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SELF-TALK TO CHANGE YOUR PERCEIVED REALITY
PROF. DR. MANJU AGRAWAL
Professor of Psychology and Dean Student Welfare,
Amity University, Lucknow
Unprecedented crises such as the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) pose huge challenges, not just to the socio-economic fabric of the society but also to one’s inner self. The pandemic swept through the world, impinging in its wake women and men, young and old, privileged and deprived - leaving no one untouched! Dark clouds engulfed the horizon, doomsday prophecies started sprouting with an uncanny regularity. Lock-down meant measures being taken to contain or arrest a deteriorating situation. But this was unrivalled in history - unmatched in span and unequalled in scale! This entailed being bereft of any human contact leading to a sense of alienation unable to fathom.
Multiple Personal Realities during Lock-down
The human being is a social animal, craving for human interaction but was mandated to desist from it in the instant case. The induced lock-down held all plans in abeyance. Going against the grain of existence, one was totally confined to one’s home. Though homes are for free expressions and not uninhibited existence, being ensconced, the fleetingness of life became much too apparent bringing with it a plethora of overwhelming emotions ranging from love, bonding, relaxation and calm to fear, aloofness, impatience, apprehensions and even paranoia! In those uncertain and unpredictable times, scepticism ruled the roost. At times negative outlooks predominated one’s thought processes even more with 24-hour news channels broadcasting the numbers of positive corona patients and deaths. In comparison, broadcasts of reassuring facts about recovery rates was sporadic.
Human emotion, unable to be subdued for long found an outlet in technology. The eternal craving for human contact turned to virtual recluse, endorsing the mantra, ‘stay apart but stay connected’. During this lock-down period, it was observed that people who were positive and creative had become more positive and creative while people who were anxious, violent and depressed had sunk deeper into an abyss. Though substantial data-based evidence was not available, adequate numbers of cases were observed. The conundrum also exists because of parallel and simultaneous reports and accounts available – overflowing social media narratives about learning new/enhancing existing skills, online meetings and partying, online and balcony housie, sharing positive mental notes, taking new media challenges of dancing, cooking on one hand vis-a-vis the complaints received by National Commission of Women on the doubling of the rate of domestic violence, more clients seeking help for anxiety and worry and muted pleas seeking counselling, on the other! The juxtaposition of both the positive and negative attributes as a fall-out of the pandemic has been very evident. A pertinent observation, based on data, has been that the world over the heart attack rates dropped significantly. This was suggestive of a reduction in stresses due to routine chores and activities. These could encompass stress arising due to mundane things like one’s appearance in public, choice of tourist destinations, selection of designer clothes, party arrangements and the associated rigmarole, so and so forth.
Self-Talk and Changing Reality
As the dust settled and people got aligned to the new normal, the mind started playing games with every increase in the duration of the lock-down. For many, the loss of livelihood became a perceived angst. Some of my clients called me and wanted therapeutic interventions as their anxiety levels and/or depression had increased. I endeavoured to explore their mental postulate i.e. the recurrent thought pattern in their mind and the associated words used to express these thoughts. What emerged as overriding concerns were, “I am afraid that my family members and I may get infected by Corona”, “God knows who will survive, who will not”, “What will happen to my children/ parents?”, “I will be doomed if I become jobless which I got with great difficulty”, “I will come to the streets”, “If something happens to my parents, I might not be able to go for their last rites even”, “I don’t know if I will ever meet my family”, so on and so forth.
Evidently, our personal reality is determined by the thoughts we harbour; forces that shape our choices. We have sixty to seventy thousand thoughts daily and 90% of them are the same as the previous day. As we think, so we make choices, so we have feelings, and so we behave and make our personal reality. The tool that is employed in the thought process is language which usually is one’s mother tongue. One needs to break the chain of negative and regressive thoughts to effect a change in the thought process because repetitive thinking, whether positive or negative, permeates into one’s subconscious mind which consequently starts guiding her/ his feelings, thoughts and behaviour.
In order to break this chain, I decided to use the tool of self-talk. One of the easiest tools in one’s hand is to check, monitor and change one’s self-talk. We talk to ourselves for almost 24-hours, including during sleep but how many times have you actually met the real positive person within you? Even while conversing with others, there is an ongoing self-talk trying to formulate an appropriate response. Like someone has rightly said, ‘talk to yourself at least once in a day otherwise you may miss a meeting with an excellent person in this world’.
Now when one tackles the self-doubts and apprehensions enumerated above, the person would be able to see things in a new light. For example, “I am afraid that my family members and I may get infected by Corona” metamorphizes into, “My family and I are taking all precautions required to protect ourselves”; “God knows who will survive and who will not” into “Life and death is not in my hand; my karmas are in my hand and I am doing my best”; “What will happen to my children/ parents” into “Every day I pray to God and ask him to keep my family and everyone safe from this virus”; “I will be doomed if I become jobless” into “When one door closes many other doors open, I am exploring my talents capabilities and options”. Similarly, for any such cascading negative thoughts, the positive assertion could be, “Let me not worry for something which has not happened, and which is not likely to happen. I am worrying unnecessarily as this situation is unlikely to crystallise. I am creating a lot of tension and worry for something which is not likely to happen at all.”
Technological Edge in Therapeutic Intervention
The strategy also included putting out easily comprehensible media, comprising talking to self in positive language with an intent to evoke the dormant pleasant memories of the clients, to rekindle the feel-good emotions in them. Initial challenges of technology were overcome by learning and experimenting, resulting in me gaining confidence to conduct online counselling and therapy sessions. Personal first experience of video psychotherapy was with a 12-year-old boy whose obsessive-compulsive symptoms had heightened, and he had to be helped. He improved drastically and within a month almost all his symptoms were gone. Moreover, realisation dawned that the online platform enabled the clients to interact with the Therapy Cells from the comfort of their homes with the desired privacy. I also recorded a few self-talk videos for their relief from their COVID-19 induced anxiety, which they found to be extremely calming and soothing. In fact, this generated a wave of positive feedback as the videos got circulated around, triggering requests for more such videos. Interested readers of this article may find it at the following
link of Mind Spa YouTube: https://youtu.be/8v1gw4CDDw .
A Case Study
The trigger for the article is an anecdotal narrative concerning the apprehensions of a peon in the University over the unfounded fear of losing his job. The fear of losing the job was affecting his mind and body. He was focussing on communication by other peons who had not received salary in the last two months. He started saying to himself and others that some peons have got a salary for one month and some others got for the other month and that peons will not be paid regularly during this lockdown. This appeared to be logical thinking. However, on being enquired as to how many had not got salary and how many had drawn regular salary, he could name only two peons who had not got salary for two months! He himself was drawing a regular salary. He was made to realise that maybe these two people did not get their salary due to technical reasons or such cases had happened even before the lockdown, which put him at ease. He was also made to understand the consequences of generalization based on one or two stray incidents. He realized after this interaction that not only did he make himself anxious with such generalised self-talks, he created anxiety in others by talking like so. This consequently could have triggered a vicious spiral of negative thoughts amongst others too.
On being probed further as to what his chances were of losing the job, he seemed quite uncertain. The next question intended to seek out his views about the other skills he thought he possessed and what else could he do to continue to be the breadwinner. Would he like to continue to stay in the city or return to his village and make both ends meet? Surprisingly, a comprehensive list emerged. The moment this list became apparent to him, one could sense a gradual loosening of taut nerves. It was suggested to him to nurture repetitive thoughts (a form of self-talk) as to what would happen if he lost his job and if so, to contemplate about his skills and his strengths, about various alternatives available and about the skills of his other family members who could also support him in the event of his assumption coming true! It was just meant to convey to him that the fear as such, of losing the job, was much more detrimental to the mind and the body. It was also quite likely that one may not lose one’s job but the fear that one entertained had a greater impact than losing the job itself. Post the session, he felt so unburdened and relieved that he requested me to communicate it to all who were worried at this time and that firmed up my resolve to pen this article.
Conclusion
COVID-19 has been a never-seen, never-imagined pandemic which has brought the world to its knees. Human beings have been impacted in ways never envisaged, including in the mental domain. Personal reality during this challenging time has been varied. People living in a happy and positive family environment with good domestic harmony perceived multiple advantages and opportunities and made constructive use of the available time. On the other hand, few others experienced depression, unwarranted alarm, apprehensions and paranoia. A technique of ‘self-talk’, which is basically positive pronouncement or constructive proclamation to the self is a good response to emerge from the web of negative presumptions. A podcast was also recorded by the author which many of her clients found very soothing and calming during this challenging time.