Mindless talking to someone else is only one half of the story. It is always accompanied with mindless talking within the mind with oneself all the time. It is the new normal because everyone is afflicted by this. Some of us manage to contain it within the mind and some of us end up mindlessly talking with others. Both cause trouble in different ways.
You can completely change this habitual tendency and stay mindful only when you look at the root of the problem. Namely a restless exhausted mind. The following article points out the causes of this condition as well as a path for coming out of it. It would be useful to first understand that this is a deep rooted habitual tendency, it is universal, it can be changed but it would take a long term view and gradual growth to come out of it. Please do not expect an overnight fix to solve it. One needs to heal and grow out of it not fix it.
Self_Love_Respect ·
1y
Is it normal to experience uncontrollable self-talk?
If you define normal as something that happens with the majority of the people living on this planet, then yes, it is normal to experience uncontrollable self-talk. But if you ask whether it is good for you to experience this condition, I would say, no. In self-talk, who is talking to who? Self-talk means you are talking to yourself. But you need someone to be talking to, isn’t it? Self talk is usually the voice in your mind playing out. It is as if a recorded audio is on auto play in the mind. Whose voice? The voices of all the people in your life, the society around you, telling you constantly what to do and what not to do. It could be negative or it could be positive. If you successfully distract your mind from this activity, it would end up doing something else in the mind. These include the dialogues we carry out mentally with an imaginary person, memories of past events, worries about the future, planning, working, calculating, computing, watching something (video), listening something (audio such as podcasts), reading, studying, focusing, concentrating, paying attention, fantasising, imagining, dreaming, etc. We are habituated to this and so it seems to be happening effortlessly and automatically although we are doing it. Our mind gets tired of this constant uncontrollable, unstoppable habit and wants to rest. It actually gets exhausted. We easily know when our physical body is exhausted and we rest it by sitting down or lying down or taking a nap or long sleep or having a hot bath or a nice massage. But we have no metric or measure to find out when our mind is tired and we have no means to allow our mind to rest because any of the above resting that we give our physical body doesn’t rest the mind. Mental exhaustion shows up in the form of the following: Stress, worrying, indecisiveness, feeling restless, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, burnout, insomnia, impatience, constant irritation, etc. If you are feeling any of these it indicates your mind is tired and no amount of sleeping will be enough to make this mental tiredness go away. Long term mental exhaustion is the root cause for all the chronic life-style diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, etc. Positive self-talk is not an answer to this. It doesn’t help because the mind is already tired and we end up doing something more with the mind so it is neither effective nor does it give rest. I have written extensively in my Quora posts and previous answers about how to enjoy a quiet mind and allow our mind to completely rest and be rejuvenated. Please browse through and read a few of them if you are interested to begin controlling the uncontrollable self-talk.