Internal dialogue is a continuous process that takes place in the mind of every person. It is communication with oneself. We are accustomed to not noticing how thoughts rush in our heads, uniting in logical chains, building a series of associations with certain words or events. At first glance, there is nothing wrong with this, but do you know how to stop the internal dialogue at the right time? Such a “brake pedal” for thoughts is simply necessary in situations where you need to focus and direct the energy of the upper chakras in the right direction, namely, to enhance creative abilities and activate conscious thinking.
Alone with thoughts: why stop the internal dialogue?
Learning to stop the internal dialogue is necessary, first of all, for the development of creative abilities, focusing on what is really important, limiting the amount of energy wasted by the brain. In addition, internal dialogue is the main obstacle on the way to relaxation and complete isolation from worldly fuss. It is very difficult to get rid of stress and discard worries when inside you are constantly thinking about something and discussing something.
Many people find it very difficult not to think about anything at all for at least 20 seconds. As soon as we try not to think about anything, the thought “Don’t think about anything!” is visualized in the head. As a result, a person thinks how not to think about anything, that is, the internal dialogue continues.
How to stop the internal dialogue - learning to control the mind
First of all, as for all meditation practices, it is necessary to limit the impact of external stimuli as much as possible. Secondly, comfort is very important: take a relaxing position and tune in to the thought control process. As practice shows, it is best to do this after waking up or before going to bed.
To stop the internal dialogue, it is also important to learn to take the position of an observer and try to trace the process of the emergence of thoughts, as well as the stages of their transition into new thoughts. In the future, this will help you stop the internal dialogue.
There are four main methods for stopping internal dialogue:
- for smart;
- for the cunning;
- for the strong;
- for the patient.
How to stop the internal dialogue: the "smart" method
Move to the position of the observer, detachedly monitor your consciousness and try to determine the point of origin of the thought. Gently push away spontaneous thoughts, without uttering the phrase “Now I will stop this thought” inside yourself, because. this kind of thinking is also an internal dialogue that you learn to stop.
To achieve success and learn how to stop the internal dialogue, you will need a lot of effort. An important condition is complete silence for 3-5 minutes. Over time, you will be able to maintain inner silence without much effort.
To consolidate the result, as soon as you reach the state of silence, come up with a code word for it, or rather a phrase to build an association with such a state - this way you will make it easier to stop the internal dialogue.
How to stop the internal dialogue: the method "for the cunning"
This method is based on a distracting maneuver for consciousness. So, you have to focus your mind on mental work of a monotonous nature, which at the same time should completely capture your attention.
For example, imagine some geometric figure (a red pyramid, a green cube, a pink ball, etc.) or any object. Your task is to imagine how the selected object slowly rotates. You must fully concentrate on the representation of the shape, size, color, speed of rotation of the object, without being distracted by other thoughts.
How to stop the internal dialogue: the method "for the strong"
Only a person with a fairly developed willpower can stop the internal dialogue with this method (which, by the way, also does not interfere with work). At first glance, this method is extremely simple: you simply order your thoughts to go out of your head. However, in practice, this is not at all easy to achieve: few people have such willpower that can simply force the internal dialogue to stop. Perhaps, as you improve your thought control skills, you will master this method of stopping the internal dialogue.
How to stop the internal dialogue: the method "for the patient"
This method helps to stop the internal dialogue, as well as the method with the visualization of the subject, since your only thought should be the score. Breathe and count from one to one hundred. If an extraneous thought creeps into your head, stop counting and start again. Count until you can fully concentrate on the numbers. If desired, or in case of success, you can increase the score to any number if you have time for this practice: 200, 300, and even 1000. It will be easier to achieve a state of silence in your head.
Learn to stop the internal dialogue at will - and you will see how easy it is to move away from the hustle and bustle, deal with stress and other disturbing thoughts. Moreover, you will become more creative, because the energy of your consciousness will not be wasted on unnecessary thoughts that will not bring any benefit. It is worth noting that there are other ways to stop the internal dialogue, but they are more complex - you can go to them after improving the above methods of detaching from thoughts.!
Good day to everyone who reads this article. Today we will reflect on a very interesting topic.
Perhaps you have some experience of meditation and complete relaxation. And, perhaps, on the contrary, it can be difficult for you to fall asleep, relax, various thoughts come up, not that they are negative, but you definitely don’t have peace from them. It happened.
What is this? How to deal with it, is it necessary to fight, is it possible to stop this mental noise, and perhaps even benefit from it? That is exactly what you will learn from this article on the topic "Stopping the internal dialogue."
Origins
The psyche and inner world of a newborn child is a blank slate. Gradually, the imprints of upbringing, social norms, the opinions of others, schools, friends, and parents are superimposed on him. This is how our mindset comes into being. The picture of the world, born by external factors, thought over by the brain and passed through the inner consciousness creates our life and subjective reality.
The thought process continues to shape our picture of the world throughout life, without changing or stopping. In addition to the picture of the world, a person's thoughts create an image of himself in his own mind. The background thought process proceeds in the form of a mental dialogue and fetters us, keeping us within the framework of the formed ideas.
And now an adult is trying to influence his environment, change his life and other people, but nothing comes of it. "How so?" - he laments and does not understand - “well, what am I doing wrong, why do I need this, why is this so?” And the blame for everything is our attitudes, created and fixed by our internal dialogue.
Mental dialogue from the point of view of psychology
The concept of mental dialogue in psychology has been mentioned quite often and for a long time. This is the internal communication of a person with himself, it does not stop, except perhaps in a dream or during a change in the state of consciousness (but more on that another time). So, often a person himself does not realize that a lot of thoughts are constantly spinning in his brain, very often unrelated to each other. Each of them, like a tail, clings to a “piece” of the one that has just left, following it, and so on in an endless string.
E. Bern, the creator of the theory of transactional analysis, explained the internal dialogue as an endless communication of different states in which our ego resides. These are the state of the child, the state of the parent, and the state of the adult. These three models constantly communicate with each other, often contradicting each other.
This theory is closely related to psychoanalysis, where, as you know, Freud singled out three structures of the human psyche: "IT" (or "libido"), "I" (or "EGO") and "SUPER-I" (or "SUPER-EGO"). ").
At the subconscious (that is, unconscious) level, these structures are in a state of conflict. There is a simple explanation for this. “IT” obeys the principles of pleasure and happiness (which is the main goal in human life), “SUPER-I”, on the contrary, is a kind of censor, it is conscience, the bearer of moral and ethical standards.
"I" is trying to establish a balance between craving for pleasure and moral standards. If, for the sake of "libido", but in opposition to the "SUPER-EGO", "I" performs a certain act or makes a decision, then it experiences remorse and guilt. In addition to these two structures, our "I" is also dominated by the opinion of society with its requirements, social norms and foundations.
In Gestalt psychology, for example, the technique of internal dialogue is often used for therapeutic purposes. When a person has a problem situation with which he turns to a specialist practicing Gestalt therapy, he invites him to initiate a conscious internal dialogue. The purpose of such a dialogue is the mental logical completion of a situation that arose in the past, is not finished and causes problematic consequences in the present. But here we are talking about meaningful dialogue.
It is one thing when we consciously begin to think and ponder future plans, to look for possible solutions to emerging problems. And it’s completely different when endless reflection begins (internal assessment and digging into one’s own feelings and sensations), experiencing again and again events that have remained in the past, blaming or self-flagellation for certain actions of one’s own self.
What type of people are you? Are you using your own brain productively?
Internal dialogue in esotericism
In esoteric science, the concept of internal dialogue became widely used after Carlos Castaneda covered it in his books. According to his teachings, the internal dialogue completely deprives the brain of flexibility and openness. It captures a certain perception of the world, which is repeated over and over again, affirmed by an endless internal dialogue.
Special creatures - flyers (inorganic entities) through an internal dialogue inspire people to perceive the world through greed, pity, boredom, despondency, envy and other negative qualities. And the flyers themselves at this time “pump out” energy from us, leaving only a very small amount, which is enough only to be obsessed with their ego and endlessly reflect.
A person does not realize that the thoughts that arise in the process of internal dialogue are the "intrigues" of the flyers, but they believe that these are their own reflections. Thus, he constantly loses energy and lives an absolutely limited life, perceiving the world in a one-sided plane.
If you stop the internal dialogue, then you can get rid of the attacks of the flyers. This will lead to awareness and openness, the worldview will change, the world will shine with many new lights that you could not even dream of before.
Everything that surrounds us is not an objective reality, it is our perception of the world, born of an endless dialogue with ourselves about ourselves and the world. And this dialogue is always the same. And until he changes, nothing will change in life. Castaneda believes that if the internal dialogue is not stopped, a person will not be able to change anything either in himself or in his picture of the world.
Signs and consequences of internal dialogue
- inability to concentrate;
- constant mental noise in the head;
- incessant reflection;
- state of permanent stress;
- inconsistency of consciousness;
- inability to make decisions;
- causeless anxiety;
- suspiciousness, suggestibility;
- insomnia;
- tightness in the physical and mental plane;
- one-sided flat perception of the world;
- limited thinking;
- drowsiness;
- difficulty in practicing meditation;
- inability to control one's own thoughts;
- living life on "autopilot", not realizing oneself in the current moment;
- aggression, guilt.
And believe me, this is not a complete list. And now you are ready to realize, wake up, become a warrior (for fans of Castaneda), in short, are you ready to stop the internal dialogue? No one promises an easy way, but it's worth it, believe me.
Ways to stop
There are many techniques for achieving inner silence, silence, purification, catharsis, insight. We will tell you about some of them. They are divided into mental and physical. The first group of methods refers to mental.
Stop by will power
These methods are suitable for individuals with a developed imagination, the ability to visualize and at least slightly control their own thoughts.
Reconstruction of the thoughtform. It is best to practice this method in seclusion and tranquility, ideally before going to bed. Relax as much as possible, starting from the tips of your toes to the top of your head. Visualize any thought form, it can be a rotating ball, a sphere, a fiery cube, a luminous cone. Concentrate completely on this idea, keep it in your mind, do not allow attention to shift and extraneous thoughts.
Check. This seemingly simple method can be practiced at any time, provided that nothing distracts or interferes with you. Start counting backwards from a thousand. Count as much as you can while thinking only about numbers.
mental order(complete internal silence). Just tell yourself not to think, to shut up. Use your willpower to “catch” thoughts. As soon as a thought appears in your inner field of vision, immediately give yourself an order.
Stalking. This is tracking your own thoughts, feelings, reactions of sensations in order to have complete control over yourself.
mental contemplation. Recreating with the help of imagination in your mind mental images of existing or non-existent places, countries, natural phenomena, viewing and focusing on them.
Physical practices
Contemplation. Unlike volitional methods, this practice uses the complete "letting go" of thoughts. Choose an object of contemplation, it can be a sea surface, natural beauty, a fire, a waterfall, a starry sky. Just watch and let go of your thoughts, don't try to control or stop them, let them flow freely, just relax and enjoy the contemplation. At one fine moment, you will feel that there are simply no thoughts, your whole being is filled with aesthetic beauty. Practice this method more often, and in addition to stopping the internal dialogue, you will experience pleasure and peace.
Hard physical work. If volitional methods fail to overcome obsessive mental noise, exhausting labor can be used. Your body will be exhausted by fatigue, and your thoughts will only circle in the area of opportunity for rest and relaxation. It can be power sports, wrestling, walking, running, swimming.
Meditation and yoga- classical methods of stopping not only the internal dialogue.
However, they require a systematic approach and have a lot of other positive effects.
Tensegrite- these are special exercises that Castaneda describes in his book "The Magical Passes of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico."
sensory deprivation. A win-win. This is a "shutdown" of one or more, and ideally all of the senses. This can be achieved by eliminating the influence of external factors.
There are special sensory deprivation chambers. The conditions of sensory deprivation in the chamber are complete darkness and silence (thus, the effects on the organs of hearing and vision are eliminated). A person is placed in a container filled with salt water, which creates weightlessness due to its density. The temperature of the water is equal to the temperature of the body (thermosensitivity is eliminated).
But you can’t just abuse it, in short time intervals the brain is literally cleared, the internal dialogue stops, the consciousness is reconstructed, complete relaxation and relaxation sets in. With a long stay in the sensory deprivation chamber, the effect can be the opposite: hallucinations, depression, and inappropriate behavior occur.
The sensory deprivation chamber can be partially recreated at home in your own bathroom. Fill it with water at 36-37 degrees, so that being in it is not felt by the body, use earplugs for the ears, turn off the light. Relax and lie down in such a bath for 10-15 minutes.
We wish you, friends, a successful stop of the internal dialogue, gaining control over your own thoughts and easily achieving happiness.
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Hello dear blog readers! Imagine a simple life situation that is chronically repeated day after day, month after month, year after year. So...
Morning! A new day begins. The alarm clock rings. It's time to get up, but I don't feel like getting up, I want to sleep more. With difficulty, after opening our eyes, we get out of bed and go to wash ... And then HE appears! Appears from nothing, from nowhere, as if from the void. And HE will haunt us all day until the very moment we fall asleep.
It is an internal dialogue, a conversation with oneself, an uncontrolled run of thoughts that occurs exclusively in the head. Almost all thinking people have an internal dialogue. Who has it more, stronger, more intense, and who has it less, weaker. The absence of thoughts in the head is extremely rare. Dialogue can be about anything. The topics are quite diverse, it can be a continuation of yesterday's scandal with your spouse, an internal dispute with your boss, discussion and commenting on news, and so on. There may also be a webinar going on in our head or playing “radio”, repeating the same verse from a forgotten song. In special cases, there are attempts to solve a second-order differential equation.
Why is the internal dialogue useful to us? To begin with, this is a kind of mechanism for perceiving and analyzing the world around us, drawing up and discussing plans for further actions, accessing memory and storing information, and so on. A very useful thing.
On the other hand, internal dialogue can be a deterrent when making important decisions, a kind of thoughtful discussion at a time when you have to act very quickly. If it is necessary to focus on something important, the emerging dialogue distracts us from really important and necessary thoughts, making it difficult to focus on the main thing, and creates a number of doubts. Imagine a housewife who spent the whole evening thinking about what kind of potatoes to cook: - boiled or fried. As a result, the whole family was left hungry.
According to scientists, our brain consumes 80% of the energy available to the entire body. Most of this energy is spent on a useless word mixer, taking away strength from the body, causing a state of fatigue. In addition, the activation of the internal circle of thoughts before going to bed leads to insomnia. A person goes to bed, tries to sleep, and in his head begins a discussion of the past day, making plans for the next day, options for a scenario of a dispute with a spouse or boss, and so on. There's no sleep here. And this leads to chronic fatigue. In the highest stage of rampage of thoughts, a person begins to talk to himself, and this looks ugly from the outside. 
Doctor, in my head there is a little man swearing all the time! - It's so easy to fix! $10,000 - no problem! - Doctor, do you know what the little man said just now?
When else does an uncontrolled run of thoughts interfere with us? Everyone has probably heard of the Subconscious. You can read about it in article 105
The subconscious is a subpersonality, a kind of inner “being” that actively participates in our life. Its task is to help us live a successful, positive, joyful life, achieve our goals, spend less energy on worries and worries. In addition, the subconscious mind controls our intuition, tells us how to act in a given situation, how to make the right decision when we do not have the necessary information or knowledge. But we do not hear him, we try to chat him up, wash away the hint with a stream of all sorts of random thoughts. The right thought has appeared, and dozens of discussing, critical, doubting thoughts immediately rush to it, like a flock of cats on a bowl of fish. All valuable thought "died" under the yoke of an uncontrolled word mixer. Those people who know how to listen to their subconscious, that is, to hear their intuition, are more successful and happy in life than those who think about everything for a long time, comprehend, compare, doubt. If you want to become the pet of Life, you must learn to listen to your subconscious.
I'll give you an example. Let's say you're waiting for an important email. Very important letter! Much depends on it in your destiny. If you don’t get it on time, then that’s it: a full scribe multiplied by Achtung-Kaput. You sit down at your computer, connect to the Internet, launch your email program, and wait. And suddenly you feel like playing a toy. And not in a simple one, but in a heaped up full screen, with special effects and sound. You play for an hour, two, five ... And then at three o'clock in the morning you remember that you should receive a very important letter. And you still have not received it, you have not received the necessary, vital information. EVERYTHING IS LOST! But looking into the mail program, it turns out that the saving letter arrived, arrived on time, only you did not notice it. And they did not notice because they were engaged in other unnecessary pastimes. As a result, they were late and lost! So it is in the case of intuition: there are valuable thoughts and tips, they appear on time, but we do not notice them and do not use them. Note: There are many more losers than lucky ones.
Stopping the internal dialogue.
Internal dialogue is one of the many processes that take place in our minds. The complete absence of a thought process is a sign of mental inferiority. Sometimes it is vital, but sometimes it only gets in the way, fills the head with all sorts of nonsense, creates doubts and all sorts of incomprehensible conclusions. On the one hand, an internal dialogue is needed, but on the other hand, it is not. What to do? We must learn to manage this process, that is, consciously, at the right time, turn it off, stop the uncontrolled run of thoughts, turn off the word mixer. Fortunately, there are many ways to do this. You just need to practice. It might not work the first time. Let's try to organize silence in the head.
1. Repression or replacement. We replace the stream of chaotic, uncontrollable thoughts with repeatedly repeated, regular thoughts. These can be mantras, repeating phrases like: “I am delighted with myself” or “I will succeed”, prayers, counting from 10 to 0, and even better from 100 to 0. The count is kept several times. As soon as we need to stop the word mixer, we forcibly begin to repeat the same phrases to ourselves, as if displacing, replacing the unnecessary with them. After a while, the word mixer turns off. Now we “remove” the substitutive thoughts and silence in the head is provided for 1-2 minutes.
2. Mental images. Here you don’t need to think anything, you just need to imagine, create a mental picture, a visual image of how a crazy thought appears in your head, and you remove it. Lots of options. For example: "aquarium". Imagine that you are sitting at the bottom of the aquarium, watching the fish, as soon as a thought arises, you put it in an air bubble and send it to the surface. Another thought appeared - the same thing: into the vial and onto the surface. The main thing is not to say to yourself: “here I have another thought, I send it”, - the main thing is to present this whole process in the form of a picture, preferably a color one. One can imagine that the head is filled with oil (concrete) and all thoughts get stuck in it. Or imagine that you take a towel and wipe all unnecessary thoughts from your head. There was an idea - it was immediately erased. Imagine a thought in the form of a dog, as soon as it got out and barked, it was immediately pushed into the kennel. I repeat once again: all this must be presented in the form of a visual image, a mental picture. Do not comment under any circumstances!
3. Focus. We concentrate our attention on some process or external object. For example, focus on the pulsation of the blood. We take, for example, a palm, concentrate our gaze on it and try to feel how blood pulsates through it. You can concentrate on the tip of the nose and feel how air enters and leaves it, and feel all the subtleties of the process. In everyday life, we do not pay any attention to this, but here we need to focus. At the same time, the running of thoughts stops. It is good to concentrate your attention on the flame of a candle, the flame of a fire or on the waves of the sea, most importantly, at this moment there is nothing to think about and not indulge in philosophical reasoning.
4. Energy breathing. A very powerful practice that allows you not only to stop the running of thoughts, but also to recharge your energy. Imagine that we are surrounded not only by air, but also by a certain energy substance that feeds us with energy. When we breathe in air, we also breathe in this substance. We exhale normally, but we imagine that we are not doing it outward, as usual, but inward, through our body. We imagine the body as an empty container, like a hollow chocolate hare or Santa Claus, which is blown out on exhalation. Together with the air, energy enters, but it does not go out, but remains in the body. We imagine how energy gradually enters our body, slowly and pleasantly filling all its parts and organs. We imagine how pleasantly the body is filled, stored, charged with energy. We get a boost of energy. If something hurts, then we imagine and feel how air and energy pass through the sore spot, thereby clearing it. Imagine how the pain is displaced by energy from the body and blown out by the air flow. Feeling all this, we turn off the internal dialogue. Even with this practice, a state of trance can occur. Trance is another matter...
5. Trance states. In trance there is no internal dialogue, there is no running of thoughts. The paradox of this practice is that in order to enter a trance, you must turn off the internal talker. But a trance state can come naturally - the subconscious itself will drive our body into it. Probably, you have noticed the following situation behind you: after a hearty lunch, sit down at the computer, start doing something, but suddenly you feel that your eyes are stupidly fixed on the monitor, there are no thoughts, and the body is immersed in a state of half sleep ... This is not yet a dream, but no longer wakefulness, it is a trance ...
There are many other practices to stop the running of thoughts in the head. If you know, please describe them in the comments. I will be grateful!!!
On this, I say goodbye for now, see you soon on the blog pages!
Let's talk a little about internal dialogue (ID). What is it - I think everyone is in the know. It's just our everyday mental activity, our ego's chatterbox :-) Uncontrollable and sometimes annoying versatile noise of thoughts in the head, preventing us from concentrating on one thing. By the way, fears are often the result of an internal dialogue that enhances all our experiences. VD is often the reason for the loss of concentration on the outside world and the lack of inner peace and harmony in a person. The VD is not our own self, it is merely a product of the external environment. The only thing IA does is take us away from "reality" by creating self-doubt (most often).
By the way, a little about the thoughts themselves. We need to realize that we have two kinds of thoughts: active and passive. We generate active ones ourselves every day, and passive thoughts are brought into us from the outside (the influence of the System or entities). Passive thoughts can pose a threat to us, because we are not able to control them, because we did not create them, but someone laid them in us.
Why is it important to be able to stop the internal dialogue? This is necessary in order to enter a state of peace and quiet, which makes it possible to reveal one's potential, to know oneself. It changes the quality of life! In this state, you can effectively work with many of your aspects:
Track passive mental images;
- remove your fears, patterns, stereotypes;
- work with your past/present/future;
- go beyond the physical world...etc.
It is quite difficult to quickly achieve a stop of the HP (but it is possible!). Many monks have been working on themselves for decades, achieving complete silence of the mind through meditation and daily repetition of mantras. But this does not mean at all that it is unattainable and "what for it is necessary." I was able to do it, so you can too, if you make some efforts for self-development. ;-)
There are a lot of different ways to stop the VD on the Internet, but I will talk about the three most effective methods that I use myself.
So, let's move on to practical exercises. They are not complicated at all. :-)
Technique 1. The position of the "outside observer".
The most effective way to stop the thought-mixer is to move into the position of an "outside observer" (EOI). What is this position and how to get into it? ;-) Everything is simple here - this is the position of consciousness when we simply observe everything around, without evaluating anything (I'm talking about judgments), even quite a bit. You can even do this with your eyes closed. To go to the PVN, you need to concentrate all your attention on the outside world (completely deconcentrate), learn to be at the point "here and now."
Technique 2. Watch your breath.
Another way to stop VD is to focus on your breathing. The cycle of our breathing is the rhythmic alternation of inhalation and exhalation. Between them for a fraction of a second there is a pause (stopping the cycle). It is necessary to concentrate on this natural pause between inhalation and exhalation. Try not to say anything about yourself during this/these moments. Gradually, you need to increase this pause, concentrating on which, you completely free yourself from mental chaos. However, it is important that the breathing is as normal as you would normally breathe.
Pause in the breath cycle
.
You can train everywhere: when you walk down the street, sit in the train or wash the dishes. Just be sure to keep an eye on the depth of breathing, otherwise almost all beginner practitioners have a tendency to involuntarily switch to deeper breathing.
At first, you will increase the pause between inhalation and exhalation, concentrating on the pause, and after a while you will catch yourself thinking that you are also silent inside yourself during inhalations and exhalations. :-)
Technique 3. The Valkyries method (from the book by Paulo Coelho "Valkyries").
The last technique is interesting in that no effort is needed to try to stop our thoughts. We simply give them complete freedom of action, let our thoughts flow freely. Suddenly? ;-) Relax and pay your attention to those mental images that are constantly spinning in your head. Just sit / lie down and watch the flow of these uncontrolled thoughts. If you focus on an active thought and give it free rein, it will first unwind, then stop, freeze, and then completely disintegrate. But there is a risk that you will simply fall asleep ... here you need to be able to resist ...
That's all. As mentioned above - nothing complicated. ;-)
Important note. All of the above techniques (as well as all the others that I publish) work great only if they are used regularly. Otherwise, it simply does not make sense to do this one-time, for example, once a month.
Methods of self-development: the initial stage
To begin with, while mastering new methods of self-development, I tried to adhere to the following principles:
1. No need to fight with anything or anyone. And even more so, you should not fight with yourself. It is better to follow the path of least resistance: move away, switch temporarily to another task, make a request, accept, let go, etc.
If you are still drawn to compete with someone, and life without a struggle seems insipid, ask what is the reason for addiction to such an overactive and costly way of life and thoughts. For three quarters of my life I firmly believed in the "necessity of tension", until I proved the opposite to myself, having worked out the causes of this malicious overlay (I will post the material about the types of overlays later, it is almost ready).
2. If possible, the development of any developmental method/method/practice should take place either in a playful way (like exercise 4 of Fragment 3.3.), or give at least some pleasure (like exercises 1 and 6 of Fragment 3.3). You should not scour yourself with or without reason, thereby causing the resistance of your own nature. This is especially important in the early stages. And only later, when purposeful and conscious self-development becomes an integral part of your life, you definitely cannot do without self-discipline;).
3. Be patient, do not demand quick results from yourself, do not compare yourself with anyone. On the path of self-development, it is worth competing only with yourself. Waiting for it, whatever it is, takes a lot of energy from us, so never wait for anything - just go ahead, giving the results to the Divine. When I started practicing integral yoga a couple of decades ago, I did not particularly count on any serious results of advancing along the path of the Evolution of Consciousness in this life, at best, in the next. The reality of my life (its intangible part) turned out to be much more fantastic than I could imagine then.
4. Be creative - create and try! I will only note that some problems should not be solved directly in the forehead (again, sometimes resistance may arise), but by roundabout ways, even if it takes more time.
5. You should not wait for the next Monday to take care of yourself, your development. For example, you can listen to the Universe, meditate on the koan at any time. The rest is excuses and self-deception. If you are looking for excuses for your slowdown, then purposeful self-development is not relevant for you now. At least just enjoy your current life :)
Fragment 3.3 Methods of self-development: stop internal dialogue
Often during my practice, I was approached with the question "how to stop the internal dialogue?". And although there are a great many ways described in the literature, sometimes, for some reason, the seeker still finds it difficult. Once I already posted material on this topic here (look at the "zero point" tag). However, as they say, repetition is the mother of learning.
So here is a new version of the generalization of my practice of establishing the silence of the mind / entering the zero point / stopping the internal dialogue :) I will only note that all the exercises described below are more the result of my experiments twenty years ago, and not ready-made recipes from books.
1. When I started practicing the first meditations in 1992, I did not try to stop the internal dialogue. Instead, during meditation, I simply focused on relaxing visualizations. Most often, I swam like a dolphin in the ocean, getting great pleasure from it.
I did visualization every day before going to bed, lying on my side, and then also in the morning - before getting out of bed. This is me to the fact that to master meditation (stopping the internal dialogue), special conditions are not needed: the lotus position, a straight spine and other useless surroundings. All you need is desire, systematic training and time :)
2. In addition, I started meditating by reading the book "Sri Aurobindo, or the Journey of Consciousness", which in itself is capable of immersing me in a meditative state.
3. For some time I was meditating on the koans of Zen Buddhism from the book Zen Flesh and Bone.
4. Below I will give some useful, in my opinion, exercises that I found, rather intuitively and aimed at learning to track the evaluative activity of the mind.
For a week or so, I was engaged in the fact that I discarded all thoughts with a negative emotional connotation. After a week, thinking becomes much more transparent, more structured.
Then, for some more time, I was engaged in discarding the assessment of people I met along the way (on the way to the institute, in transport, etc.) - how they look.
Usually a person does not notice how he evaluates everything around - this also takes a lot of energy. Learn to "look" not at the object/object/person, but through it and beyond it. If you practice hard enough, then gradually your perception, as well as vision, will be rebuilt. Thanks to such a transformation, it is possible, for example, to talk with a person about everyday things, at the same time, if necessary, to make contact with his being to exchange information.
Another way: look at yourself, your mind from the outside. At the same time, I kind of "stand" behind me, thus developing an internal observer. Having a developed inner observer later on helped me a lot in achieving other, much more difficult goals of self-development.
You can try to look from different parts of yourself. For a while, I practiced "looking" out of my belly or heart, as if my eyes were there. The effects were very interesting :)
To calm the turbulent thought process, one should learn to quickly "forget" the unpleasant moments of our daily life, which our undisciplined mind loves to chew on, sometimes for years and decades. For a month, probably (maybe more), I got up every morning and imagined that I had just appeared on Earth. And to consolidate the effect, she imagined a white brick wall behind her. She took (mentally) a step from it every morning, leaving all the memories of the previous day behind this very wall, not allowing herself to return to them unnecessarily. Many are afraid to do this practice, believing that it will weaken their ability to remember. However, it is not. The most necessary, including memories, I draw, as they say, from the air - I read from the information field. It has already become a habit, it has become part of my nature, so that the usual ways of remembering are no longer relevant for me.
5. Another good exercise is to listen to the Universe, as if to listen to its quiet voice. At the same time, it is even better if at the time of meditation there is a load in the form of everyday sound background.
6. You can also meditate according to the ancient Chinese principle "Have no place to dwell in yourself" - one of my favorite exercises. Now, in order to restore my strength, it is enough for me to mentally "take out" my center of attention (consciousness) outside the body for 20-30 minutes in a lying position, not allowing it to return.
I can't help but keep quoting
You can communicate not only with strangers, but also with yourself. Often such communication is manifested in the state. However, often it becomes a mental disorder that is not even hidden. What is this internal dialogue?
Internal dialogue is understood as auto-communication of a continuous nature. All people communicate with themselves from time to time. This helps to solve problems that arise, to calm yourself, to tune in the right way. However, the state becomes pathological when communication within a person's personality becomes permanent.
The internal dialogue is based on one's own experiences (emotions) and the experience that a person is experiencing. It is as if several personalities are contained in one individual. This can be clearly imagined in the form of an angel and a demon sitting on the shoulders of a person and communicating with each other, turning their orders to the owner. This is how an internal dialogue takes place, where a person can be an outside observer of his many thoughts or participate in the discussion of a specific topic.
What will be discussed in the internal dialogue depends largely on the state of the person, the events taking place, the recent incident and problems.
You should not treat internal dialogue as an exclusively negative phenomenon. All people can periodically lead it. This allows you to think about problems, find the right way out of the situation, consider ongoing events, calm yourself or tune in the right way. Often this is the result of a lonely existence or lack of friends who can be trusted. Since a person experiences an acute need for communication, he at least begins to communicate with himself.
This condition becomes pathological when a person completely fences himself off from talking with other people, plunges into the inner world, hears voices and even enters into a dialogue with them. The constant internal dialogue is psychiatric.
What is an internal dialogue?
Psychology is actively addressing the question: what is the internal dialogue? By it it is customary to mean active communicative activity, when the dialogue takes place within one person. Dialogue is often between opposing beliefs or principles. It doesn't always involve conflict. Sometimes the dialogue is conducted in order to implant a certain emotional state into the consciousness of the individual.
Internal dialogue becomes a consequence of the emergence of a problematic situation in the outside world. For its normal perception and maintaining emotional balance, a person begins to discuss with himself in search of the right way out.
For those who are little interested in psychology, only one question is of interest: is the phenomenon of internal dialogue normal? The answer is yes. Absolutely all people sometimes conduct internal communication when they begin to solve important issues in their own heads. Often, closed introverts who do not want to let others into their world resort to this type of dialogue. Although extroverts can conduct a similar dialogue.
When an event occurs, a person has many thoughts. Some are conscious and dictated by the rules of society. Others are instinctive, unconscious. Still others may be responsible for achieving goals or desires. The diversity and sometimes contradiction of thoughts makes a person think, weigh all the pros and cons, which is included in the internal dialogue.
When a person wakes up, the dialogue begins and ends when the person falls asleep. No matter what a person does, he constantly fixes something, says to himself, confirms his own thoughts, etc. According to K. Castaneda, the internal dialogue is a way of forming the world around. As long as a person tells something to himself and communicates inside, he interprets the world in one way or another. However, when the dialogue stops, the world begins to be seen as it really is.
Accordingly, the internal dialogue can be called a way of self-soothing and explaining to yourself what is happening in the outside world.
Castaneda highlights such negative consequences of the internal dialogue, which, in his opinion, should be stopped:
- Inability to concentrate.
- Insomnia.
- Constant reflection.
- One-sided perception of life.
- Duality of consciousness.
- The mental background in the head.
- Increased sleepiness.
- Inability to make decisions.
- Feelings of guilt, aggression.
- Increased suggestibility, suspiciousness.
- Narrowness of thought.
- Inability to control one's own thoughts.
How to turn off the internal dialogue?
Psychologists say that talking to yourself is normal. However, the constant internal dialogue should be turned off. There are many techniques for how to do this. Why stop communicating with yourself?
- The more a person communicates with himself, the more he is immersed in his own world. He gets hung up on his own feelings, what he could say, why the interlocutor did this, what does not suit him, etc.
- The more internal communication is carried out, the more a person does not notice what is happening in the outside world. Absorption in oneself causes the eyes not to see, even if they are open.
- The more a person communicates with himself, the less communication he needs with other people. This makes his opinion narrow and limited.
With a wave of the hand, it is impossible to turn off the internal dialogue. Therefore, it will take time to go through the three stages of disabling such communication:
- Follow the thought flow. Since thoughts never turn off and it is impossible to stop them, it is better to learn to track and notice them, as if observing their presence from the side.
- Understand the meaning of the thoughts that are constantly spinning in your head. It should be understood what they mean, because, as you know, thoughts provoke a person to then feel certain emotions and perform specific actions. It is important here to keep track of thoughts that are introduced to a person from the outside. The surrounding world in the form of people is trying to manipulate a person with various dogmas, rules and beliefs. They do not harm the person himself until they make him do things and experience certain emotions. Such "foreign" ideas should be disposed of if they are not the result of one's own judgments.
- Discard unfinished thoughts and leave those that do not require additional reflection. There are many thoughts in the human head that are incomprehensible, incomplete. You should get rid of them. Leave only those ideas that help you in life and in solving problems.
Thoughts that arise in response to what is happening cause specific emotions and desires to perform certain actions. If a person does not keep track of what thoughts he obeys, then he does things for which he later regrets, and is very worried, worsening his emotional state.
Stopping the Internal Dialogue - Techniques
The use of techniques to stop the internal dialogue allows a person to become more balanced, balanced in his approach, calm and relaxed. As long as a person does not control his own thoughts, they control him. The flow of thoughts is always there. If a person gets involved in it, letting ideas tell him how to feel, what to do, how to react, he becomes a puppet in their hands.
The internal stream of thoughts distracts a person from understanding the world around him. While he is in the flow, he is focused on his own experiences. Everything that happens around is not noticed or is partially interpreted through one's own emotions, views, and beliefs. At the same time, a person is focused on himself, and not on the essence of what is happening. He cannot find an adequate solution that will really help him, because he does not notice anything around him, except for his emotions.
The technique of turning off the internal dialogue is to try not to think anything. You can’t even say the thought “don’t think”. Any thought is already an internal dialogue. You should try for 20-30 seconds to completely turn off the occurrence of any thought.
It is best to do this technique in the morning or just before bed. Take a horizontal position. At the same time, you should isolate yourself from the noise of the surrounding world. Nothing should distract from the process, since any extraneous sound will cause thoughts.
Techniques for stopping internal dialogue:
- Close your eyes and imagine a white screen. Move your eyes from corner to corner, without thinking anything.
- By force of will, force yourself not to think anything.
- Close your eyes and mentally imagine a hot fireball at a distance of 20 cm. Gradually it should be reduced until it disappears completely. There must be a vacuum of thought.
- With your eyes closed and in a horizontal position, count from 1 to 100. There should not be a single thought. If at least one thought has appeared, the countdown should be resumed from 1. As soon as the result is reached (having counted to 100, not a single thought has arisen), the countdown should be carried out up to 200.
Outcome
Internal dialogue is not a pathology until it becomes permanent. Each person communicates with himself from time to time. However, often the internal dialogue is conducted by itself, without the conscious participation of a person. If the individual does not control the course of his own thoughts, then they begin to control him, which leads to negative results.
Firstly, a person plunges into the world of his own emotions, which are completely subordinate to thoughts. A person does not control what he feels, because he himself obeys the thoughts that arise in his head. As a result, the surrounding world seems to be in some colors: sometimes in black, sometimes in white. There is no critical thinking, a sober look at the situation. Everything that happens is perceived through emotions that make events pleasant or unpleasant.
Secondly /, a person is significantly narrowed in the perception of the world. He perceives events not as they really are. He is guided solely by his own knowledge, which may be limited. He does not perceive what is not included in his own experience. As a result, a person does not understand what is happening, putting a label - "Everything is bad!".
Thirdly, there is no opportunity to make a decision. There are no hopeless situations. It’s just that a person focuses on his own thoughts, and not on what the situation is, what circumstances are, how they can be used, what can be done, etc. Hesitations in making a decision also indicate that a person does not notice something or doesn't know. To fill in the gaps, you need to digress from the internal dialogue.
