Talking to Yourself -- An Introduction

Years ago, I was dating a girl pretty seriously, but I was having second thoughts about the relationship.  I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do until I went to talk to a friend about the situation.  I talked her ear off, telling her all the reasons I was feeling conflicted.  At the end of the conversation, she just said to me, “it sounds like you have already come to a decision.”  It was then that, while I had wanted my friend to give me sage advice about what to do, she pointed out that I had my answer already.  If it hadn't been for my friend's insight, I don't know how much longer I would have remained confused and indecisive about the situation.

Talking to a trusted friend about your problems can be very beneficial.  The friend doesn't have to be trained in psychology to help out.  Heck, they don't even have to understand you or the situation.  The important thing is that they are willing to listen.  As you explain the situation to a friend, and they encourage you to keep looking for the solutions, quite often the solutions come.  At least, that's my experience.  Recently, when I tried to work through some issues, I discussed the situation with a very close friend.  Me.

I've designed a system of conversation that requires one person, but two different voices.  Who are these voices?  Well, one is the conscious self, the self that interacts with the world on a daily basis.  The other self is the subconscious.  Without getting into deep psychoanalysis, it's the little voice inside of you that has opinions.  Every once in a while, it pops up to disagree with what your surface self thinks.  Like the voice inside of you that says, “maybe you should skip that sixth donut,” or, “I know you don't want to hear this, but maybe the person you're arguing with has a point,” or in my case, “deep down, you know the relationship isn't working out.”

When is the Conversation Freewrite useful?
I find it comes in handy in the following situations:

• When you're trying to work through a complex problem and you need to organize your thoughts
• When you've got conflicted feelings about something and need to talk it through with someone
• When you are doing personal exploration and want to discover what you really think about a topic
• When doing a certain task brings up issues (like throwing old things away causing anxiety) and you want to explore the reasons why

In the first two situations, your conscious talks while the subconscious listens, offering helpful insights and advice.  In the second two situations, your conscious and subconscious engage in a dialogue, discussing both your surface and deep-down thoughts and feelings on a topic.  The conscious seeks to understand the subconscious.  This may sound strange, but I can tell you from personal experience that this really does work for me.  I'm guessing it will work for others as well.

So how do you go about engaging in a conversation freewrite?  Well, keep reading to see how I do it.