The Voice Inside
By Maggie Lowery
Photo by Callum Skelton via Unsplash.
We all have that little negative voice that shows up in our moments of annoyance or anger, telling us the worst things about people or things. Have we ever stopped and wondered what that little voice is or where it comes from? This little voice is classified as our “inner monologue” or our inner voice. This means that the same voice you use to give yourself a pep talk before a meaningful conversation or a big presentation is the same voice that helps to feed into your negative thoughts.
According to psychologist and neuroscientist, Ethan Kross stated in an interview with GQ, this negative dip that our inner monologue dips into is called “Chatter”. Chatter happens when something bad happens or things turn south, and instead of talking outward to ourselves, we instead turn inwards on ourselves and our actions. When we turn inwards, we get almost sucked in this endless cycle of negativity and have a hard to near impossible time trying to get ourselves out of this cycle. Everyone is affected by chatter from Olympic athletics to young children in slightly similar ways. Chatter is a completely normal part of life and just because you are affected by chatter doesn't mean that there's something wrong with your mental health per se since it’s just a normal part of a negative dip in our internal thinking.
The most difficult part of dealing with chatter isn’t just refusing to give in to the chatter, it’s also learning and combating the chatter. Because of the native feedback loop that we get sucked into and find it difficult to escape or leave this loop without struggle and get sucked back in deeper making exit harder. Some easy practices that one can use to find the strength against this chatter are; mediation skills to help clear your mind of the noise, write down your thoughts on paper to help get it out of your head as well as to help you process some of these thoughts, try to immerse yourself in an activity that will require your full attention this will help you think more about the activity that you are engaged in at the moment rather than the weights of your thoughts.
Chatter is one of those things a part of life that we don't like to give much thought to because of how we are affected by it. If we are more aware and the more attention we bring to things like this, we can be better prepared for how to help not just ourselves, but also others who are affected by this every day.