Hello… Am I there?

Yes, here I am again. But wait, I am not the only one in my life. I have friends.

So… Why am I talking to myself that much?

Scary, I know.

Society: Oh god, she talks to herself. What a ‘weirdo’.

We all say that to at least anyone don’t we? Yes, yes we do. But at the end of the day we are one of them, “the one that talks to themselves”.

Each day, from the beginning to the end (technically still continues while we are sleeping, so a call it a cycle?) we have so-called inner thoughts inside our brains that drag us from one way to another.

A minute you catch yourself doing a check-list in your brain when the second you realize that you left your lunch inside the house. “Dang it!”, you react when you realize you already are inside the bus with many other people.

We are all human, aren’t we? That is exactly the reason that talking to ourselves are proven to be “totally normal” by many psychological researches.

But why?

Honestly, we can’t even answer this question by ourselves; where the funny thing is that we are the ones doing the talking itself.

Feel free to feel like the “main character” in your own novel, since you are narrating your inner thoughts.

Maybe you are too lazy for a novel, so why not take a little vlog of your day? I mean “pretend to”. It feels like you are famous, but silently in your own world. When you think as it in that way, it doesn’t feel that bad does it?

“Uhh, this lecture is killing me right now, but I’ll still have to make that presentation.” Wait, did someone say presentation? Well, public speaking isn’t in favor with everyone but we all know that nothing helps us prepare thoroughly than by speaking to ourselves.

Here is a fact: Psychologists believe our first experiences with self-talk are mostly vocal, as children often speak to themselves out loud as they play. In the 1930’s, Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky hypothesized that this kind of speech was actually key to development.*

Rather than people thinking they are turning into maniacs, this internal self-talking can actually help you plan and foresee difficult situations. You might even be your own source of motivation: “Come on, you are going to nail that presentation!”

Let’s be honest, the beauty lies in it’s spontaneity. Imagine forcing self-talk, I don’t think such thing exists. How am I going to force myself into speaking while painting? Yup, didn’t think so.

Although it is spontaneous, we should be well aware of it’s real life impacts: on your attitude and tone. Which is why you should be the one that is sticking with yourself and getting through everyday tasks while boosting your mood.

Well, as much as we like to talk about the positive side, there is danger almost at every end of many things unless we do it in the right way. If you criticize yourself more than needed or even in a depressive way, self-talk can turn into a toxic manner: which will lead you to having anxiety and self-esteem issues.

Today, there is a way of treatment called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), that is focused on regulating the tone of self-talk to identify negative reflection cycles and replace them with neutral or more compassionate reflections.*

So remember now and then: you are always here, so try to be kinder to yourself and have the best out of it!

*This story is an exposition of a TedEd video called ‘Is it normal to talk to yourself?’, some parts are exact quotes from the video.