How to live in the present by changing your internal dialogue

"We are not affected by what happens to us but what we think about what happens to us", sometimes the same events can affect people very differently.

Every time we start with the internal dialogue before an event, we are already generating an emotion.

In the internal dialogue is the whole game of emotional strength. I do not want to approach this from positive psychology, that would be repeating to ourselves that everything is fine.

Repeating over and over again that everything is going well does not help much, it is better to convince ourselves that what happens is not so bad / terrible / horrible. Our neural network forms a wonderful system that allows us to investigate the world and experience it, but it is worth knowing its limitations. We have this tool precisely to experience reality, not so much to filter it through thought.

When we feel bad, we often say to ourselves "I'm bad, I should do this and that to feel better ... What could I do to be better?" and that's when we get involved ourselves. The first key is to calm down.

The rumination can be produced by many triggers: a discussion with a relative, a mistake at work, a exam that we do not know how it turned out, a little setback... in short it is an event that perhaps nor have we been able to process and therefore I know maintains in our thoughts.

Think less and live more

Overthinking is a process that generates considerable mental wear and tear. If we change our way of thinking, a world of possibilities opens up, we have to do things without pressure. If we take pressure off ourselves and others, we will be able to have a quiet life, looking at what we have and what we can do and not what we don't have and what we can't do. That's when we can enjoy.

Changing our internal dialogue is a matter of perseverance. Therefore the key is in:

• Detect what makes you wrong. Many times it is difficult to identify that unpleasant feeling, do not punish yourself by looking for the origin of that discomfort. Rather, notice that your status changes.

• Why do we get bad? What internal dialogue are we having? Is this thought really being beneficial to me?

• You have to change that dialogue, transform demands into preferences. Lower your expectations when things aren't up to you. There is no use in suffering because things are not as you would like them to be. They are as they are.

• Write in an agenda. When you observe that your thought is circular, useless and exhausting, write it down to deal with it at another time..

• move on. Physical activity has a biochemical effect, there is segregation of norepinephrine and serotonin. This segregation has a positive effect on the state of mind and way of thinking.

When we lose ourselves fantasizing about what could happen, what will happen or what happened, we feel imprisoned, since we have no capacity for action. On the other hand, we can act on the present, on this precise moment.