Whose voice is that?

We all have one, even if we haven’t identified it. That voice which chatters away at inopportune moments. It’s referred to by many names – chatterbox, monkey mind, 3am demon, internal terrorist, what’s yours called?

Why do we have one?

Our chatterbox was very useful once. As cavemen/women it was constantly reminding us that the world was a dangerous place – eat lunch or be eaten for lunch!! We would never have survived if our instincts had been ‘oh that looks like a learning opportunity, let’s stop running and see what we can learn!'

It was there to make sure we fulfilled our main aim - to survive in order to procreate.

However, millions of years on and it hasn’t evolved in line with the rest of our processing skills. Our chatterbox is still telling us that the world is a dangerous place and someone is out to eat/kill you. Yes there are dangers but the majority are much less severe – today you are much more likely to stub your toe than be killed. But our chatterbox doesn’t distinguish severity, so it will scream at you to STOP!! DON’T DO THAT!! BE AFRAID!!

What can you do to override your chatterbox?

• Recognise what your chatterbox is and why we all have one.
• Thank your chatterbox for helping us survive and evolve.
• Write down the evidence that what your chatterbox is telling you is false (a time when you did something similar and it worked out OK).
• What would you say to your friend if they wanted to do something new/different?
• Ask yourself what is the worst thing that could happen.
• Then go out and DO IT!

I would love to hear what you do to quieten your chatterbox. alison@steps-forward.co.uk