Inner Dialogue: The Correlation between Self-Talk and Self-Image

About age five, you began a conversation or a running dialogue that will last your entire life. These will be the most important conversations you will ever have, as they will greatly influence who you become and to what degree you will give yourself a chance to succeed in life. This conversation is with you. Over time, nothing is more influential to your ability to give yourself a chance than your self-talk. Indeed, self-talk and self-image are closely entwined.

Like many important aspects of life, we're usually not taught how to talk to ourselves. Sure, we're told to "think positive." What the heck does that mean? Rarely when an authority figure offers that advice do they follow it up with examples to help you understand how to frame your thinking into a positive outcome or thought pattern. That's probably because the advisor doesn't really know how to really "think positive."

There are a number of different dynamics to self-talk as it relates to self-image. As you grow up, like many of us, you have events occur around you and to you that are good and bad, sometimes really bad. These events, especially the negative ones, can "freeze" your self-image at that age. You may have a number of self-images that you speak with each day. This doesn't mean you have multiple personalities, but that you have various versions of you giving you advice from different ages.

For example, maybe at an impressionable age for your emerging sexuality, you saw, heard or experienced something that convinced you that you were unattractive. Imagine a thirteen-year-old boy who overhears his mother in conversation with her own mother about how disgusting sex is and how the penis is funny looking. The sexual identity of that 13-year-old could well freeze at that point. For the rest of his life, his inner-dialogue and self-image regarding sex may be framed completely around that single conversation from an authority figure. His sense of attractiveness and appeal to the opposite sex is restrained by what he was "taught" by his mother. This programmed him to feel that women think sex is disgusting and the male organ funny looking.

Had he heard that same conversation at age 23, odds are it would have had little lasting effect accept, maybe to help him understand certain dynamics of the relationship between his father and mother a little more.

Conversely, a 14-year-old young girl may hear her father speak of women in a degrading manner that convinces her that her worth is tied to her ability to sexually attract men. Her self-image froze there and was supported throughout adulthood by the ongoing conversations with that 14-year-old.

It's not unusual in weight loss sessions for the person, often a woman, describe how she sat in the kitchen while her parents yelled at each other. The fighting made her sad, so she would just sit there and continue to eat to try to make her feel better. Her associations with food changed from something to eat because she was hungry to something that provided her with comfort. Food became a friend. From that point on, her inner-dialogue regarding food was framed and driven by that young, frightened, sad little girl.

One weight client was raped as a young teen. Her mother, in a sincere attempt to console her, told her that it happened because, "She was too pretty." Overeating for the next 20-years was her way making sure that never happened again.

In addiction counseling, the phrase "chasing the dragon" has to do with the ongoing attempt by the addict to return to those initial experiences of getting drunk or drugged that were pleasurable. Even as their lives fall apart around them and intellectually they understand that drinking and drugging is ruining them, they continue to chase the dragon. The part of them that says to drink is trying to return to that first buzz. Dr. Wil Horton says that when he is working with clients on overcoming alcohol addiction is to remember your last drink, not your first.