Stop Destroying Yourself With Negative Self Talk - Dr Peter Attia

one of the things that I really appreciated about you was your openness you've spoken about this a number of times your openness about your own uh sometimes negative castigating inner monologue it's something that I'm incredibly familiar with as well myself what would you say to the people who have poor selft talk a scolding in a voice that reminds them of how they fell short way too often what have you learned about dealing with that and also about balancing that with your high standards for yourself about wanting to make a mark in the world but also needing to be able to give yourself self-love yeah it's an interesting question um I don't know that I could provide generic advice on the topic because it probably depends on where the person is in pain right now so I know that for me the message the the reason I was willing to engage in the discussion around changing the behavior was because the output of it was was was made clear to me right so once I recognized the link between my selft talk and my rage and I fully accepted the fact that I wanted to rid myself of Rage then I accepted the fact that I had to go and fix the selft talk so my guess is the only way to really try to convince somebody that um you're having an inner Bobby Knight which is what my guy was having an inner Bobby Knight that screams at you all the time is harmful is by helping them understand a clear path between how that behavior links to something that is hurting them in another way that is more obvious and I I think if you can't do that it's probably a little too abstract to just say you know you should be nicer to yourself I listened on recommendation from a friend to a 20year old nearly 20-y old Tony Robbins awaken the giant within workbook on Audible it's about an hour and a half and I never read the original book and in it he talks about pain Pleasure Principle and he talks about bringing with decisions that you want to make or with habits that you want to change bringing as much pain to bear look at what this has cost me in the past look at what this is costing me now think about what this will cost me in the future and then turn that up to a thousand so my friend wanted to stop biting his s so he thought about all of the times in the past that girls had sort of made an icky sort of move when he put his hands on and they'd seen them and how ashamed he felt about it at the time and about how this was going to hold him back in the future and how it made him feel like a juvenile and it was immature and then he went online to turn it up to a thousand and he looked at the worst photos that he could find of people that had bitten their nail these awful you know like bloody stumps of fingers uh and then he thought about the opposite he thought about how much pleasure could I bring to this how proud I would be if I'd overcome this thing that I'd done for 20 years about how much more attractive I would feel about how much more confident I would feel when I shake someone's hand or I put my hand on my girlfriend's leg and these sorts of things and uh I have to say it's incredibly powerful like to do that to bring to bear and what you're talking about is there is a inner Tormentor that kind of does a thing but it's all inside of your head and it's Upstream from some things that actually manifest that you can kind of hold on to and do a thing so how do you get how do you get back up and how do you point the finger at what's actually going on well you bring to be so much of what's happening in the real world but yeah it's I think this is one of the most common issues especially people that listen to this sort of a podcast you know they're high Achievers they want to do things they want to leave a mark on the world want to improve themselves but so much of that comes from like whipping themselves into submission all the time I'm going to castigate myself until I I like bow under the strain of how much torment I've given to myself and but as you know it there's a real myth that you have to do that to perform well right um and and the myth is that you know there are plenty of great coaches who extract remarkable performance from their athletes without that behavior so and it doesn't mean you're not firm and it doesn't mean you don't have high standards and it doesn't mean that if the team absolutely shits the bed and doesn't show up that the coach isn't going to let them have it but that's you know that's very different from the constant berating and also I I think there's just a real difference in terms of um you know differentiating kind of um a negative behavior or a negative outcome from the individual themsel is the is the is the problem right so so it's one thing to say I don't like that I wasn't able to do X Y and Z that's a different statement from I am a worthless person because I didn't do comment on my my selfworth on how much respect I am owed by the world okay so take me through how you reprogrammed that selft talk I understand that you can have this thing the rage is Downstream from the whatever but what what did that look like what did going in and factchecking your uh very Stern in a voice look like uh it was a it was actually a very deliberate set of actions cuz I think you have to do actions and the easiest way to reprogram is through voice so uh I think you have to audibly reprogram a system I don't think thoughts are enough and so uh the exercise that I undertook uh about four years ago to reverse a pattern of behavior that was in place for more than 40 years was to every single time I had a moment of self uh what was about to amount in a sort of self cursing um situation I would I was I was instructed to take out my phone and record audibly a a a description of what I would say to a friend had they just committed the same quote unquote egregious act okay so example would be if I'm shooting my bow and arrow and I'm really doing a lousy job of it instead of jumping into self-loathing I would take out my phone and record a memo speaking but not to myself but to my friend you know like if it was you what if you had just shot as poorly as I did what would I say to you and it I would I would be much more gentle what what were the sort of things that you would say be it would be you know and again you have to understand how strained some of these discussions are CU in the moment you're so angry y right it would be uh hey Chris I know you just finished trying to shoot today and it it just didn't go well at all um you weren't able to accomplish any of the things you wanted to accomplish I I know it's frustrating um I think you just have to accept a couple of things one is um you're probably a little distracted today if you're being honest with yourself um because you have a lot on your mind and you know truthfully it's a little windy today and I I think it's just hard for those arrows to fly straight when the wind is blowing at 10 m an hour um and you know as you know from pre previous experiences like tomorrow will be a new day like you're going to come out here and do this again tomorrow and it'll be better and we're just going to go back to process and we're going to get it right and we're going to we're going to do a couple of drills tomorrow to instill that that was it you know it might be a one minute little voice memo I'd send that to my therapist and then I don't know five hours later something else would come up that would piss me off I'd burn a steak or something cuz I turn you know I got I got distracted and left the barbecue and and inside I'd want to immediately eviscerate myself but instead I would pull it out and pretend that it was my brother who had just burned the steak and what would I say to him if we were at his house and he had just burned the steak how would I make him feel better about it while acknowledging that it sucks we don't have dinner tonight you know and and I would do that and after four to 6 months of doing this I don't know three to five times a day hey lo and behold I couldn't hear Bobby Knight talk anymore wow so it can it really turned the volume down it is in my life the single greatest example of neuroplasticity that I have ever witnessed and how old are you how old were you when you were doing this I'm 51 now so 47 dude that's wild yeah you wouldn't think it could change I think especially when you're talking talking about selft talk it is the internal physics of your system it literally is the texture through which you interact with your own mind and it's the fish underwater thing like you just yeah you don't know that it could be different and to think that it's as malleable as that and how sticky has that been do you need to drop you having to go back and do this or is no i' I've never had to go back and do it and I've never heard the voice again now I want to be clear this doesn't mean I don't get angry what it means is a the frequency with which I get angry is a fraction of what it used to be the um and the duration or the blast radius is much narrower so the last time I got really pissed at myself or pissed at my inability to do something was I was in the simulator I'm trying to learn I'm trying to learn a new F1 circuit in the simulator and um for whatever reason there are certain tracks that are just very hard Silverstone is a very hard track to drive uh it's very hard to put a perfect together and it just really gets under your skin and so is IMA so Ima is a circuit I'm learning right now like learning in great detail right like I want to come up with a really cracking time on emila and I was down in the simulator and I was going through it and I just couldn't nail the last the second and third last corners and I would have these epic flying laps and then I would absolutely the bed in this corner and either off track spin or just lose so much time that I couldn't put a lap together and you know after I don't know an hour of this I just got super frustrated got out of the simulator and was like absolutely ripping pissed off but because I didn't indulge in any selft talk it wasn't like you suck how can you not do this which is exactly what that voice would have said in the past it was just oh I am so pissed that I am not able to do this right now like I'm going to come and do it tomorrow and by the time I got from my simulator room upstairs I had forgotten about it and that's the difference whereas before that would have stayed with me and I I'm embarrassed to say this it would have stayed with me for the rest of the day I would not have been able to shed that anger for the rest of the day and it would have leaked into everything I did uh whereas now in 60 seconds I it's not that I didn't remember it happened it just the emotion of it was had dissipated already so I can imagine there's a number of people whose inner voice perhaps isn't as uh pharmaceutical grade as yours was or weapons grade maybe um but presumably that means that if they were to go through a period of this rewiring that dose could be less intensity would be less difficulty would be less like if your patient zero for having a really really bad inner voice that means that people who just want to make it a little bit better because it's a bit bad should be able to get there have you got any idea what what was happening when you going through like what is it about speaking to the friend what is it about that increase of distance what is it about the saying it out loud and yeah you know I've never really I've never really thought about what's happening from a from a neurobiological perspective it would be it would be an interesting discussion to to have with someone who's smarter than I am um and or at least understands that more but it is again I I I didn't do this because I thought it would work I really was like kind of a dumb idea there's no way this is going to work and I'm going to just be doing this for the rest of my life and maybe the fact that I have to do this for the rest of my life is the Penance like for for my sins but I was like it can't work like again I just thought like it it's so ridiculous that I'm going to do this because like you don't what is the next thing you're going to tell me I can be a foot taller if I think about it every day like if I talk to myself I'm going to make myself taller like I I thought that this trait was as immutable as a physical trait Y in other news this episode is brought to you by element stop having coffee first thing in the morning your adenosine system that caffeine acts on isn't even active for the first 90 minutes of the day but your adrenal system is and salt acts on your adrenal system element contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium pottassium and magnesium that helps to regulate appetite curb cravings and improve your brain function you've probably heard me talk about it a million times and that's because I love it it tastes fantastic fantastic it's got zero sugar no junk no 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Channel: Chris Williamson

Views: 73,744

Keywords: modern wisdom, podcast, chris williamson, Chris Williamson modern wisdom, modern wisdom podcast, chriswillx, Chris Williamson Modern Wisdom Podcast, Dr Peter attia, Peter attia, Peter attia modern wisdom, Dr Peter attia modern wisdom, Dr attia Chris Williamson, Dr Peter attia Chris Williamson, Chris Williamson Dr Peter attia advice

Id: WpYJjNz5ZvQ

Length: 14min 4sec (844 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2024