It happens. We all have verbal diarrhea from time to time.
Sometimes we say something we think is funny. Other times we're just being rude.
Heck, sometimes we don't even know why we get the feeling we've said something wrong or offensive.
For whatever reason, often within seconds…
Ours words suddenly rub us the wrong way.
Worse:
The bad feeling that won't go away starts to itch…
It may even burn, sometimes leading us to say even more ludicrous things that make us feel even worse.
Once those words are out there … they're out there.
The worst thing of all:
This Problem Chews Up Your Mental Space And Memory Resources!
Make no mistake:
The things we say can be damaging.
Very damaging, especially regarding how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves.
But it's probably our self-perception that takes the hardest hit, especially if we have OCD tendencies and repeat words and phrases in our minds.
(That happens to me a lot, along with earworms.)
The "Childish" Reasons People Self-Punish
Ultimately, no one knows why we self-punish.
It could be that our bodies and minds are trying to build up energy to deal with the pain. But we do it in a childish way.
Ludwig Wittgenstein has been credited with originating the story of the child who made his way into a cocktail party.
While there, the child banged his knee on a table and started crying loudly.
"There, there" said all the adults when they saw his bloodied knee.
And the adults continued cooing at the child to comfort him as they applied rubbing alcohol and a bandaid to the wound.
Now imagine the same cocktail party.
This time, instead of a child, a grown man bangs his knee.
He feels the exact same pain and his wound produces the same amount of blood.
But the difference is that the man does not bawl in public.
Instead, the grownup observes silently that he has banged his knee and excuses himself to the washroom.
There, he finds the rubbing alcohol on his own and administers a bandaid.
Do You Scream In Silence?
Why does the man do all of this in silence instead of crying his heart out?
Simple:
Social conditioning over the years has not changed the nature of the pain or the work needed to care for the wound.
But social conditioning has changed the nature of what makes for an appropriate response to the pain.
According to some self-punishment theories, even the maturest of adults have minds that still need conditioning so that they respond in mature ways to mental pain.
Exactly How To Mature Your Mind And Stop Mentally Punishing Yourself
I don't know about you, but in my past, I've called myself an idiot for the verbal mistakes I've made at least a thousand times.
In fact…
I've said many things worse than that to myself. And no, I'm not going to repeat them.
But I've come to understand that they were just the signs and symptoms of an untrained mind. There was nothing wrong with that mind. It just hadn't been matured.
And although this self-punishment still happens once in awhile, I've learned to settle the self-abuse down.
The cure mostly comes down to a combination of relaxation, mindset and huge respect for memory and the practice of memory improvement and maintenance over many years.
Here are four ways I've dealt with the self-punishment so that it no longer chews up memory power, no longer bashes self-
Published on 8 years, 2 months ago
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