Talking to oneself, crazy or not?

Start talking to yourself, if you don't already. It can change your life.

Do you ever find yourself talking to....yourself?

I do. Sometimes out loud. Am I considered crazy?

Not according to Elite Daily, and Psych Central. The first thing I typed into google "talking to yourself".

Let me tell you what they say about it than I'll give you my two cents on the topic.

Gigi Engli in Elite Daily tells us that thinking out loud helps her make sense of things. It helps the brain work more efficiently. Studies were done to prove this by psychologists Daniel Swigley and Gary Lupya.

Finally she concludes by saying that by talking to yourself it helps you achieve your goals, because you walk yourself through it. Same concept as visualizing, although it is easier to talk yourself through it I find.

Linda Sapadin in Psych Central suggests that we live in a noisy world and that by talking to yourself outloud you will not neglect the most special person, and that is you. It relieves loneliness, and you become smarter if you speak respectively to yourself.

In my opinion you should speak to yourself how you would speak to the person you look up to the most. Going deeper into that, you should speak to everyone the same, don't be fake by playing a persona to one person and being someone completely different to another.

Whether that other person be a stranger or a friend. And then the article concludes with 4 types of self talkers.

Also in Business Insider the headline Talking To Yourself Can Make You Smarter is captivating.

Now let's get into how I feel about it.

Talking to myself has improved my life. How?

I ruminate and sometimes when I hear what I say out loud it begins to connect the dots for me, and make things that were not so obvious, obvious. It is having someone to talk to at all times. I find I do this at times when I am stressed, brainstorming, or when I am solving a problem.

It also works when I give myself positive affirmations. It undoubtedly feels more impactful when I say them out loud.

Part of the process is of self reflection for me.

My friend started doing this recently after his breakup, he claims "it keeps me from going stir crazy".

Talking to yourself does not make you a crazy. I think quite the contrary.

Talking to myself helps me get insights that are locked away in my subconscious and raises them to the conscious mind. It also helps me remember things I don't want to forget.

Saying them in a positive way that I will not forget them for example, "I will remember to do this...." instead of "I won't forget to do this..." By saying the latter you are telling yourself to forget what you want to remember. (This is a deeper topic I will explore another time)

I was walking my dogs today and then I started thinking out loud. I am working on my nightly routine of where I record 3 things that I have learned each day (more on this on a later post). While this is running through my mind and thinking about this post, I said to myself;

"The things that I record are they learnt or just insights that were already there."

That is one example of my critical thinking while talking to myself.

A great deal of my thinking is done out loud. Not to say that I don't have an inside voice as well. We all do.

Some of the most influential people in the world talk to themselves. It seems as though many of them are introverts like Albert Einstein. However this is not a proven theory, just my observation.

I know that I am not the only person that talks to himself.

Writing this blog is a form of talking to myself. Especially those eureka moments are the best because you are so satisfied and cannot wait to congratulate yourself.

The question I want to leave you with is do you listen or ignore that inside voice?

Thank you for taking the time to read this. To be continued....

Image copyright from lord of the rings.