14/08/2017
Despite repeated reminders from facebook I didn't upload anything for a long while..but something inside has been pushing me to do so..so here I am and I hope you all will enjoy the posts..
The internal dialogue – A game changer!
The most powerful tool that ever existed to change the way you live. Recently, I watched the movie, Inside out, that beautifully portrays different emotions that we have inside of all of us. The game changer is how many of us actually know how to use them. A person slaps you and your instant reaction could be anger, hitting back spontaneously or outburst of tears. It all depends on what we choose. You must have heard the saying of Mahatma Gandhi, If someone slaps you on one side of your face, you turn the other one to him. It happened because between the stimulus and the emotion is the internal dialogue that we choose. And all this happens in a fraction of seconds.
Recently, my sister was given a ticket for over speeding. While, the cop was following her she got so nervous that she just stopped the car on the highway. The cop was for sure furious and fined her heavily. She just stood there crying incessantly. But when she relooked at the situation she thanked her stars. Stopping the car in the middle of the highway could have been disastrous. It happened as she allowed herself to be so anxious and lost control of herself. Thus, it becomes imperative in certain situations that we choose our feelings wisely. Accept your faults but don’t lose control of your emotional reactions. The steering wheel of emotions should be held in your hands firmly.
So in other words to change how you respond to a situation, begin by changing your internal dialogue and you will experience positive feelings. The old saying ‘’sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me” has an element o truth. Know that when you feel hurt, embarrassed, angry, sad, or joyful in response to the words of others, you are choosing those feelings.
Thus, work to develop your emotional awareness. For the next week or two, when you feel an emotion, stop and ask yourself, ‘’ what am I feeling – mad, sad, glad, scared?” make yourself aware of the underlying self-talk associated with it. Learn to recognize the physical symptoms related to that feeling. Once you recognize these physical cues they will help you increase your emotional awareness. Once you become more aware and conscious you will have the power to steer the emotion in the right direction and that’s the first step towards expressing your feelings assertively. Once you accomplish that just work on the word choices to not only express your feelings, but also your opinions and thoughts and so on..so I hope this small exercise of changing the internal dialogue to a positive direction will have a huge impact on the way you think, live, or simply communicate!
