Good mental health is determined by the voice within… the inner narrator. S/he reads faithfully from the script that has been written over the course of your life. If that script is positive, inspiring and uplifting, then what a gift! Sadly, this is often not the case. Most of us have a script that is mixed – more often confusing, condemning and disabling. If our script is never challenged or questioned we become attached to the notion that that voice represents our point of view. Even worse than that we passionately defend its opinions, ideology and beliefs because we now believe they are our own! And yet so much of what we carry around with us as our opinions and beliefs are merely ideas and concepts we’ve inherited that don’t necessarily reflect our truth because in most cases we don’t know what our truth is.
The current research tells us that the average person has around 60,000 thoughts a day and approximately 95% of those thoughts s/he thought yesterday, a year ago, ten years ago. There is at best 5% of new thoughts that are being generated in the present moment. The rest, competing for our attention, are actually those thoughts we’ve inherited and have over time defined ourselves by…. but how many of those thoughts have you actually audited? How many of them, if you were born today, would you hold onto as your own? It’s time to check if your inner narrator is reading a script that truly reflects your views and values, or is that voice within seducing you with its outdated myths and hypnotic appeal?
In this section, there are a number of short scripts that offer you a template, a way of thinking, that can lead your mind down a different path. Each script encourages you to write a new play in which you become the central character, someone you can be proud of, someone who lives up to their potential and discards the negative monologue. These are not definitive scripts; they offer you an introduction to the concept of changing your self-talk. We hope as a result you will write your own scripts and your inner voice will inspire you with its sweet utterings. We have deliberately punctuated the statements within each script with dots to encourage you to pause and reflect on what’s been said before you move on. Please don’t try to implement all the scripts simultaneously, the best results will be achieved by focusing on them one at a time or using a few that overlap and therefore support you with any challenges you may have, or with your desire for self-improvement.
Also in this section you’ll find other inspirational material that will encourage you to change the way you speak to yourself. If you don’t change your inner narrative, your inner narrative will change you.
Also see: Strength versus Force, The Child Within and Breathing for Life