When we have a chronic illness, it often seems like the voice inside our head never stops talking about how bad our illness, our symptoms, and our lives are. And the more it talks, the worse we feel.
Many knowledgeable people recommend “quieting our minds,” but that can be a lot easier said than done. I have a different recommendation: listen – and I mean really listen – to the voice.I think that one of the reasons the voice inside our heads keeps talking is because while we hear it, we don’t really listen to it.
There is a style of listening that couples are taught to use when they find themselves arguing a lot. It consists of listening, reflecting, validating, and empathizing. Let me briefly explain the last three steps. Reflecting means restating what the other person said so they know you heard them correctly. Validating means that you first understand why the other person feels the way they do, and you let them know you understand. And empathizing, or course, means to let them know you feel empathy for whatever pain and sadness they feel.
The idea may seem unusual and even weird, but we can use that same style of listening with the voice in our head when it keeps telling us how bad our lives are because of our chronic illness: Listen to the voice, reflect back to the voice what it said, let it know you really understand why it feels the way it does, and let it know you feel empathy for it. For obvious reasons, the last three steps should be done silently if you are in public. 🙂
If you do this when the voice in your head keeps telling you over and over how bad your illness and your life are, I’m confident that the voice will sooner or later – and probably sooner –Â stop telling you those things. It may stay quiet for awhile, or it may start talking about something else. But now you know something to do if it does.
