Mentally replaying conversations
When I saw the title for today’s meditation I literally laughed out loud. If ever there was a terrible pattern that I would love to break, this is it. I’m not sure where I learned this little gem of a habit but I have had a very difficult time breaking myself of it. Fortunately for me, according to Ethan Kross, I’m normal. Whew! That’s fabulous. Except that sometimes I feel like I’m driving myself insane, which most definitely does not feel normal, so what do I do about it??
First of all, Ethan tells us that, as humans, our brains do this type of thing automatically. And what he calls our “inner voice” can be very helpful in sorting through things and learning about ourselves. When we look back on a conversation or situation calmly and objectively, work through it, learn from it, and move forward it’s called “reflection”. When we look back at it and simply relive the negative feelings like we’re circling the drain it’s called “rumination”. Not so great. In fact, Ethan calls it “chatter” and he’s been studying it for a long time. He says that it’s normal to replay conversations or situations however if we just keep “chewing on it” then we never “digest it” – and those are two very different things.
The key to stopping the broken record and getting over the glitch is something we can do whenever we want – with self-talk. Ethan says that there are a few steps we must take in order for it to work. To begin, he asks us to think of a recent conversation that we keep replaying. Next he says to, interestingly, step back for a moment – out of the situation (or off the spinning record, etc.). Then he says to use our name and “you”, not “I”, and ask,
“Amy, why is this bothering you so much?”
Listen to the answer, then ask yourself,
“Amy, what would you tell a friend in this situation?”
I’ll be honest, this is not what I thought he was talking about when he first mentioned self-talk. But when I stopped and thought about it for a moment, it made sense. Basically, if we step outside of ourselves and the situation we might possibly see things a bit more clearly instead of wallowing in it. We might be able to see it from a slightly different perspective and be able to dig deeper into why we’re going ’round and ’round. Once we’ve answered these questions he then says to ask one more question:
“What’s the ONE thing you can actually take from this?”
In other words, what’s the lesson here? What did we learn from this experience that we can take with us into the future? It doesn’t mean that something like this will never happen again, but we can at least arm ourselves with tools to avoid it if we can or at least work through it. Once we figure out the lesson, we can then move on. So by doing this practice it brings us out of the ever-spinning cycle and back into the practice of reflection. I imagine part of the trick is answering the questions honestly, with an open mind, and actually listening.
I hope that you found something valuable to take away from today’s session, even if this isn’t something that you do all the time. It might come in handy one day. You never know.
Namaste.
#breakyourpatternschallenge
#insighttimer
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