Becoming The Observer Of Your Self-Talk

We trace how a tiny jab like “what a knucklehead” spirals into stress, and how the body mirrors the words we use on ourselves. We map body, mind, and awareness, then practice small, repeatable ways to interrupt loops and build kinder self-talk.

• observing reflex self-talk and its spiral
• the energy beneath words and mood
• body signals as early warnings
• the witness stance above thoughts
• habits built for protection slipping by
• problem-thinking and overload from global stress
• interrupts that break loops kindly
• using sleep-wake windows to retrain tone
• rebuilding friendship with the body

Try it out: say “I love me” tonight and again on waking

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

We are on the line.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Again. Again. For the first time.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Yeah. I'm supposed to tell you that the sun is shining right through the trees.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Yeah. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

On a very cold morning. Cold. As in cold.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Yeah. It's that crunchy cold, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

It's coldest of cold. This is going to get a lot colder. We've had minus 40.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

It's almost there.

The “Knucklehead” Moment

SPEAKER_00 0:40

It's almost there.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

So yeah, before I recognize that I wasn't recording this podcast, we were talking about this idea of self-talk. I'll explain. I guess I'll tell you a little story. Les was looking for his notebook this morning and looking all over for it. And then just recognized that it was underneath a piece of paper in front of him. And he said to himself.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

What a knucklehead.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

And so that's when I didn't even hear you say that to yourself. Oh, wait, was it in your head?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

No, I said it over.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Oh, did you?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Because then I anything worth saying is we're saying it's loud.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Because then I thought, let's talk about self-talk. I don't know if that was divinely inspired or what, but yeah, divinely inspired.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

We were talking about self-love, and we turned more into sort of an opportunity to meditate through, you know, just a little bit of guided thought.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Yeah.

Why Observe Self-Talk

SPEAKER_00 1:51

And that seemed like the right thing to do on Friday. And then, you know, Hiller said, let's do self-talk. And I, of course, you know, your self-talk spirals. And that I think is the first maybe powerful observation is that, you know, your self-talk can really spiral down. You can take a shot at yourself. Like what a knucklehead. And then how are you going to do a podcast? And then, oh my God, listen to the way I'm talking to myself. Who am I to do podcasts on what to do with your mind? And it's like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And then you got to grab it. And grabbing it is starts with observing it. So I thought that might be a good place to start. Observing our self-talk. Why would we bother?

SPEAKER_02 2:42

So we don't feel bad. I think stress talk or stress talk. Self-talk can can start stress, right? It can encourage stress.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

It can trigger by stress.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Yeah, it can be triggered by stress. It can it can lead to uh the body feeling feeling bad, like like rapid heart rate or God, anything, anything really.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

I say the body is always listening.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yeah, I I truly think it is. Because when I say something uh uh bad about myself, I immediately feel it. And it's like, oh, get away from that. That's terrible.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

And you know, when you observe it, you observe just how used to it you are.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

And you know, there was a time when I thought um saying what a knucklehead was actually a nice self-talk. Right. I think about you know the the number of times I lovingly have said to my kids, what a goofball, where's your hat? Right. And that's where their self-talk comes from. And that's like that was like nice talk. That was like being teasing and fun. More and more I see teasing is just not helpful. Um doesn't go anywhere good. Yeah, you know, so I think, you know, where did where did what a knucklehead come from? And and why would I interpret that as a or intending as a loving self-talk? I think self-talk observing it is is really interesting. You know, we we all have our favorites. I've talked about one I've I've used on myself for years. Um, and it's I think it comes from uh an attempt to impose discipline on yourself.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

And to view your mistakes as guilt. Mistakes imply there's something wrong with me. And using them in that direction of discipline. I'm gonna be hard on myself. Like that's a good thing. I'm going to sometimes our self-talk doesn't even have a lot of words in it, it's just energy. Now, self-talk can be just self-frustration. Yeah, frustration with self is a really wicked one.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Yeah, I I I probably suffer from that mostly the energy one. It's not if you've been listening to our podcasts over the the the years, my mind is less words and more images. And so when I do have I know this sounds insane, but like when I do have words go through my mind in a complete sentence, it's like, oh, what's that? And usually when it's a complete sentence, it's not not very nice. So, you know, to think about that also through the lens of, yeah, where's where's that coming from? But also to the energy portion of it. Yeah, I'd never I until you said that just now about the energy part, I'd never thought about self-talk being, as an adult at least, energetically infused and and causing issues.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

It's interesting how we know we have a body, right? There's the body, it's always screaming for attention. It's either hungry or it's tired or it's you know sore or the body's constantly screaming for attention. It's got a runny nose, right? Its eye is itchy, right? The body is constantly screaming for attention, which is probably good because maybe we don't give it the attention it deserves. But we have this body mind, and then because we can be aware of our body, it it there's a there's a higher mind, right? There's a higher mind that's aware of the body, navigating the body, managing the body, and managing a whole bunch of habitual thoughts, and then there is the awareness behind the mind. That's who you are. If you can be aware of your thoughts, if you are not your thoughts, and you can be aware of your thoughts, then you are not your thoughts, and you are an awareness above those thoughts. And so somewhere between the body-mind that is listening all the time, the higher conscious, subconscious mind, with all of its habitual activity and quick reaction is reacting to everything around it. And then we can observe from that highest viewpoint. And I think that highest viewpoint has a number of levels, a number of types of connection. And to be aware of that is a skill, I think. A skill that you can develop, a skill that you can become good at. It can also become habitual, right? Which is in some ways good, right? Using that subconscious mind to constantly, if it's going to constantly remind you of the mistakes you make, or if it's going to constantly remind you not to be whatever, if it's going to constantly remind you to be afraid, it can also constantly remind you to observe. You can develop that habit. Watch what's going on, watch what's going on within, not just without. Watch what's going on in the subconscious mind. Watch what's going on with the body. And I think that as you develop that practice, that skill, you know, um, I think there's there's a wonderful question you can ask yourself any time of the day. Why am I thinking that? Why am I thinking that? The answer most of the time is probably habit. I have the habit of thinking that. I have thought that a million times. And unless I actively try to think something different, I will think it another million times.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

I wonder why, you know, when we're thinking something negatively, negative, and we feel we feel caught up in it. We feel yeah, negative, frustrated, angry, sad. I wonder why we loop it. You know, we just keep it going for the most part, unless we become the observer and pull back and go, what am I doing here? Which most of us, I don't think we do. Uh we don't take the moments to to go, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, slow down. Where's this taking me? Why am I thinking this? I wonder why the body loves to I don't know. It it seems like it gets caught up in these feelings, and it's like, yeah, let's feel more of that. Let's sit in this. And it can just become this looping, looping thing.

Body, Mind, And Awareness

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Well, I think the looping thing is habit, and I think habits that are designed to protect us that came with the intention of protecting us, have a greater likelihood of slipping by without analysis. Because it's meant to be good for us.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

So self-criticism, we've all been raised with that. We've been raised with criticism. We've been raised to learn to take on the role of critic as self-critic. At some point or another, we took we took that off our parents' plate. We we said, okay, you don't have to worry about criticizing me anymore. I can do that for myself. And, you know, uh, as always, you know, it's not meant to pick on parents. It's meant to understand our role. You know, I wasn't always a parent, and I do a lot less parenting now at this time in my life. And there was a time when parenting was everything, it was the focus of everything. I think it's good to understand that we are hurt people raised by hurt people who were raised by hurt people. We are we are all going through a very uh I like to use the word crazy. We we're all living in a crazy place, this world. It it's constantly surprising us and often seems irrational and is quick to throw problems at us. And maybe the word problem is the is the big word. I because that's an interpretation word.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Right, you're judging it?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Well, there's a big component of judgment in it.

unknown 11:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

It is it is an interpretation, first of all, that whatever's going on affects me. And often that's not true. After it's an interpretation that it affects me, it's an interpretation that it is a problem. This is this is bad, this is difficult, this increases my requirement of engaging. It's sort of a negative kind of word. And the world itself appears to be filled with problems all the time, which are constantly grabbing our attention because we think it's a problem for us. And maybe it's not. Maybe we were trained to be a global person and think that if somebody's having trouble in Indonesia today, it's a problem for me here in Toronto. Or if somebody is in Montreal and having problems, that the people of Florida need to pay attention to that. Sometimes we like problems, we go out of our way. Like, you know, some people like me, like I can't go to bed till I've done the wordle. I want I want to solve a problem. Some people have Sudoku books. Is that the right way to pronounce it? Whole books of of crossword puzzles, right? They love problems, mathematical problems. Give me some calculus to do.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

I think those humans were, I don't think we're meant to be worried about or a take-on worry of the whole world. I mean, that's way too much. You know, we we for most of civilization lived in small communities. And yeah, I think when it's a small community, we can band together and help and and worry about our neighbor and hopefully everyone takes care of each other in ways, right? But I think the idea of of uh just the yeah, just this feeling like the whole world's on fire and I need to put it out, I need to put the fire out, is is a lot. It's a lot for the mind. And no, no wonder people are just stressed out of their minds.

Building The Observer Habit

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah, we've learned to think in certain ways, and they tend to be all pointed at the idea that we're unsafe and we need to do something about that. And we're unsafe because of the world and its problems, we're unsafe because of ourselves and our simple human foibles. We're unsafe because things are unpredictable. And that that constant idea of being unsafe is a vibration now. It's the vibrational level from which you're doing everything. Your thoughts, your habits, all of that stuff. And that, I think, is that first level of awareness, you know, observing, seeing that in your own mind, I think would be powerful. Not dwelling in it, again, observing from a higher perspective, using the capacity of your mind to be aware that it is not the body, though it's completely reliant on the body, and deeply embedded in the body, and can be deeply grateful for the body, and that it is above this capacity to think, this capacity to learn of conscious thinking and subconscious thinking, unconscious thinking, and being aware of those kinds of things, right? I can be aware that there's some part of my mind that's keeping my heart beating. I can check, check my pulse. There it is. Okay, yeah, it's still working, right? I'm breathing. Holy smokes, look at that. I'm breathing. Most of the time, I don't realize I'm breathing, but I'm breathing. Being aware of that, and then spending more time in that part of your mind, I think, is useful. Because from that control point, that executive function, you can start to look at habits, you can start to observe habits, you can say, where did that come from? You can see how we teach each other ways of thinking, ways of interpreting things that then become vibrational rather than deliberate or thought-based. There isn't even thought-based now in fear. Fear just arises. And it can arise quickly of nothing. You know, me marching around the house trying to find my notebook. Started with confusion and then became frustration, and then became fear, and then became relief, and then became frustration again, which led me to call myself knucklehead. Because I don't want me doing that. I don't want me doing that again. And so I need to make sure I don't do that again. So I need to say something to myself, as my parents would have, when I lost my mitts or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Oh, I see. Okay, yeah. I was wondering when you said don't do it again, what what what are you want not wanting to do again?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Lose track of my notebook. I'm pretty reliant on that notebook, on my notebooks, as four of them sit here in front of me.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Yes. Yes. I love how you write in notebooks. I my notebooks are not I'm not as full, but I I want that ability. I'm trying.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Well, we all have our our way of sorting our thoughts, but uh really what we're you know, to pretend like we have a theme going on here. The real theme is we talk to ourselves often in less than loving ways.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Yeah.

Loops, Fear, And Protection

SPEAKER_00 18:09

And that's one of the primary demonstrations of our level of self-love. If you talk to yourself in a way that you would not talk to somebody else, if you talk to yourself with words that you would never use when you talk to somebody that you love, your state of self-love has some has some need. And so what it comes back to is just, you know, how it happens. It happens so automatically, it comes out of habits. Those habits are not just uh activity-based, they are vibrationally based. There is an unspoken element to all of this that doesn't rely on words. There's an emotional element of this. And what is what it calls for is observation, first and foremost. You can't you can't do anything about it if you're not examining it, if you're not taking the time to say what's going on inside me.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Without the ability to say, I have a body, I have a mind, I use them to live my life in this world, but I don't have to be caught within them. I can observe and guide them. I can observe and be aware of habits. Habits are good and bad, as we've said a million times. I can be aware of those habits and I can examine their usefulness. I can examine their origins. I can examine their vibrational contribution to me. I can examine the emotions that they trigger in me. I can examine how those emotions can become moods. I can examine that. I can examine how a thought can be either held on to or let go of. And how do I do that? How do I let go of a thought that isn't serving me? I can examine that and ask myself, well, what would the opposite of that be? There's a lot my higher mind can do, that that me, the me behind all the mental activity, the me behind the physical activity. There's a lot I can do if I'm aware that I can observe, if I can spend more time in that part of my mind, then I can really become aware of what I am. I'm gonna use that word, what I am.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

I think, you know, uh just in uh recognition of what's going on in the mind, there's there's a tendency to go, well, I I want to keep thinking this way because someone needs to be punished.

unknown 21:14

Right?

SPEAKER_02 21:14

I need to, I I need to blame myself. I need to, if I can't blame other people for this, I need to blame myself. And I think thoughts that are helpful to stop the the cycling, the spiraling are thoughts like maybe where did this thought come from? Who who gave me this thought way, way, way, way back when? Who whose voice does this thought sound like? Maybe for some people. And yeah, uh I had another one, but I've forgotten it. But just calling it out to to try to stop the the the thought. I know in the past when I have a a crazy You know, mean thought come into my head. And there I am, like judging the thought crazy, right? But uh I'll say I don't want to label this podcast explicit, so I'll say f off. You know, I'll say uh, you know, go away or get out of here or you know, just just not not now, not now. And then I go into thinking, God, who's thinking these things, right? Because I feel at that moment like, well, if I'm so in charge here, why why are these thoughts coming at me? Right? Who's really in charge? Am I in charge? Sometimes I don't feel like it. In the in the chat, I love that you picked this topic today. I was doing some very negative talk yesterday and gave myself a headache.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, there you go. God bless you. You know, that's that's a wonderful observation. But God's powerful.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Did you know in when you had the headache that it came from that, or did you recognize that this morning? No, I I can see it now, now that we're talking about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

That's okay. Yeah, that's okay. You see it. Like I that's just huge to me.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

We we spend very little energy being aware of ourselves. The world just commands our attention, our body just commands our attention. We're so darn busy, right? But let's, you know, there's there's an opportunity for a reframe, right? The reframe there says, now I understand where my headache came from. Now I have an awareness that my body, when I'm using my mind negatively, is going to react. I can start to use that for my own benefit now. As soon as I get a hint of a headache, I can stop and say, What am I thinking that's causing a headache?

Problem Thinking And Overload

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah, that that makes sense what you're saying, because in the chat I can feel the cycling in the pain.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

I don't always hear the talk behind it until the pain begins. But now I if I have a headache, I immediately stop and focus on my internal talk. So exactly what you just said, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

And and the great thing is, is that's gonna become a habit. Yeah, you're gonna get good at this, and you're gonna save a lot of money on Advil.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah. I think, and that's any part of the body, like any any anytime the body yells at you, yeah, from whether it's your pinky finger to your headache. Yeah, just ask yourself, what am I thinking right now? Just try it as an exercise.

From Lost Notebook To Self-Blame

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah, and I'll share that for the last three days, out of nowhere, I'm suffering with a toothache. Like, not just like a toothache, like debilitating sudden out-of-nowhere pain. And I've been spending some money on that though. And yeah, I I I did the fun thing. I think there's a lot of ways to get into your own mind. And this morning it was there was an awareness that that pain in part is more than the tooth that's coming from somewhere else. And so I pulled a card on it this morning. So, what is this pain trying to teach me? Now I'm aware of the work of Louise Hay. And um Louise Hay has a book, You Can Heal Your Life, I think it's called, and it's all about, you know, what do what are the mental emotional elements to physical ailments? And we don't have to worry about cause or effect or all those things that might make us argue. Let's just understand that when we have physical ailments, we have mental things going on. And so addressing the mental things can be very helpful. And so teeth represent decisions, decisiveness, the ability to make decisions. And as you might imagine, given everything that's going on in our life, I've got about 47 million decisions to make. And one of which is just sort of balancing where resources go. Where are we, where are we allocating resources here? Because we're not going to be here. So, what kind of resources do we want to allocate to this place? And yeah, the card was good. The card says, you know, share some of that responsibility for Hillary. But the the point is what things can you put down? What things can you stop thinking about? What things can you stop trying to solve? The card was the Ten of Wands for those who might be interested in this. Anyway, I'm always looking for some insight into my mind. I'm always trying to be the observer. I don't always succeed like this morning when I was trying to remember where the heck I put my notebook. And then as the observer, I realized that my self-talk wasn't helpful. I don't know anybody in the world that is assisted or promoted or made stronger by the term knucklehead. I don't see now, as an observer, any positive connotation, any positive meaning, any positive vibration coming out of that. It's not encouraging, it's not supportive, it's certainly not loving. It comes from a whole family history of teasing, tease, tease, tease. It comes from probably a deeply embedded inability to know how and when to express love in a family that's very loving, but it still has its issues around it. And all of that forms part of my deep subconscious mind, my daily habits that just express themselves without any need for intention. And that's a lot of observation, that's a lot of awareness. And all of that awareness leads me to the question that I think we probably have to address tomorrow, which is how do I change that self-talk? Yeah. What do I do when I've taken the time to become aware that I have this habit, and this habit includes vibrations and words, and it's not serving me. Now, for some people, they're gonna say, well, this is not a big deal. This this is the least of my worries today. And that's okay. Right? We all have our priorities and we all have our habits, and some people might actually have good habits. I don't generally meet those people because they don't come looking for hypnosis, but nonetheless, you know, if today you can make your quest, trying to be more aware of what's going on in your mind and where that might have come from and whether or not it's serving you. And, you know, as our friend says, you know, it it it impacts us physically and to be aware of that, yeah, that's that's wonderful. That's incredibly insightful. And it's that's those are the invitations for change.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Yeah. Yeah. I think I think self-talk is huge. You know, as we wrap up today, I, you know, my my own, just to give a little bit of storyline, is I've been really trying to change my self-talk. And I think the best time to try to change it is as you're waking up in the morning or as you're falling asleep at night. You know, we are going through those those brain waves that make things a little easier to put into habit. So just saying to yourself, I love me, I love, I love this body, I love uh my feet, I love my legs, I love my spleen, I love, you know, just going through the body and just really becoming friends with it again. In the background, it's not released yet, it'll be released probably over the next week at some point, but I'm working on a classroom for you guys. And part of that classroom is becoming friends with the body again. When I went through a sleeping disorder when I was in the depths of it, I thought my body had turned on me. And I started like hating my body and hating my life, and oh my god, like I couldn't even see tomorrow, live alone five years from now. And I think a lot of people with whether it's that or whether it's an illness or or something going on or nothing going on, maybe maybe just have issues with the body and just the the pathway to reconnecting with yourself again, with the body, and becoming yeah, becoming friends with it again. So I I practice pretty much every night and uh in the morning when I remember it is just to do that reconnection. And that's just starting out with I love me, right? So try it out. It actually feels good, it feels nice. It's almost like it's almost like every cell in your body is listening to you, and when they hear those kind words, they just you can feel them. It's like uh, I don't know, you gotta try it out, and and you'll know what I'm talking about. But anyway, we gotta wrap up here because we're going to the gym. But thank you for hanging out, and we will see you. Thank you.