Control Your Mental Narrative
Nearly every minute of the day you are talking to yourself. This internal narrative is the chatter of your mind. This is where most of your judgments (positive and negative) about the external world first world show up. One master key to increasing your happiness is to take control of your internal narrative.
The degree of attention that you give to your internal narrative will largely determine just how happy you can become. For most people, the internal narrative runs on automatic. The idea here is not to stop the narrative, but simply to continually nudge it in a positive direction.
Here is how.
- Pay attention to your internal narrative, guide and direct it
- Say “I love this __(fill in the blank)__”
- Say “I enjoy this because ___(1st reason)__(2nd reason)__(3rd reason)__”
- If you do not really like something, use your creativity to find at least ONE thing you can positively say about that something.
- Say “I am relaxed right now, and everything is working perfectly”
- Say random variations of the phrases above, about everything that enters your consciousness.
- Do this all the time a) when you get out of bed, b) while you are taking a shower c) while you are eating breakfast.
January 22nd, 2007 at 9:19 pm
If only the mental narrative were easier to control. I think mine has a mind of its own.
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Thanks for your comment. Remember that you own your brain. You own your thoughts. It might not be how “easy” or “hard” it is to control your mental narrative, but how often you remember to control your mental narrative. I know that I like to control my narrative, but I do not do it all the time, usually because I forget.
January 25th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
You know Miguel, I just what you’re doing here, brilliant blog!
That’s all I wanted to say
Lots of love (and happiness!),
Colm