“I am the Greatest – I said that even before I knew it”

 – Muhammad Ali

Self-discipline, Self-Image and Self-discipline are all the tools you must take up and use to achieve Self Actualization. But these are heavy tools and must be picked up again and again – used for hours together, day in and day out. How you do you convince yourself to do all that? That’s right – through self-communication!

The communication that you carry out with yourself is of crucial importance – its grammar, tone and content will determine whether you want to crawl into some hole and die or wake up energized every morning to do great things. In your everyday functioning and especially when working towards your Self Actualization, you are bound to come across setbacks, toxic feedback from people and random misfortunes. At such times you can either blame yourself or whine “why me” or put the lessons of Self-discipline in motion by treating yourself to self-kindness and self-compassion. You have to rebuild the Self Image of Greatness and then fire it up with the Will Power that drives your Self-discipline. And each of these actions requires you to talk to yourself with kindness, positivity and purpose.

Mahatman philosophy reveals a deeper need for positive Self-Communication – one that is inextricably tied to the workings of the human brain. Remember all those millennia ago, Self-Actualization was not really the foremost concern of our ancestors living in caves. They were busier fending off starvation and fighting off wild animals. Not surprisingly they depended on the inner brain comprising of the amygdala to tell them how to survive. This is because the amygdala is the centre of fear, anxiety, and all other emotions that go to fire the fight or flight responses.

While this older reptilian brain served our ancestors quite well in the matter of species survival – and we have a 7.7 billion strong world population to prove it! – it continues to remain an obstinate influence till this day when physical threats of the kind the earliest humans were exposed to in the wild are rather unusual now. As a result your modern brain continues to run on a default mode which senses fear and threat at every other opportunity. Similarly it is more sensitive to news and feedback of negative nature – like a snarky comment from your partner or a ticking off by your boss – rather than feedback of positive nature like a compliment from the same people. This bias in information processing is known as negativity bias which predisposes human beings to obsess with unhappy situations rather than focus on the happier ones.

And before you shrug of this negativity bias as yet another excuse for shrinks to complicate our lives, here is some research that should make you pause and think. In 1998 John Cacioppo and his team from Ohio University conducted an experiment that recorded electrical activity in the brain’s cerebral cortex of three groups of subjects. One group was shown pictures known to arouse positive feelings like that of a pizza or a hot red Ferrari. Another group was shown pictures certain to evoke negative feelings like that of a dead pet or a mutilated face and finally, the third group was shown photos known to produce neutral feelings like a hairdryer or a simple dinner plate. The study found that the brain responded with a greater surge in electrical activity upon seeing the distressing pictures rather than the feel-good ones. In other words, the human brain reacts more strongly to stimuli that it sees as negative as compared to those that it finds positive. Herein lies the importance of Self-Communication which can help you to override the default negativity bias in your brain and change it into a positive picture.

To explain the process fully, we need to discuss the nature of Perception and Reality. Growing up in a material culture, we are accustomed to think of Reality as objective, singular and unchanging. After all an apple is roughly spherical, red in colour and crunchy and juicy to eat – how can anyone doubt the reality of these traits? But suppose you see the apple in a green or blue light, then what colour would it appear? Suppose you look at it from different angles – might any of those make the apple seem a flat circle rather than a sphere? Psychologists have extensively studied this subjective nature of reality and put forth the concept of Perception. In very simple terms, it denotes how you receive information from your senses – information about the colour and shape of the apple, in this case – and then how you interpret it?

Since perception is your own interpretation of the world, it follows that the meanings you give to objects and incidents are made up in your mind. So if a stranger knocks on your car window in a parking lot, you could either interpret as a psychopath about to kidnap you or a fellow human with car trouble. If you give this situation the former meaning, it is evidence of negativity bias at work. Taken to an extreme, it can lead to catastrophizing – so you imagine yourself being mugged or kidnapped, then tortured and killed and your family grieving and destitute…

But suppose there is a way to turn things around in your head? Suppose you make it a point to tell your pre-frontal cortex to get to work which is the seat of logical and analytical thinking? As a result, what if you tell yourself that the parking lot is well secured, it’s just seven in the evening and there are cars coming in and out – perhaps this man is not dangerous after all, just let me lower the window a little and ask what this is all about? This is you talking to yourself to change your perception of a situation from on laden with fear and anxiety to courage and confidence. Now do you see the importance of Self Communication? It has the power to change your very meaning of Reality – in this case from a potential kidnapping to helping a fellow human in trouble.

And that’s not even half of it – the impact of Self-Communication continues further. Once it changes your perception of a situation, the new reality leads to further Self-Communication which in turn adds other meanings to your reality. So suppose you lower the window down and agree to listen to this person knocking on your car. You find out that he has locked himself out, his phone is inside the car and he just needs to dial his daughter’s number from your phone. This is a new reality, one that is harmless and once you agree to help him out, you tell yourself you are glad that you turned to be of assistance to someone today. This new self-communication feeds to your perception of you as confident, helpful being, thus enhancing your Self Image and laying the groundwork for Self-Actualization.

And one very important way that it does this is by making you rethink the action of stress. Stress has for some time now been vilified as the numero uno cause of all the ills of modern life – making us lose our sleep, appetite, libido, hair, marriage and all the rest. But new studies show that it is how you think about stress that has more impact on your wellbeing rather than physiological symptoms of stress per se. Research done by Dr. Alia Crum of Stanford University shows that viewing stress as a helpful rather than as harmful part of life, is associated with better health, emotional well-being, and productivity at work – even during periods of high stress. However, this is possible only when you change your mindset – to this end Self-Communication can turn out to be a highly effective tool. So the next time you face a stressful situation like a crucial work meeting in ten minutes for which you have no time to prepare, tell yourself that your body’s stress response was not designed to kill you.  On the contrary, the evolutionary purpose of the stress response – like your racing pulse and tense muscles – was to boost your body and mind into enhanced functioning so that you can meet the demands you are confronted with.

Self-Communication is even more important in your inter-relationships. So before you get ready to fight with your partner over a comment about your choice of jacket, pause and think whether they had really intended to hurt you or were they just trying to be helpful? Or when your boss remarks that your presentation needs improvement, maybe he actually wants you to get that contract and so is passing on some useful advice rather than wilfully denting your self-worth. In all these ways Self-Communication can make us look at a situation from different angles, rather than reacting from a place of fear, anxiety and insecurity. Eventually, with conscious positive Self-Communication, you shall be able to stop doing and saying all the things that ruin relationships. In other words, positive self-communication will help you to improve your relationships and be more trusting of others and think more positively of the world.

If all that is required for success is positive Self-Communication, then why does success elude so many of us? Surely it is no big deal to talk to yourself in a feel-good way! Actually, you will be surprised to know that it is – for Self-Communication to be effective in building a Positive Self-Image and setting the wheels of Self Actualization in motion, it is necessary that Self-Communication happens in the correct way.

• First of all, replace the negative with affirmative. Napoleon Hill in his book, Think and Grow Rich outlines 5 ways to successful thinking and one of them is to plant positive affirmations in your mind. He compares the immense power of the subconscious mind to a fertile garden where you need to sow the seeds of positive thought to reap the full harvest. Likewise, Mahatma believes that you need to persistently repeat positive affirmations to yourself. Wake up each day and tell yourself in the mirror how great you look, how bright you are and how well your day is going to turn out. Replace negative expressions in sentences like “ the report is not ready” or “ I cannot quit smoking” with affirmative ones like in “I am working on the report” or “I will continue in my efforts to quit smoking”.

When faced with setbacks, avoid self-talk that makes you feel guilty or ashamed of yourself. Remember this is the default mode of your reptilian brain but ensure that your newer brain takes charge by giving yourself an honest pep talk. One of the most famous quotes on motivation is by that legendary inventor Thomas Alva Edison who said of his long effort towards inventing the electric light bulb, “I have not failed, I have just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.”

It is quite amazing how using the right words and expressions can completely change the tone and tenor of the Self-Communication – what’s more it will rewire your brain in new more energetic ways. So, I often tell myself “Sam you don’t need to sleep or rest – what you really want to do is to recharge yourself at night and refuel yourself at mealtimes”. Try replacing words which imply passivity, lethargy and weakness with words that indicate strength, agency and energy – you will soon see a huge difference in the impact of this kind of Self-Communication.

• Use other affirmative cues. Yet another of Hill’s steps towards successful thinking is harnessing the power of emotions. Part of the immense power of the subconscious brain emerges from its cauldron of emotions. So when using positive self-talk, draw from emotional cues to make your Self-Communication truly effective. You can do this by talking to yourself with a broad smile or accompanying your words with mindful breathing. Playing your favourite happy music in the background is a great way to anchor your pep talk to the emotional reservoir of your brain.
• Use third-person rather than first-person. Positive Psychology which first started talking about the power of positive thinking and affirmative self-talk to transform human life is a relatively new branch of psychology. Nevertheless, some very interesting research is happening on the impact of self-talk on our sense of wellbeing and performance too.  Repeated studies have found that using the third person when talking to yourself is more helpful than using the first person. Recall what Malal Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Prize winner and courageous activist for women’s education said on The Daily Show about her response to threats from the Taliban. “‘If the Taliban comes, what would you do, Malala,’” she described herself as having said at the time. “Then I would reply to myself, ‘Malala, just take a shoe and hit him.’”

The above and more real life examples compelled Ethan Kross of University of Michigan and his team to dig deeper and their research “demonstrated that non-first-person language use (compared with first-person language use) leads people to appraise future stressors in more challenging and less threatening terms”. In other words, when you talk to yourself by using your name and third person pronouns like he or she, you have better chances of overcoming stress and negativity from the world. This is because the use of third person creates a kind of psychological distance – it gives you emotional perspective and space for rational thinking. Moreover it is often easier to be kinder to others than to yourself.

Mahatman in fact goes further with yet another benefit of psychological distance that such Self-Communication can offer. So many people in different parts of the world are compelled to live in cramped housing where the space to move, think and function freely is at a premium. Often such conditions restrict creative and independent thinking. But you can get over such barriers if you use the right Self-Communication style – the psychological distancing that this will bring can strengthen your mind to overcome the physical space crunch and think in more expansive terms.

We have discussed how Self-Communication can help you see the world as a better place and feel more positive about your relationships. In this way, Self-Communication is a great tool to build more trust between you and others and indeed more trust within yourself. Feeling positive and hopeful is indispensable if you are to take a chance with your professional clients, your romantic partner or really achieve anything that depends on working with others.

This however does not mean you trust blindly. Positive self-talk is most definitely not a tool for self-delusion. Only too often I tell myself, “Sam remember that hoary maxim, ‘Trust but Verify’ “. And this saves me from being taken for a ride and from much more serious consequences too. So late at night, if you hear someone breaking into your house, it will be suicidal to tell yourself that “Hey its OK. He must be a poor troubled kid looking for something to buy his next fix. Let me go and help him put away his gun”. Instead tell yourself not to panic, quickly call 911 for help and then be ready to face him calmly should he confront you.

In all these ways, Self-Communication is a highly powerful a way to change your own perceptions so that you can turn situations and people in your favour. How many times have you come across the old adage about glass being half full or half empty? Right here, right now I tell you, “Mahatman philosophy goes beyond such binaries – Mahatman advocates actions with which you can fill your glass to the brim!”