{"id":4446,"date":"2016-03-30T10:52:09","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T05:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=4446"},"modified":"2016-03-30T10:52:09","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T05:22:09","slug":"self-talk-conversation-chatting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=4446","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Interrupt Me, I\u2019m Having a Conversation (with Myself)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span><\/p><\/div>

hate being interrupted. Like when I\u2019m engrossed in an intense conversation, oblivious to my surroundings, gesturing aggressively, and a <\/span>coworker<\/span><\/a> cuts me off with a preposterous question like, \u201cWere you just talking to yourself?\u201d<\/span>\n\nAt times like these, I\u2019m strongly tempted to hand the heckler a blank sheet of paper and tell them, \u201cHere\u2019s a list of people that asked for your expert opinion. Now fuck off and let me finish.\u201d But, since most of my coworkers are also my seniors, I invariably resist the urge to do so.<\/span>\n\nIf you haven\u2019t tried it yet, you should plan a chat with yourself ASAP. You could talk about that conversation you had with your Tinder match that didn\u2019t go as planned, or about that coworker you wanted to stand up to, but decided against at the last moment. Or talk about going to bed at a decent hour, which didn\u2019t happen (shocker!) because you couldn\u2019t resist the urge to watch one more episode of that <\/span>Netflix<\/span><\/a> true-crime documentary. <\/span>\n\nIn an NBC News <\/span>essay<\/span><\/a> titled \u201cGo Ahead, Talk to Yourself. It\u2019s Normal \u2014 and Good for You,\u201d clinical psychologist Dr Jessica Nicolosi says, \u201c<\/span>In the same way we seek trusted companions to bounce ideas off of, we talk to ourselves for many reasons. This often occurs when we\u2019re experiencing a deepened emotion, such as anger, nervousness, extreme focus, or excitement. Even in otherwise mundane scenarios, it\u2019s typically an emotion that\u2019s triggering us to speak out loud.\u201d <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s a sentiment I find best captured by a meme I stumbled upon the other day: <\/span>\u201cIf you see me talking to myself, then don\u2019t say anything to me. We\u2019re having a staff meeting.\u201d The colleague who\u2019d interrupted me earlier was clearly oblivious to my staff meeting, <\/span>and hadn\u2019t quite realised that I was talking to myself about the essay I\u2019d been struggling to <\/span>write<\/span><\/a>. As a New York Times <\/span>essay<\/span><\/a> points out, \u201cThe two types of self-talk you\u2019re likely most familiar with are instructional self-talk, like talking yourself through a task, and motivational self-talk, like telling yourself, \u2018I can do this.\u2019\u201d I was also engrossed in motivational self-talk, repeatedly telling myself, \u201cI can file the essay in time\u201d and \u201cmy editors will love every bit of it.\u201d <\/span>\n\n

In the same way we seek trusted companions to bounce ideas off of, we talk to ourselves for many reasons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nI\u2019ve often witnessed many friends and family unknowingly indulge in instructional self-talk on many occasions. Just the other day, I witnessed my mother \u2013 who finds parallel parking to be an endless struggle \u2013 talk herself through the process. \u201cMove a bit to the right\u2026 a bit left\u2026 now <\/span>drive<\/span><\/a> backwards\u2026 don\u2019t touch that sedan\u2026 almost there\u2026 and\u2026 oh f*ck it!\u201d Sure, she grazed the sedan but she managed to parallel park. <\/span>\n\nThe same NYT essay puts forth the idea of feedback hypothesis, explaining how instructional self-talk can speed up cognitive abilities and task performance. Essentially, Feedback Hypothesis is when a hopeless person can\u2019t remember where they left their phone, so they go around the house repeatedly shouting \u201cPhone!\u201d out loud until they actually find it. \u201cThis helps you distinguish it from other items with different names,\u201d says Mr Lupyan, a researcher and psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who conducted a series of experiments on the same. <\/span>\n\nBut what happens when you\u2019re your worst critic? <\/span>Essays<\/span><\/a> are dedicated to the \u201cToxic Effects of Negative Self-talk\u201d that \u201climiting your ability to believe in yourself\u201d. Just last month, I had a tryst with my inner critic. I was running a 10K <\/span>marathon<\/span><\/a> for the very first time and my legs had begun to collapse as I approached the last two kilometres. My inner monologue was, \u201cThey\u2019re all leaving you behind\u201d, \u201cYou\u2019ll be the last one to cross the finish line\u201d, and \u201cEveryone can tell you have a wedgie right now.\u201d <\/span>\n\nSo, I did what any sane person would\u2019ve done. I tugged at my undies and motivational self-talked the crap out of myself. Now, I didn\u2019t place first, but I also wasn\u2019t the last person to cross the finish line. <\/span>\n\nYet, what bothers me the most is how quickly people assume that you\u2019ve completely lost your marbles if they notice you talking to yourself. <\/span>A fellow intern at my workplace landed in an awkward situation just last week when she \u2013 preoccupied in her victory dance \u2013 began patting herself on the back while saying \u201cYou did a great job\u201d out loud. The situation rapidly spun out of control when our <\/span>HR<\/span><\/a> person \u2013 who consistently pops up at the worst time \u2013 noticed the intern and thought it best to offer her a therapist\u2019s number. <\/span>\n\nAnd in case you were still wondering, the <\/span>intern<\/span><\/a> didn\u2019t actually suffer from a mental disorder. It\u2019s only borderline personality disorder if you\u2019re talking to someone that isn\u2019t present and isn\u2019t you. I\u2019ve checked, just to make sure. <\/span>\n\nNow if you\u2019ll excuse me, I have a staff meeting to attend. <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you haven\u2019t tried it yet, you should plan a chat with yourself ASAP. It\u2019s only borderline personality disorder if you\u2019re talking to someone that isn\u2019t present and isn\u2019t you. I\u2019ve checked, just to make sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":4447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[7909,7910,7911,707,6907,7912,7913,7914,7915],"class_list":["post-4446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-first-person","tag-chatting","tag-conversations","tag-feedback-hypothesis","tag-mental-health","tag-motivation","tag-personality-disorder","tag-psychologist","tag-self-talk","tag-yourself"],"yoast_head":"\nDon\u2019t Interrupt Me, I\u2019m Having a Conversation (with Myself)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you haven\u2019t tried it yet, you should plan a chat with yourself ASAP. It\u2019s only borderline personality disorder if you\u2019re talking to someone that isn\u2019t present and isn\u2019t you. I\u2019ve checked, just to make sure.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=4446\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don\u2019t Interrupt Me, I\u2019m Having a Conversation (with Myself)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you haven\u2019t tried it yet, you should plan a chat with yourself ASAP. It\u2019s only borderline personality disorder if you\u2019re talking to someone that isn\u2019t present and isn\u2019t you. 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