The Need for Self-Talk – Part 5

An Encyclopaedia of Self-Talk

I remember reading 15 years ago in Shad Helmstetter’s book What-Say-When-Talk-Yourself, that he had been working on compiling an encyclopaedic collection of Self-Talk statements – but I was unable to discover anything further on the matter at the time. But now, thanks to the internet, I was able to find that this collection of Self-Talk had been published in a book called The Self-Talk Solution. This book provides over 2,500 Self-Talk statements that cover a wide range of concepts that are relevant to many, if not all, people. The book was now out of print so I had to order a second-hand copy from the internet.

There is something of a parallel between Self-Talk and The Work: both methods work by listening to, and writing down, your anxious thoughts, typically those you tend to verbalise; then, you question them (with The Work) or make Self-Talk scripts based on them (Self-Talk). So, if you say to yourself, “I hate this job – I never seem to be able to do it right.” You say something that makes it into a positive statement, such as, “I like my job, I am good at what I do and I enjoy the opportunity to utilise my skills and abilities.” I would say that both statements could be just as believable – depending on how a person’s mood at a given moment. But wouldn’t it be good if you could hear yourself speaking that positive Self-Talk everyday – regardless of your mood?

If you think about it – it just takes someone to spend a lot of time on a project to listen to their own negative Self-Talk, the kind of things that we all face in life in one form or another, then write Self-Talk scripts for all of them. That is what, I believe, Shad Helmstetter has done for us through The Self Talk Solution. Despite the different things we all face in life, our negative Self-Talk is typical and often varies rather little from person to person. This is something that Byron Katie has noticed – even thought she travels the world from country to country – she is presented with the same beliefs from person to person.

I will no doubt write and record my own Self-Talk scripts in the future. Even now I can think of some specific circumstances that I would like to focus on. But I do feel that The Self-Talk Solution presents a good, solid stock of Self-Talk scripts that are more than enough to get someone started and well on their way with Self-Talk. In fact, it might be the only set of Self-Talk scripts that you will ever need.

For the last three weeks I have been having fun recording my own voice repeating the Self-Talk scripts from The Self-Talk Solution. I have now recorded 31 Self-Talk scripts, two of which are my own scripts, the rest are from The Self-Talk Solution. I intend to record the next 20 or so scripts in the near future.

I must say that I am surprised at the quality of my recordings and how professional they sound – even with just basic equipment! If I can do it – I’m sure most people can do it as well.

The Lifetime Library of Self-Talk CDs

If you don’t feel comfortable recording your own voice – what you can do is buy The Lifetime Library of Self-Talk CDs from The Self Talk Store on Shad Helmstetter’s website.  This is a set of professionally recorded Self-Talk covering a variety of topics, 32 Self-Talk scripts in all.  This set is normally $199.00, but at the moment they are on special offer at $99.50.  Part of the description says, “No home should be without this incredible, life-changing library of professionally recorded Self-Talk CDs”.  If listening to recorded Self-Talk can really make a difference to a person’s life – then I’m inclined to agree with this statement!  You can check out the various testimonies on his website attesting to the effectiveness of these Self-Talk CDs.

Audacity

I record my own Self-Talk scripts using my computer with a good quality Skype headset and a free software application from the internet called Audacity. Audacity even comes with a range of built-in effects. One of the effects I always use is Normalize – this amplifies and regularises the volume levels in your recording.

Another effect I always use is Gverb, which is a reverb effect. Unfortunately, the default settings for Gverb will make you sound like you are in a sewer! It is necessary to tweak the settings a bit in order to get it right. These settings will give a slight reverb to give your voice to give your recording a nice presence and a professional sound:

Roomsize: 10 m²  Reverb time: 1.5 s  Damping: 0.9  Input bandwidth: 0.75  Dry signal level: 1.5 dB  Early reflection level: -30 dB  Tail level: -30 dB