How to Quiet Negative Self-Talk? | Eckhart Tolle

It can be a more playful thing where you simply look around and acknowledge the presence of what's around you and feel your own presence in the background. It's not a serious business. Now I have to practice presence. No, just don't even call it anything. Just be at ease in the present moment. There's only this moment. Don't try to be present. Just be at ease in the now. And then look around and sense and it's fine. And then thoughts come. Don't have to stay there. And then thoughts come and thoughts go around your mind for a few minutes. And then again you take some steps into your presence again, walking from here to there, making a cup of tea, looking out of the window. And then thoughts come again. So you intersperse the day or your life with presence. And also when you're traveling, either no matter when you go to work, wherever you go, whether you go, whether you walk or drive or use a bicycle or use a train or use a bus, it's a wonderful opportunity for just go within and be present as you travel. Whenever you're waiting, just be. There's no effort involved at all. The effort is not being present. It's more effortful. That's where all effort arises. You don't use willpower to be present, just an arising alertness. Don't demand that it should be there for long periods of time. That's frustrating. And then you say, oh, it's gone. I can't do it anyway. Screw it. I'm quoting you. And that's the mind talking, not the presence talking. It's the mind saying it's useless to be present. It's too hard work. I can't do it. I can't stay there anyway. These are thoughts that arise in your mind and you believe them. But they are thoughts that are designed to take you out of presence and to prevent you from returning to presence. They're not the truth. They are created by your mind to take you out of presence. That's all. So the mistake you made is you believed in those thoughts. So even the thoughts through it is not the true thought, as Byron Katie would say. How do you know that's true? It's not a true thought. It's a thought that's there to take you out of presence and to make sure that you don't go back to it. And then another thought comes and says, what's the point? It's not working for me. Maybe it's working for others, but it's not working for me. All kinds of you may Be familiar with that kinds of self talk in the head. Be very aware of what kind of self talk happens in your head. Very interesting, because you can learn so much about the conditioning of your mind by listening to the way in which you talk to yourself. And everybody talks to themselves. And some people use the first person singular and talk as I. And many people use this use the you. They talk to themselves, addressing themselves as you. You are useless, aren't you? Why can other people do it but you can't? Who is talking to whom? So you're creating a split in your mind. And one part of your mind talks the other part of your mind and calls it you. It's amazing. So recognize that the self talk rarely speaks the truth. It's a form of conditioning that goes on in your mind and it is associated with the ego, which does not want to go away. It wants to stay in charge. Stick around. It knows what to say to take you out. But if you don't believe in every thought that arises, especially thoughts concerning presence, then you're free. The thoughts may still come, but you can say, oh, there goes the thought. You don't actually. You no longer comment on the thought. And this is interesting. You, you become the. From the awareness you can see and recognize the thought as a thought that your mind throws up without calling it anything. It's a bit like holding a mirror up to something that arises. That's the awareness. The mirror doesn't judge what, what arises. Because if you criticize the thought that you just had, it's just more self talk. And even if you say, why are you always having this self talk? You should stop. You should. By now you should be beyond that self talk. You've been doing spiritual work for years and you still can't get out of your self talk. What's wrong with more of it? So when you become aware of your self talk, don't formulate judgments around the self talk. You get just more of it. Don't criticize yourself. Hold up a mirror to it, and from there there's a knowing there in that awareness. You know that this is self talk and you know that it's not true. Without having to tell yourself through words that this is not true and this is self talk. You just know this is. In the same way that you can know you can look at a. You can look at a plant or a flower, you know it's a flower, but you don't have to tell yourself this is a flower. You know it without formulating any words in your mind, any Concepts. You can look at the sky. Beautiful, vast, blue. You don't have to say to yourself, this is the vast blue sky and I'm looking at it. That's knowing through concepts and words. But there's another kind of knowing does not require words. You just know. And because you do not limit what you are perceiving through concepts, you can actually sense a greater depth in that which you are perceiving. Whether it's the flower or the sky, you can sense a depth in it that goes beyond what you see on the surface of your sense perceptions. The depth becomes obscure to you when you look at everything through mental concepts. When you say, this is a beautiful, vast sky, you're still limiting yourself. The true perception does not happen until the words disappear. And there's only the awareness and the perception. And in that the sky is more than just the sky. It suddenly. Because every concept reduces it. And you think the word sky is the sky. You know the painting. I think it's by Magritte, the painting of an apple. And he writes underneath, this is not an apple. Of course it isn't. It's the painting of an apple. In the same way that a word or concept is not it. Krishnamurti said, when you teach a child the name of the bird, from then on the child will never see that bird again. Because the child then begins to substitute the concept for the direct perception. And there's a depth to the direct perception in which the bird is more than a bird. There's a depth to the bird. And you realize that life form is more than a bird. It just appears as a bird. And what I'm trying to put into words comes from a perception that is beyond words. That's why it's so difficult. So you see, there's a depth to the flower and the sky and the bird that cannot be there. When you look at it through concepts, you can feel the aliveness of the bird. You can sense its connectedness to the totality. You can sense its sense sacredness. You can sense it's beautiful. You could never realize that through concepts. So don't believe in the words that your mind throws up and they take you out of presence. That's the main lesson for you here. And it's a lesson for everybody. Because everybody is burdened. And some people are plagued and tortured by their self talk in a way that would be regarded as indefensible cruelty if somebody close to you did it to you all the time on a daily basis. What are. I don't know what terms they use the legal terms when you get a divorce, cruelty or inhuman cruelty, whatever that would apply to your mind that you have to live with when you are not aware enough. Perhaps not as bad for you, it just takes you out of presence. But for other, many other people, the self talk can be extremely destructive and can make your life miserable, absolutely miserable. You don't know that it's only the self talking that you think that's your life. You think your life is miserable. Not realizing it's your self talk that makes your life miserable. Is it a. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this so absolutely vital lesson. Hold up a mirror, the mirror of awareness to your self talk so that you realize it's no more than self talk. In particular, if you've had predominantly negative or even 50% and many people have 80 to 90% negative self talk, then realize this is stuff my mind produces, not verbally. You don't have to realize it verbally. The mirror of awareness. And you look and you know, wow. And I've lived with that for so many years and I've survived miraculously, even with that dreadful self talk in the head. And because when you no longer identify with it, it begins to subside. It's only when you only empower it again and again, when it takes you over so completely that you identify, it becomes you.