Ep# 18 Between stimulus and response - managing the voice in your head

So hello, and welcome to the Women's Room Legal Division podcast. I'm delighted that you've joined me today. And what I'm going to be talking about is something that if you have ever listened to any of my other podcasts, if you've ever done coaching with me, or if you've heard me give talks, you're very likely to have heard me talking about, and that is all about how to manage the voice in your head.

I think pretty much everyone has one. often it's not a very kind voice and often it's a really, really busy voice. And sometimes it can really hold us back from doing things that we really ought to be doing that would be good for us. Things like potentially asking our boss for a raise or for a promotion or saying yes to a great public speaking opportunity.

but often it's, it really can hold us back and it can take up a lot of our time and energy. And in fact, I've practiced yoga a lot. And one of the things that yoga is aiming to do is to still that voice in, in your head. And one of the sutras of Patanjali, if you've done yoga, you'll have heard about him goes Chittavritti Nirodhara.

And that's all about. Stopping the flutterings and ruminations of your mind. So that's what we're going to look at today and see if we can find some tools that you can use to manage it. So. Human beings have many needs, but they have in particular to really powerful emotional needs. And if you dig into most people's issues in their lives, you'll come back to one of these. One is to find connections. So we all really need to connection. We're a social being. We know that in terms of physical connection that, for instance, If babies are held when they're in an incubator, instead of just being left in an incubator, that they will fare much better.

So that physical contact is really, really important. And the second emotional need is to really avoid rejection. It's a primal need. If we were rejected when we were a baby, if we were pushed out of the tribe that we were living with when we were in the jungle, then it's very likely that we wouldn't survive.

So that need to avoid rejection. Rejection is absolutely primal and really deep seated and our body is always doing whatever, whatever it can in order to survive. So survival again is a key driver. We have many drivers, so we have drivers for power and territory, ego, sex, food. Parental drives. but we're one of the strongest is this drive for survival and other animals have it too, as we see out in the world, but human beings are a bit different as far as we're aware currently to other mammals in that we know we think more.

We have more of an imagination than we've been able to ascribe to. Mammals and that can be amazing. Obviously amazing creativity can give you beautiful daydreams, but sometimes the thoughts in our head and this imagination can cause us problems. And it's incredibly, incredibly powerful. Generally, we are every action, everything that we do.

tends to start with a thought, apart from two things, and that is reacting to a loud noise. So if suddenly you hear bang, there's a really loud noise. You're just going to react. There's no time to think even in microseconds. about how you are going to react. You're just going to react.

And the other is falling backwards, because if you fall backwards, you've got no sense that it's going to happen. You just suddenly, for some reason, fall backwards and your body will react in whatever way it needs to react to protect you. So the words that you use to yourself in your head are incredibly powerful and your mind is always listening to what you're saying.

And if you think about just how powerful Those words are if I did an experiment with you over a long period, I mean, you can try it now. If you just close your eyes, as long as you're not walking along or driving, but just think about you're holding a lemon in your hand. You can see how yellow it is. It's got a beautiful, shiny, slightly rough surface.

You cut it in half, cut it in quarters. You look, then you can see the flesh in between. And then I want you to pretend that you're going to take a bite. So you're going to hold that up to your lips. Maybe just lick your tongue along it and take a big bite of that lemon. Bite down on it. Feel the juice going into your mouth.

Feel the bitterness of the lemon. And then I want you to just notice if there's anything changed in your body. What you might have noticed, and you might have noticed if I'd done this for a bit longer, in a bit more detail, is that you have more saliva in your mouth. And the reason for that is that when we eat lemons, our body will pump out some more saliva to protect tooth, our tooth enamel, but you haven't actually bitten into a lemon.

You've just imagined it. So even imagining something can create a quite big physical reaction. And we know there are many examples of this blushing, for example, is something that happens to me. If I suddenly think about being embarrassed about something I've done, I can feel the flush. Creeping up my face.

And the more I worry about it, the worse it's going to be. We know that the hairs on, on the back of our neck or on our arms, stand on end purely from thinking something or from someone saying something. And a lot of what I'm talking about now comes from a psychotherapist called Marissa Peer. I will put, links to her books and to her website, into the notes on the podcast.

And one of the really interesting. In fact, it's a chapter of her book is, babies aren't afraid of flying. So why is it babies aren't afraid of flying? They get on the plane. They're perfectly fine. They're very happy. Usually, hopefully if they're around you, but for us. We create all of these scenarios in our head about what might go wrong, effectively false realities, fantasies, we project about what the future will bring, even we've got, even though we've got no idea about whether it's going to happen or not.

So we create all the time, lots of effective fantasies. In our heads and just by thinking about something that upsets you or scares you or makes you feel nervous, it's going to trigger that fight or flight response, because by thinking it, your body's thinking, okay, I've got to prepare. So I'm going to pump out some adrenaline, get my whole body ready to move.

And if it's to say something like going into an interview, or going to ask your CEO boss or ask your boss for a raise. You're not actually going to run away. You're not going to use that adrenaline to physically help your muscles move. And so what's going to happen is it's just going to feel like anxiety, but for no purpose coursing around your body.

So Marissa Pierce says, every word you say It becomes in your head, becomes a blueprint for your mind and body to work, to meet and turn into your reality. And she takes this to extreme. So she will tell you that she has clients who, if they have phrases that they say again and again to themselves in their head, then she will see the physical results of these phrases coming out.

So for example, I can't stand it. I can't stand it. If there's a client who says that a lot, maybe they'll have some sort of issue with their legs. It's doing my head in, maybe they start having migraines, have some problem with their head. And she has one client who said they're going to lose their shit a lot.

So you can imagine what happens to them physically. So if you knew that all the self talk going on inside of your head is a blueprint. That your mind and body will move towards, then wouldn't you want to use a better blueprint than what is often going on in your head?

And what Marisa will say again, it's the title of one of her books is tell yourself a better lie. So often we're saying things to ourselves, like, I'm really bad at that. Oh, I'm so stupid. I'm really lazy. So instead of that, why not say something like, Oh, I'm wonderful. I'm brilliant. you know, some of us find that a bit hard to do, give it a go.

Occasionally I think about it walking down the street. It just makes me smile if it does nothing else. And it's, and it, and I think it will lift your moods slightly, but the phrase of hers that I really love, that I would say really take with you is I am enough. So, you're not going to, if you don't want to say, I'm amazing, I'm incredible, I'm wonderful, just I am enough.

Not I'm stupid, I'm, I'm awful, I'm horrible, you're so ridiculous. I am enough. So, just say that phrase again and again, rather than all of the negative stuff that is going on. And just maybe think a bit about what exactly are you saying to yourself in your head? What words are you using? How might your mind and body interpret those words?

So be a bit more mindful in the same way you would, if you're speaking those words out loud, be mindful about what's going on in your head.and I want to think a bit more about what happens from when we think something to then. What happens with our behavior and in particular talk about, a psychiatrist called Viktor Frankl, who wrote an amazing book called Man's Search for Meaning.

Viktor Frankl was interred in various different concentration camps during the war, including Auschwitz, and he, he was a psychiatrist. He was living in terrible, terrible circumstances. He was watching everyone around him and he wanted to understand, first of all, how could he survive this psychologically, but also how was some other people able to withstand what went on?

And some other people were completely psychologically destroyed by it. Quite. Understandably. And there are a couple of quotes that I want to give you that he talks about. So the first one is, he says that between stimulus and response, there is a space in that space is our power to choose our response.

In that response lies our growth. So between stimulus and response, there is a space and it's a space where we can decide what our behavior is going to be. And he's, he also said that everything can be taken from a man, but one thing, and that is the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.

to tune one's own way. And that's very much what he did. He was in this terrible situation, but he would use his amazing imagination to take him to different places to imagine meeting up with his wife again, to imagine teaching his students again, to find small pleasures that he could in his brain. And a lot of modern psychology, or sorry, modern psychotherapy is based around these ideas, including cognitive behavioral therapy.

And what it's really about is you can actually control. How you feel and therefore what you do by managing the thoughts in your head. And there's a Chinese philosopher called Lao Tse who, who has a quote, which says, what's your thoughts. They become your words. What's your words. They become your actions.

What's your actions. They become your habits. What's your habits? They become your character. What's your character? It becomes your destiny. So you can see starting with just those little words in your head, what the outcome can be and what the influence they can have on your entire life. So what this is really about, it's not about what happens to you.

It's not about the thing that happens to you, as awful, as awful as that might be. It's all about the story that you tell yourself about what happened to you. And whilst you can't control the external forces about what you might be experiencing, you can, to some degree, to quite a large degree, Control the internal.

And I like to refer to this as something like reframing. So in that space between the stimulus and response, you've got a chance to reframe what's happened to you. So you are looking at it in a more positive light. so for example, if you are nervous, about doing something like, let's say it's jumping out of a plane.

You're going to feel some adrenaline. You're going to have some physical reactions to that because you're going to do something that's potentially quite dangerous and your body is going to prepare for it. So it's going to pump adrenaline around your body and other hormones to get your body primed so that it's going to perform this task as quickly as possible.

But if you combine, if you combine this with some negative self talk about all the things that could possibly go wrong, Oh my God, Oh my God, what if the chute doesn't open, what if this happens, what if this happens, what you're going to feel is fear. If you don't do that, if you reframe it and say, wow, look at me, this is so brave.

I can't believe I'm having this experience. I'm so lucky that I get to do this. Not many people in life get to do this. This is going to be an incredible memory. If you put the positive with it, what you're then going to feel is excitement because all that what's going on in your body, all that feeling of butterflies, that is just excitement without the negative.

So have a go, if you're feeling nervous about something, have a go at reframing it. and you can use this in many, many different ways. So, so for example, if you really hate getting up early, maybe think about when you were young and you used to be really, really excited about getting up on Christmas day and you'd be waking your parents up at four in the morning.

So there was a time when you could say, Oh no, no, actually, I really. I really wanted to get up. I couldn't wait to get up. Maybe say that to yourself in the morning. I'm so looking forward to getting up today because, and then come up with reasons. And instead of saying to yourself, I have to, or I should try and replace it with, I want to.

So I really want to go to the gym. I'm looking forward to the gym, not, Oh, I really ought to go to the gym. So can you see the difference? You're basically coaching yourself. You're being your own, Internal coach and you have a choice and you're saying to yourself, I am choosing to do this. I want to do this and I'm going to feel great about doing this.

I'm so, I really want to choose that salad because it's going to feel great after I've eaten that salad rather than after I've eaten the, something that's not very healthy for me. And human beings are actually amazing at reframing. We do it all the time. Often we don't do it in a very helpful way.

Marissa tells a slightly shocking story about a model who'd managed to convince herself. That she was eating cotton wool to try and stop herself consuming calories. I know, terrible. but she sort of convinced herself it was as good as eating garlic. So she was very happy to eat it. And if you think about maybe heroin addicts, they're injecting themselves between their toes, something that most people would think was horrendous, but they've reframed it to say, no, no, this isn't that bad because by doing this, I'm going to get the feeling that I'm.

I'm really looking for. and there are lots of ways you can use this. So just think about like, if you often say to yourself, Oh no, it's a disaster. It's a nightmare. This is hell. Is it really, is it really a nightmare? Is it really the end of the world? Are you catastrophizing using the words that you're using?

Could you perhaps reframe instead of telling yourself, Oh, I've got a really low pain threshold. Maybe tell yourself, I have a high pain threshold. If it's your period, instead of calling it the curse, maybe call it a blessing. So, so just think about what words are you using and how can you reframe what you're thinking into a more positive way.

Just a couple more things about the subconscious and the subconscious listening to your words. So it does tend to live in the moment. It doesn't see past and future. So if you say you want to do something, you want to do it now. don't use qualifiers like I think, You know, when I'm, when I'm coaching people and I say, are you going to do this?

They, they'll say something like, Oh, I think I'm probably going to try to, so you see all those qualifiers in there. I think probably try to don't use those use words like I can, I will, I'm going to, I am, the mind doesn't tend to hear not. So for example, if you're telling a child, don't spill that drink, what the brain will often hear is spill that drink.

So you need to think of something else. Like say, keep your glass upright. not say to yourself, I'm not going to eat unhealthy things, but I'm going to eat healthy things. And then the other thing is, my is an ownership word, so be very careful with it. So, if there's something you don't like, don't refer to it as my.

So don't talk about my headaches, my migraines, my problems, my illness. my depression, my stupidity, nothing like that. Don't own it. If you don't want it, maybe own it. If you do want it, maybe use my, you know, my strength, that would be a good thing to do. And just thinking about this voice in your head. If you think about it, if I asked you to walk along a thin piece of wood on the floor, we'd probably do it.

No problem without really thinking about it. If I turn that into a window ledge, upper skyscraper, You're going to feel very differently about it. And there's a risk that therefore your performance is going to be worse because of all this internal energy and interference that's going on in your head. So when people do things like that, they spend a lot of time.

Preparing themselves mentally. And there've been lots of tests about people doing say mass tests and they do them in private and they do them in public and they'll be performing worse. So managing that voice in your head can really, affect your performance. But more than that, I just want you to be a bit kinder to yourself.

So just think about the words you're using. Can you be kinder? Can you tell yourself a bit of a better lie and can you keep saying to yourself, I am enough now, the next bit I'm going to go onto is really to look a bit more about this inner voice. Where does it come from? And some more tools to manage it.

And this bit is really based on the work of professor Steve Peters, who's an amazing psychiatrist who wrote a book called the chimp paradox, and it's just such. A neat metaphor for what is going on in the brain, and I find it really helpful. Lots of my clients find it incredibly helpful. So what's it about?

So if you think about our brain, we have a center called the limbic center. This is what Steve calls the chimp. It's where the amygdala is our fight or flight center. It's like the emotional center of our brain where we store memory. It's the first bit of the brain that developed in term, in evolutionary terms, and it's also the first bit of brain to, of the brain to develop.

So up until about two and a half, that's the bit of our brain that is there and is there is going to try and keep us alive. It's one of its main purposes is to try and keep us alive. So it tends to be suspicious, paranoid. It catastrophizes things because it wants to make them bigger so that we pay attention, but it's really trying to.

protect us. It also loves a bit of pleasure and can be quite impulsive. So it's, it's almost a bit like a toddler. So we've got this bit of our brain, that is really trying to protect us. It's vital. It sends us really important signals that we need to listen to. but the problem is that nowadays we tend to use it too much because we're not in mortal danger.

A lot of the time, we're not running away from a tiger in the jungle where our territory is not being invaded by another. Troop of chimps. Our mate isn't being taken away, but we live quite often in a fairly adrenalized state and often are experiencing chronic stress for extended periods of time. So we're overusing this bit of our brain.

So at two and a half, three years old, then another part of our brain starts to develop and that's the prefrontal cortex, this bit. So it's like the rational part of our brain. And sometimes when people have brain injuries to this part of the brain, you'll see them. Start to behave irrationally, inappropriately, sometimes sexually inappropriately, they'll lose all their inhibitions because this bit of the brain is no longer controlling other bits of the brain, like this chimp bit of the brain.

So what you might say is, okay, well, I'm, I'm overusing my chimp. So I'm now just going to get my. My, prefrontal cortex, my human is what Steve calls it bit of the brain to control my chimp, but unfortunately that's not going to be possible because all the blood flow goes first to the limbic center of our brain because it needs to, because it's, if there's an emergency, it's going to protect us.

So all the blood flow goes there first. So it gets the first, chance to decide what it wants to do. And it's much stronger than our, than the rational bit of our brain. So we can't just shut it down and we don't want to shut it down because it is really, really important. I think an interesting example of where the chimp comes in in terms of impulsivity is, I don't know if you've ever had the experience where you eat something.

you sort of think, Oh, I shouldn't really eat that. And then you eat it like a load of sweets, say, and then an hour later, you're like, why did I do that? I didn't really want to do that. Why did I do that? And what's happened there is your chimp has hijacked your human, your rational part of the brain. So for some reason you weren't paying attention.

The chimp, the chimp took over.

And if this part of the brain is alerted to any sort of danger or fear, whether it's if it's real and you can see it, or whether it's in your imagination, then it's going to release neurotransmitters that's going to shut down the human part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, because we need to react almost instinctively and fast to deal with the emergency.

so I'm going to talk in a little bit about how do you manage it? if you can't shut it down, how do you manage it? But first of all, I want you to think about. Where do you feel your chimp in your body? Cause we all feel it. If you think about something, maybe something someone said to you that you found really offensive, or someone did something to you that was really upsetting, you will feel it somewhere in your body.

For me, I feel it in my chest. I'm, I'm particularly prone to territory. So if I've got a project that I'm working on and someone comes in, And starts trying to take over. I can feel something going on in my chest. They're like, well, hold on. This is my thing. What are you doing? Coming in, trying to interfere.

So that's where I feel it. Other people feel it in their stomach. Some people feel it in their back, in the top of their back, but it's really worth trying to work out. Where do you feel it? Cause you will feel it somewhere. And then it's the great. Signal to you that Oh, now what's going on? My chimp has been alerted.

I need to not just respond immediately. I need to think about what is it? What is it? It's trying to alert me to. And how do I want to respond? I'm going to take a bit of time before I respond. And sometimes, you know, it's really important to pay attention because it is. Trying to alert us to something that we don't like, or we want to avoid, then you need to spend a bit of time trying to work out what is it, what is it that it's really worried about because it's not always clear.

So, so I don't want you to be down on the chimp because the chimp is really, really important. and you can't change the nature of your chimp. It just is what it is, but you can learn to manage it. The problem is that most people don't realize that actually when the chimp comes in with an idea, it reacts and says, I'll do this.

It's not giving you a command. It's merely making an offer and, and really what you've got to decide is like, is this the right offer? what do I really want to do in that space after the stimulus coming from the chimp? and you can work on it and you can, create ways of dealing it where you practice.

What, how do you want to react? And the reaction of the chimp gets smaller and smaller and the time shorter and shorter that you're going to ruminate on what happened, but generally you can never get rid of it completely. And there are certain circumstances where the chimp is better, where instinct is better.

I'm not going to go into those now. There's something called the Iowa gambling experiment, where actually it was, the chimp was sort of, if people were asked to sort of effectively. Gamble, and actually the chimp was much faster at spotting patterns, than the human that was trying to analyze them logically.

So let's think about how are we going to manage this bit of our brain. So the first thing is what Steve will refer to as exercising the chimp, which is really, sometimes it just needs to express emotion. So sometimes it does need to shout and scream and jump up and down and be really cross and frustrated, but ideally don't do this in front of someone else and suddenly don't do it at someone else because your chimp.

Shouting at them is just going to wake their chimp up and they're going to shout back at you. So, but you do sometimes need to exercise it, even if it's completely rational. And sometimes writing this down can be really helpful. So I'm a real fan of writing things down because I think that as you're writing it down, often you're writing from your heart is an emote.

You're writing from your emotional center. But your rational brain is then able to analyze it either whilst you're writing it or afterwards whilst you're reading it. So, so sometimes you just need to let the chimp out for a bit, but do it in an appropriate situation in an appropriate way. And then if it's really bad, I would say distract it.

So if someone's dealing with something that's really difficult to deal with or like grief or something really nasty has happened, something really upsetting has happened, then maybe think about, can I. distract my brain in some way. So can I watch something comforting on the television or on Instagram? I might go to videos of funny cats or I'd watch the Gilmore girls.

That's my go to place for comfort. so can I distract myself? Can I get up, go for a walk? Can I change my state? That often helps. Can I do a bit of exercise? Can I go and see someone? Can I ring someone up and talk to them? So distractions in some shape or form. And then also, can I Sometimes giving a reward can be really helpful, to encourage the chimp to behave how you want it to behave.

So you can say, you know, it doesn't want to work. It wants to watch the television. It wants to watch the Gilmore girls. And you go, no, no, we're going to do 10 emails. And then you're going to have a cup of coffee or a biscuit, and that's your reward just to help you settle it so that then you can, you can get down to some work.

And then the big thing is really around negotiating and managing, managing the chimp. Steve refers. So this is boxing the chimp, but what I would call it is reframing. So what we were talking about earlier, so thinking about, okay, I'm feeling this. for example, I'm, I'm really late for an appointment, so I'm feeling really anxious.

Oh my God, you know, I guess I'm feeling anxiety, possibly a tiny bit of fear, frustration. So that's the emotion that goes with it. What am I saying to myself? Oh my God, I'm going to be late. They're going to be really cross. They're not going to respect me. They're going to think I don't respect them.

They're going to not like me, or they're going to take the business away. This is a disaster. Everything's going to be terrible. And usually it will go down and down into some sort of catastrophe. Well, sometimes you won't even identify what it is. It'll just feel really bad because you haven't really thought through what the outcome is.

So what could you say to yourself instead? Okay. So I wasn't late on purpose. Sometimes these things happen. They will understand this isn't the end of the world. So you can start coming up with phrases that are going to settle you and that are entirely logical. and then maybe come up with a plan. So the chip will always like it if you try and think through things, but then start taking some action, it will really help to settle it down.

So then you could think that the next traffic lights or, you know, whenever I next get a signal, I'm going to send a message to say, I'm really sorry, I'm running 10 minutes late. And by doing that, you'll be amazed. How much better you will feel and you can do other things like you can tell the chimp. Okay.

I hear you I'm gonna come back to that later You can ask it how long it needs and maybe set some boundaries around the time that it needs to be exercising itself The the chimp responds very well to rules and boundaries or you can use humor. So If you, I'll put a link to a podcast, a great podcast Peters.

And he actually talks out loud to his chimp. and he uses humor. So something happens that he doesn't like, he starts ruminating on it. He'll say, okay, could you just tell me, are we going to do this for like 10 minutes? A week? Or are we going to go on about this for nine months? I just want to know. And that's how he disarms the chimp, because you're never going to be humorous or laugh in a situation of mortal peril.

So that's why humor can really, settle the chimp. And the other thing is to start thinking about things that might prime the chimp in advance. So we all know some basic truths of life. Maybe think about these and just try and embed them a bit more in your psyche. So. For example, life isn't fair. We all know that and fairness is a real sign.

If someone starts talking about fairness, inevitably it's going to be the chimp because the chimp does not like things to be unfair. It wants them to be fair. It wants everyone to behave according to its rules, but we absolutely know that life is not fair. Not everyone will like me, sort of knowing that and being, you know, just.

Living with that in advance can be really helpful. We know that I think it's one in seven people when we first meet them are just not going to like us one in seven people are going to love us and the rest are going to be sort of on the fence. so some people are just not going to like us and it's not fair, but they're just not going to, obviously the chimp wants everyone to like it and it will spend all its time and energy trying to make the people who don't like it, like it instead of focusing its time and energy on the people who already do like it.

other things, one mistake won't mean I'm fired. I think looking very carefully at unrealistic expectations. So are you setting yourself up for a fall? are you being really realistic about, about what it is you want to achieve? And as I said, writing things down can be really helpful. So just a few more bits about the chimp.

So, some of the things the chimp will want to do. So express emotion, as I've already talked about. It'll want to win. it will want to get its point across, it won't want to give way or change its stance, and then it'll defend itself if it's attacked, and it'll often go on the attack to attack the other person, or maybe play the victim, but it'll still want to come out looking good.

and being innocent. it loves certainty, but it really wants guarantees. If it makes a plan, you know, it's going to want you to, you want, wants that plan fulfilled. And if it isn't fulfilled, it's going to get upset. And it really likes instant gratification. And if you compare that to your rational bit of the brain, then what will go on there is, you know, in a conflict, it'll try and understand the other person first.

It'll allow them to express themselves. It'll gather information by listening. The chimp won't listen. the rational bit of your brain will look for a solution. It'll use facts and not feelings. It'll remain calm. it'll be willing to see a different point of view. Open to changing its stance. finding common ground, accepting differences.

So you can see the rational bit of your brain is going to be much better at communicating and maintaining relationships with people. So as I've said, what else does the chimp do? So it likes to come up with a plan. It wants to know that plan is absolutely going to succeed. And it's going to be very upset when it doesn't.

So you need to come up with some strategies as to how to handle it. It basically wants to control everything. And whilst the rational bit of your brain will look for evidence. And then draw conclusions, what the chimp will do is come up with the conclusions first and then look for evidence to, support it.

And what I've said about the chimp, like not really having perspective. So often we don't want to do something, you know, like the running late or public speaking. And we just have this awful sense of dread about how it could go wrong, but we don't really analyze it. We don't analyze well, what exactly could go wrong?

And then how bad would it be? Is my, you know, am I going to be mortally wounded? You know, am I really going to be fired? And then how likely is it? So those are really useful things. If you just get that feeling of, I don't want to do this. This is going to be awful. Just think about what's the worst that could happen and how likely is it?

Because what the chimp tends to see is this sort of black hole of nightmare.and the other thing to be aware of is, is if you're, if something's going round and round in your brain, if you keep coming back to the same thought, that is very likely to be the chimp. And that's a sign that you haven't fully processed an event, and that you, that you need to deal with it.

And that will include things like keep coming back saying, I wish it had been different. You know, it can't be different, you know, it is what it is. You've just got to work out how to deal with it.as well as fairness as being a real trigger to know that the chimp's involved. Comparison is the other thing.

Always comparing itself to other people. 'cause it's looking around to say, okay, am I gonna be the best? Potential mate for someone. Am I going to be the person everyone wants? Everyone wants its troop. So if you, you know, if you're comparing, that is the emotional part of your brain. The rational part of your brain should be saying to you, doesn't matter about everyone else.

What matters is me, that I'm comfortable with me, that I think that I am enough. And then two chimps can't communicate. So two chimps will go into battle. They absolutely cannot communicate. so what you need to do is if you are in conflict with someone is, first of all, settle your own chimps. So get your human, your rational bit of your brain.

Awake and functioning and then work out how are you going to settle their chimp? So you want to use language and an approach that's really going to calm them down that shows that you're listening That's going to mean that they haven't got that sort of fight or flight response going on and that they too can be but we have to be aware that there are lots of people in the world whose chimps are awake all the time and have no intention of understanding how their brains work.

And, you know, your humans got to come to terms with that. And then I guess the last thing I would say is. well, actually, maybe one more thing about achievement, our chimps never tend to be satisfied. So they're always driving us on to be better and better and better. The troops going to want to keep us there.

We're going to be stronger. We're going to be therefore be able to protect others and protect ourselves. So be careful about that drive to achievement and make sure you take time. to celebrate and pat yourself on the back and say actually really good job. and then the other thing is that I've found incredibly useful is at night, only the chimp is awake.

So in the middle of the night, when you wake up and have a catastrophic thought or you think something terrible, it probably is just your chimp catastrophizing. It's not being rational. And so you can literally Say to them that, right. I'll come back to that in the morning. That's what I'll do. Okay. I've thought this thought.

I'm going to come back to that. Or if you can't get rid of it, get up and do something that's going to wake up the rational part of your brain. So get up, read a book, walk around, maybe write something down, but you want to wake up, maybe do a crossword. You want to wake up that rational bit of your brain, but just by knowing it's likely to be the chimp and you can come back to it later can be really helpful.

And then the other thing I really love that Steve says is. If you think of your ideal person and you describe them, like, what are all the characteristics and qualities of you, the ideal you, so you'd be caring, kind, bright, engaged, I mean, lots of amazing words you'd come up with, he'd say, write them down, and he would say, You've just described you.

That is you, but without any interference from the chimp and without any interference from some negative beliefs and things, bad experiences you might've had during your childhood. That is you. And what he says is if he, if he asked psychopaths who he's worked with in the past to write down their ideal person, they don't come up with all the words that we find wonderful.

They'll come up with things like power and dominance. so it's so nice to think that all the nice words you can think about yourself, that is actually you. But you've just got to try and get rid of some of this. Interference. So I hope you find that helpful about managing the voice in your head.

There's something about the chimp metaphor that I find really helpful. Lots of my coaches find really helpful, something about the disassociation of you and this other bit of your brain and learning to manage it. So it seems incredibly helpful. Don't hate your chimp is there to protect you. It's there to help you find pleasure.

but yeah, I hope this has given you some tools that you can use to just settle that, that voice in your head down a bit, a little bit, and I'd always recommend yoga as well as a helpful add on, to settling that voice. Thank you so much for listening today. I'm going to put some links into the notes for the podcast, to, some of Marissa and Steve's work.

And in particular, I'd really recommend that Zyra the CEO podcast with Steve Peters. I think there are now two, but I'm going to put one on there for you to listen to. Thank you so much. And I hope to see you again soon.