We have an innate capability to independently perform a wide variety of physical and mental functions. It’s hard-wired into our rules of our survival. However, this is not a perfect mechanism; we do have the ability to silently use language to process our lives, but we don’t really have an in-depth understanding of how it works just yet. 

This knowledge gap is what fuels the self-help industry, which has a wide variety of ideas and methods. Some are backed by scientific evidence, while others are manifested as a result of a strong placebo effect. Regardless of how these solutions are created, it’s clear that one’s mental state is key to making change happen.

So what’s it like inside our heads and how can we improve the way we converse with ourselves?

  Self-Help: Cutting Through the Pseudoscience:

Ethan’s book, entitled Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It provides a welcome academic perspective on the power of that little voice in your head. He provides a refreshing take on how even the oft-overlooked act of talking to ourselves the inner dialogue has a science to it. that leads to obsession, overthinking, and rumination is broken down into chemicals and reactions in your brain. 

If you’ve ever found yourself obsessing over an issue that happened years ago, or staying up at night because you found yourself triggered by a passing memory, Ethan’s insights on how the immaterial manifests into material may be the key to reining those thoughts in and getting a good night’s sleep.

One common critique of the self-help industry is that most coaches and authors often sell placebos for negative ways of thinking. They cover up the problem instead of getting to the root of an idea. 

While Ethan concedes that placebos can have a powerful effect on one’s mental state, it can also prevent people from seeking the help they need to turn their life around. Mental wellbeing is an important aspect of adult life that may need attention. While his book is not a replacement for therapy, it does give people the opportunity to find sound scientific advice without having to shell out a lot on seeking psychiatric help, which can come at prohibitively high prices even with healthcare insurance.

  Learning How to Self-Regulate:

Our inherent response to negative emotion is to avoid confrontation, or at least refrain from getting triggered. Unfortunately, negativity is an integral part of the authentic human experience. It’s the way we cope, or self-regulate, that’s the game-changer. When faced with a problem, we are challenged to pick between immediately trusting our guts, or holding back and letting it run its course first. 

We’ve all heard of how we need to trust our intuition; however, it’s not a foolproof method to solving all our conflicts. A better understanding of how our brain is wired to think—and how we wire our brains to think—can better help us distinguish between those two states.

  Time Travel and Personal Development:

Hindsight is an incredibly powerful tool that can be used for both good and bad. This idea of staying in the moment can be harmful because it encourages people to remain stagnant, and ignore opportunities to process important experiences.

The pressure to always stay in the moment also places restrictions on what your brain is really capable of. Your mind is constantly working on making calculations based on your past experiences, and translating it into forecasts for the future. In this way, it’s a lot like time traveling.

 

Breaking Destructive Thought Cycles:

It’s easy to believe that our internal thought process won’t have an impact on our actions. However, the truth is that living in a constant state of harm or fear does not afford a good foundation for individuals to make good choices— not just for themselves, but also for others. 

A natural consequence of experiencing adversity is our attempt to look inward and try to analyze every facet of that event. While this may be done with the best intentions, it is all too easy to get stuck in negative thought loops; reliving the worst parts of the challenge in their head. This is a debilitating process which can quickly become a habit. 

Another aspect of this is that sadness becomes a familiar, and even a comfortable, state of being. The negative chatter is accustomed to highlighting the worst parts of our lived experience. As a result, our ability to process in a healthy way becomes affected. 

 

Closing Thoughts: The Road to Better Chatter:

Cognitive bias is a quiet problem with a serious impact. It takes plenty of commitment for an individual to successfully change the way they think, feel, and behave about themselves despite outside pressure. 

Thankfully, Ethan points out plenty of ways for you to retrain your thinking. The key is to give yourself psychological space, or an opportunity to view yourself as another person struggling with their own unique problems. This is where the metaphorical fly on the wall idea comes in: if you’ve ever found it much easier to give advice than to follow it, distancing techniques are the key to internalizing these messages.  

Ethan and Chatter gave plenty of insight on how external divides may come from internal manifestations of unresolved emotion and cognitive bias. In a world where people are separated by a multitude of different beliefs, perspectives, and experiences, this discussion could be a step forward to more open dialogues—especially when people begin with themselves. www.tartle.co

 

Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

 

The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.

 

What's your data worth?

 

Find out at: https://tartle.co/

 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/

 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial

 

Spread the word!