Improving Ourselves: Every person has an internal dialogue

What is your inner dialogue telling you right now – and how is that the same (or different) from what other people are experiencing?

We’ve been thinking about this a lot since last week – as most of us know, there were two high-profile celebrity suicides that brought a good deal of attention to that subject in the last few days. This is tragic in so many ways, but in some ways this is also helpful – as it raises awareness of how bad it can be when a person finds that they are without hope or think that they cannot go on with their lives.

The obvious lesson from this is that we should not blindly envy others for their success – because no matter how successful someone may be, that does not ultimately lead to happiness.

However, there’s something else here too – something that is often overlooked, and we think can be a valuable lesson from such tragedies.

Way back when Open Diary was founded, a huge inspiration for us was the realization of the importance of every person’s internal dialogue. Part of that realization came from riding on crowded subway trains and walking crowded sidewalks in huge cities – where we would see thousands of faces at a time – and realizing that each one of those people had a story, and that each one of them had an internal dialogue that was running all the time, just like the one that is running right now in each of our heads.

As humans, we often forget that no matter how together somebody may seem, or how successful or famous a person may be, there is still that internal dialogue running in their heads, just like it is in ours. The celebrity standing on the red carpet in front of dozens of photographers, the businessperson sitting at a table negotiating a multimillion dollar deal, the homeless person sitting ignored on the sidewalk – every person, no matter who they are, has a conversation going on in their heads, right at that moment. That internal dialogue is filled with so many things that nobody else will ever see or know – fears, aspirations, disappointments, regrets, and so much more that may never be revealed to another person.

Knowing that this internal dialogue exists in all humans, and more importantly respecting the mystery of it, is a key to understanding how hard life can be for some people. We never really know what is going on in somebody else’s head – no matter how much we may think we “know” that person, there’s always a vast amount of information that is hidden to us. Accepting and respecting the fact that we never know is the first step to being able to feel empathy for that person, and realizing that when we really get down to it – all of us are much more the “same” than we are “different”.

If we take the challenges that our own internal dialogue presents to us everyday – and superimpose them onto others, it can give us a whole lot more respect for the struggles that other people may be facing. All of us have fears and anxieties, disappointments and despairs, that we don’t share outside our own heads – and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem comes when we assume we are the only one.

There’s an article over at Calm Clinic that has wonderful tips on bettering our own internal dialogue: How to Improve Your Internal Dialogue. There are some really great points there about how to deal with anxiety when it raises its ugly head in your inner thoughts.

But to us, remembering that everybody (no really, everybody) has these same kinds of challenges is a key to both feeling better about ourselves and feeling more empathetic towards others.

Part of a continuing series on #ImprovingOurselves

Remember, you are never alone in this world. If you or someone you know is struggling, there is a great set of resources available over at Bustle: Five Suicide Prevention Resources To Use If You Or Someone You Know May Be At Risk