Talking To Myself
by Pippa on March 8, 2009
A wise woman* once described her self-help ethos to me:
“It’s called ‘Having a talk with yourself.’”
And it was all based on the understanding that it’s far easier to give other people advice than it is to apply those same principles to your own life. When one followed the principles of Having a talk with yourself, you basically talked sense to yourself rather than wallowing and repeating the same behaviour.
If you were feeling sad you should cheer yourself up in the same way that you’d cheer up a friend. Apart from ensuring you ate high quality chocolate, you’d also have a talk with yourself.
Not sure what direction to take your life in? Have a talk with yourself!
Broken up with your girlfriend? Have a talk with yourself!
Of course, it’s far easier to give other people advice than it is to apply those same principles to your own life. Sadly, the wise woman never actually wrote the book or provided me with any more advice about the practical side of having a talk with yourself and taking action afterwards.
Though, I have an idea that one of the best ways to do the “talking” is with regular journalling. The summer that I moved to Helsinki I made some amazing life changes and I feel that the main reason for that action was that I was writing Morning Pages every day for several months. Every morning I effectively was sitting down to a conversation that was about the things I needed to deal with in both the short and long-term. And because I checked in with myself every day, I made sure I took action. It was brilliant.
Frustratingly in the couple of years since I left Finland, I haven’t been able to return to the habit of writing 3 pages a morning. I’ve tried to restart the a couple of times and it just hasn’t felt like the right or the easiest thing to do. Now though I feel like I could start to develop the habit of Morning Pages again. I’m waking up earlier and I have a calm, light room that I want to spend time doing things in. I have a chair I found on Skalitzer Str and a desk my landlord gave me when he was cleaning out the cellar. Now I just need to try and keep waking up earlier every day!
* The wise woman is my old housemate Marlaina Read. You can check out her photos or take a look at the online arts journal Invisible City that’s she’s launching this week.
One comment
Hi Pippa!
Its Bethanie, Glenn’s god-daughter, and I love your site. Indeed,
I feel the same way – its much easier said than done. I once found myself caught up and confused as to why I can see so clearly others downfalls, and not realize my
own. I think it comes down to, in a strange way, mirroring our own vice’s
on others – sort of reflecting our own problems… wow, deep!
I dunno the root of it, but I feel that somewhere along the line there is
a part of us that see’s what we would want to see in ourselves. Its almost as if
the best remedy is ‘talking to ourselves as if to another complete person’ – so long as we don’t begin conversations with our invisible selves then we’re good.
by Bethanie Dresden on March 10, 2009 at 12:10 am. #