THE SUBTLE ART OF TALKING TO SELF

Presenting to you one of my random musings for today. It struck me out of nowhere and I spent some time marvelling at this. I’m talking about the art of talking to self.

Talking generally involves addressing your thoughts to a person. Talking to oneself involves addressing your own thoughts to yourself. Normally, there is a voice in our head that directs us. The next advanced level of this is talking to self. Normally, people associate talking to self as a sign of a mental illness or stress but this is a myth. Yes, symptoms of stress include talking to self but that is a different type of talking that involves mumbling or talking under your breath. We should normalise talking to self and I’m sure many people indulge in this action.

In this lockdown, while the importance of mental health is being advocated, I feel that talking to self is an emotional outlet for many people. Personally, I talk to myself more than I talk to others! Talking to self for me involves forming an immediate action plan as to how to tackle all sorts of assignments with varying deadlines in this online semester, me giving myself a pep talk or motivation before an important competition or graded evaluation, me trying to console myself in times of distress or anxiety, me letting out an exclamation or a sigh when I witness something surprising or shocking. As you can see, I talk to myself for a lot of different things. During critical problem solving, my mind runs several alternatives in parallel and this voice only makes me reassured towards my goal. Sometimes, you even tend to form new words by combining words of two different languages and that task is hilarious.

It has highlighted me on two occasions. Once, I was walking in my college. I was forming a plan by talking to myself. A guard, looking concerned, came towards me and asked “Are you alright? “. Another instance was when I was wearing my earphones, walking and talking to myself. My mother asked me after I stopped that who was I talking to, whereas I was just listening to songs and talking to myself.

Talking to self can be very beneficial as it builds your self-confidence. It boosts the emotional intelligence of a person. It can help in problem solving, conflict and stress resolution and motivation. Moreover, when you hear your own voice, you can work on your vocabulary and pronunciation skills. Overall, I feel it can be an important personality-building activity, for those who do it.

Dear readers, do tell me your views on self-talking and interesting incidents that happened with you due to the same in the comment section below ! ✨