Isn’t it interesting how you could read something by Billy Connelly and in your head, it is in his voice? Our inner voice or thoughts can lead us to the greatest of exciting ideas or spinning into the black hole of depression. What are these thoughts, and can we control them?
It has been estimated that an average brain has anywhere from 25,000 to 50,000 thoughts a day and 70% of them are believed to be negative. Consciousness has been described as having two parts. The first is an awareness of thought (but we don’t actually have any power to turn that awareness on or off). The second is the content of our thoughts. Would we really think those 17,500-35,000 negative thoughts if we actually had the choice? Hell NO! So, let us all agree, most of what we think we don’t actively choose to think it. Our minds get in the habit of putting on the same old crappy records in our head, over and over.
So, if you didn’t choose to think it in the first place, how on earth are you supposed to change what you think? It is not as easy as just choosing to think something more positive. Sometimes you will need the help of someone like a hypnotherapist, to swap the records for you, but here are a few things you can try yourself.
Remember Tracey Chapman? When her first record came out, I loved it, I had her CD on repeat all the time. My husband was not so fond of Tracey, he would rather hear nails go down a blackboard. One day I put her CD on and it was jumping all over the place, I tried again, same thing. I took it out and looked at it, the CD was all scratched. Who knows how that happened? (My husband still swears to this day it wasn’t him). But the result was, the end of listening to Tracey Chapman.
You too can scratch the crappy record in your head. Whenever you notice it is playing, interrupt it. Try things like; move where you are sitting, move your body, think the thoughts faster, think them slower, think them backwards, think them with an Irish accent, do something you have to concentrate on, stand up and do the hokey pokey or the chicken dance, turn the voice into Mickey Mouse. Scratch the hell out of that record so it gets so messed up it just cannot play anymore.
Another common problem for people, is hopping into bed and then their mind going a hundred miles an hour worrying about something and they are unable to get to sleep. So next time this happens I want you to just change the pace of the voice in your head. It can still think the same thoughts but turn it into a slow, tired and yawny voice. It tells your mind that it is tired and time to sleep.
So, it’s not as simple as just choosing to think differently. But now you can have a little fun scratching those old records. What if we turned all those negative thoughts in our head into Billy Connelly’s voice? I doubt they would feel so bad.