Practicing Life #8: WTSWYTTY, Type II; or, Conquering Unconscious Resignation to the Status Quo
Meditation:
The title of this post is a sort of inside joke to myself. Obviously if I explain it (and I will) it won’t be very funny anymore, but c’est la vie. Acronyms that save space in writing but are unwieldy to say (and in this case, since the words themselves are all monosyllabic, it takes longer to say the acronym than the title itself) crack me up. I don’t know why. Another classic example is the unironically excellent (well, the first 10 years or so) TV show So You Think You Can Dance?, which I routinely refer to as “Ess-Why-Tee-Why-See-Dee”. Yes, I’m weird.
Anyhow, the acronym in the title refers to a really eye-opening little self-help volume (I did say there are good ones yesterday) by Shad Helmstetter called What to Say When You Talk to Yourself. It’s one of those books that could be much shorter than it is, refrain from venturing into metaphysics, and generally be stripped of a lot of silly Oprah-speak. But. And a big but. There is some straight up gold hidden in it.
The idea behind the book, the thesis I suppose, is that you become what you think about most. That itself isn’t very revolutionary. What Shad points out though is that you have a constant inner monologue and it very heavily shapes your self-image. And your brain and spirit pay very little attention to the truth of the statements that are running in your head. Again, you can get this info other places. Mindfulness meditation techniques can help identify those “tapes” that play on repeat that are negatively influencing your life. There are various, and of various quality, techniques for changing those into better mantras. Shad offers some good ones I think, and also his emphasis that your corrections must be constant to be effective is extremely salient. If you have thoughts battering you all day long that are negative, and you’re also getting that from the world a lot, then you really have to fight fire with fire. Still not much new here, but good reminders.
Helmstetter divides “self-talk”, your inner monologue, into four types. Type I is actively negative, “I suck” etc. Type III is his approach to habit breaking which is to say “I never do [X bad thing]” until you no longer feel compelled to do it. I can’t go into a huge essay on self-image psychology, but this actually works if you’re diligent about doing it. I’ll be applying it to a few bad habits in the near future. Type IV is actively positive. The kind of stuff that’s easy to make fun of by reference to Stuart Smalley (“I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!”), but that actually works if you persist and try to tailor them to your personality and sidestep the cringe.
You’ll notice I left out Type II. Type II was the big revelation of this book for me. And I forget about it way too often, hence writing about it here. As a prelim, I think it’s fairly well established, if not in the literature (though there is lots to indicate it there to), in personal experience that you actually cannot do anything that conflicts with how you view yourself. Self-mage is “the way I am”. How you see yourself literally limits your range of abilities in the real world. Obviously, there are physical caps on what you can do in any given path or domain, but anything that is technically possible, and within your control, you can do if you think you can succeed. That might sound trite, but just think about it. Certainly the corollary is true that if you believe you can’t do X, you’re right.
So Type II is a sort of subtle and insidious negative self-talk Shad points out that goes like this: “I should or need to do [X good thing]”. We all do this. I did it in the reading section of yesterday’s Journal. The thing that was really eye-opening is that Helmstetter points out that the unspoken completion of the preceding sentence we all say time and again is “…but I won’t”. “I really should eat better, but… shhhh… I’m not gonna”. If we really valued the thing, and weren’t deceived by our inner talk, we’d be figuring out a way to do it. Now the motivations no one can really help us with. We have to acquire discipline. But if we find ourselves saying we should do something and we aren’t, we are falling prey to this Type II situation and, as I said in the title, unconsciously resigning ourselves to the way things are. And back of all that, the unconscious belief is that we actually can’t do the thing we “need to” or “should”. When we say we should but know we won’t or don’t take steps to do it, we are reinforcing the idea and belief that we are incapable. It’s a disempowering way to think and talk and most of us never notice it.
I’ve found myself saying a lot lately that I need to get to bed earlier and wake up earlier. I used to do this. I do know I can, but somewhere along the way, the way I see myself shifted and I’m no longer the type of person who is responsible about sleep hygiene. It’s fixable, but this framework gives a way to attack it and to understand what’s happening.
Hope that makes sense and is helpful. I’m talking to myself mostly as always. I will get to bed earlier and wake up earlier now.
The other stuff:
Not much to speak of. Those personal issues alluded to yesterday led me to make some decisions to spend my leisure hours poorly. TV mostly, and nothing worth telling you about. Not recommended haha.
Ciao:
I’m going to read some later on and get back to my WIP novel, still hoping to finish in September, but who knows. It’s done when it’s done. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Romans 12:2
Oh man, I so relate to Type II. The concept of renewing our minds goes beyond anyone's spiritual outlook on life. So key to functioning beyond a resigned, apathetic state. Thanks for the post!