the result is a bad feeling: anxiety, stress, tension in the body. People run this routine constantly. They build an internal image, they quietly wait for it to fall apart, and when it does fall apart they get angry, they feel terrible, and they end up at war with the other person, the circumstance, or the outcome. "This is not what I wanted."

Fine. We do this, it's useless, and it never delivers what we're after. So what's the move? You limit the voice. It happens to be the only voice you genuinely listen to, which is your own. And it isn't particularly bright. It isn't lending a hand. It's a loop running in your skull, narrating material that makes you feel awful and plays bad films on repeat, and it doesn't quit.

First things first. Behaving as though the world is obligated to run according to your private thoughts, beliefs, and values, your little mental movies and the things you say under your breath, that is a reliable formula for ongoing disappointment. All of it is a thought with pictures and feelings bolted onto it, the feeling being the one you wanted to hang onto even though the actual thing already changed. It changed. That part is true.

So where is your capacity to accept what's in front of you and release the version you built in your head? Can you draw up new pictures, new images, a fresh soundtrack to match what is actually here right now?

People run this in relationships especially. They try to put the other person in the wrong for not staying exactly the same, and the fights start. The "what if" of a situation has no claim on the "what is." Could something go badly? Sure, it's possible. That's reality. Everything beyond that is thought, only thought, and thoughts shift constantly.

Sit and watch your own thinking for a couple of minutes. There's a surprising amount of traffic in there. What if I don't feel enough? What if I feel too much? What if it takes me too long? What if I'm not feeling any of this at all? All that measuring and quantifying, and for what payoff? A thumbs up or thumbs down on your own experience, delivered by you.

These deeply wired commands, beliefs, and strategies that you signed off on as your own can be changed whenever you decide to. It does mean a few things. You'll have to speak to yourself differently. You won't be able to let other people address you the way they used to. You'll have to describe who you are to yourself in new language. See yourself differently, produce different feelings and images, and change your inner commentary. Reach for resources that already live inside you. Recall a moment when you could, and did, and the result was wonderful, and then do that instead of all the other stuff.

Sounds easy? Maybe too easy? It really is that plain, and often it comes down to a single choice point: this or that? What do I want to feel? What do I want to experience? What if I did that right now? Who would be annoyed with me? Who might decide I'm cold? Who might judge me? Would I judge myself? Those are questions only you can answer.

To break a negative state, swing to its opposite. Anger becomes laughter. Fear becomes laughter, or doubt. Resentment becomes gratitude. Loss becomes peace and acceptance. Impatience becomes patience. And so on. Aim for the higher value, the frequency that puts you in your most resourceful state, and go there. Better yet, go there first.

We'll also need fresh questions to put to ourselves, and we'll need a way to interrupt the pattern, to cut off the inner drama about what I'm not, what I'm not getting, who isn't handing me what I want, and the rest of it. We have access to all of it. So why keep picking the least resourceful option when there's so much else on the menu? And on we breathe.

NLP and hypnotherapy are two strong tools for making this kind of change stick for good. When you actually know what you want, nothing gets in the way.