Get Rid of Those Voices in Your Head

Have you ever been working then all of a sudden your mind veers off and you start thinking "what if..." or "I should have..."?  That's nothing more than what experts call "mind chatter".  I call it a pain in the arse. My dad calls it "the devil working on you". Whatever you believe it is, this mind chatter is self-defeating and simply fuels the negativity in your life.  No one beats us up as much as we do ourselves.

So what do you do about it?  You can try to stop the chatter by thinking about something else but that only lasts a minute or two and requires your complete concentration.  You can get busy doing an activity or something that interests you but that is also subject to your complete concentration.  By that I mean you have to focus so completely on stopping the mind chatter that you end up loosing several minutes (or more) in your already crazy day.  I'm always reminded of Saturday Night Live's old episodes with "Stuart Smalley" doing the "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and dog gone it, people like me" routine with the mirror.

My favorite trick to stop the mind chatter is to simply tell it to go away.  If I find that I am mentally beating myself up, I simply look up and yell "stop it" or "Shut up".  Now keep in mind that I work from home and have no co-workers to hear me yelling at thin air.  But you can do this mentally or even in a soft whisper - just the act of saying it clears your thoughts. If you are out in public and don't even want to hazard the whisper, keep a rubber band or elasticized bracelet of some sort on your arm.  When you hear the voices start, pop the rubber band on your wrist.  The sting will literally snap the negative talk out of your head.  It's a take-off on the old quit-smoking trick.

My Dad told me to say "Get thee behind me Satan" and that also works.  I do believe that Satan is constantly working on us - to keep us down and prevent us from realizing that we truly are gifts from God.  If the "mind chatter" doesn't respond to shut up - just one "Get thee behind me Satan" will clear my head for a significant time period. 

So try this the next time you are going all Muhammed Ali on yourself in your head.  Learning to control this negative thinking goes a long way to helping you get back on your feet.

Now if the voice in your head is telling you to do stuff - seek professional help immediately. If the voice in your head makes your head spin around on its axis and you are levitating off the bed, seek a priest STAT.