Walking through Central Park one morning, I passed a woman who was involved in an animated internal conversation.  She rolled her eyes, gesticulated with her arms, and frowned.  As she passed, I found myself smiling at this basic human habit so many of us have of engaging in internal conversations, fights, or whatever other unfinished piece of business we carry around inside.  So often, these conversations make us even more upset, as we think of all the things we should have said in a given encounter, or rehearse what we need to say to someone, or listen to some other kind of activating or frightening back and forth in our heads.

As I walked on, I began to think about how often we slip into these internal conversations without awareness, and only catch ourselves when we’re quite worked up, well along in becoming more and more immersed in the emotions and meaning of what we’re telling ourselves. 

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to become aware of the internal conversations you carry on as you move through your day.  Notice whether these conversations offer you support and an increased sense of self-confidence, ease, or other positive state of being, or if they drag you into emotions that are uncomfortable, unsettling, or create an uncentered state of being in you.

The purpose of this experiment isn’t to judge or criticize yourself for getting caught in these conversations.  Rather, it’s an opportunity to become aware of a habit of mind that causes most of us more suffering than we really need to experience.  These conversations tend to add to our stress, as they often replay moments where we weren’t empowered, or where someone hurt us, or some other difficult, challenging or unsatisfying experience. 

Once we bring awareness to the conversations we have in our own minds, we open up the possibility to choose how we want to talk to ourselves as we go through the day.  We discover that we don’t have to finish a conversation, or even a sentence, once we become aware that we’re telling ourselves things that disempower or upset us.  We discover that we can shift our attention to a conversation, or to something else we want to attend to, that uplifts, encourages, or supports us.

As you play with this week’s experiment, I invite you to discover what kinds of internal conversation or statements make you feel better.  It’s useful if you come up with words you actually believe, words that speak to you as truth.  Then, when you discover that you’re engaged in an internal conversation that drags you down, you can reliably shift to a conversation that settles you and, perhaps, even uplifts you.

As with all the experiments, please bring curiosity along as your constant companion.  Remember that there are no right or wrong ways to engage the experiments.  Rather, each is an opportunity to become more consciously aware of how you move through your day, and to offer ways to enhance your internal experience of well-being along the way.