Auditory Perspective Exercise Outline
Now you can do the same exercise that Tim did. Ideally you would do this with another person, so that one of you can read the directions, so the other can relax and devote all their attention to following the directions.
After one person has done the process, you can switch roles so that you can both experience the process. Many people find that it makes it much easier to attend to their inner experience if they close their eyes.
1. Choose a Voice Think of a troubling voice, and notice your feeling response to what it says… . Notice the location of the voice, and whether it's your own voice or someone else's… . Then set that voice aside temporarily.
2. Remember Voices Recall four resource voices, times when you (or someone else) commented favorably about something that you had just done. Listen to each voice in turn, noticing both the words and the tonality, and how you feel in response to hearing it. If the problem voice is another person's, the resource voices should also be someone else's; if the problem voice is your own voice, the resource voices should also be yours.
3. Arrange Voices Position these voices around your head — leaving a space for the location of the troubling voice — so that you can hear all four voices talking at once. It will be harder to hear the details when they are all talking, but you will still be able to hear the tonalities, and have a sense of the meanings.
4. Bring in the Troubling Voice Allow the troubling voice to return to its location, and listen to all five voices talking at once… .
5. Notice Your Response Notice how your response changes in either intensity or quality, or both… .
6. Test A few minutes later — or longer — you can check to find out how well the change has lasted. Simply recall the troubling voice, and notice your response again. Find out if your response is still different than it was before going through the auditory perspective process. Typically the change will last without doing anything else. Whenever you hear the troubling voice, you will again have the more comfortable feelings that you had when you first heard all five voices together.
When the change resulting from this method doesn't last, usually that indicates that some other outcome is served by continuing to be distressed by the troubling voice. For instance, being upset by the voice could be useful in getting a spouse to assist you in some way, or to avoid some unpleasant task or duty. In that case, you need to find some other way to get assistance, or some other effective behaviors to use to avoid the task. Sometimes that is as simple as learning to say, "Honey, I want some help here," or "No, I don't want to do that," instead of using your bad feelings to influence others around you.
There is nothing special about using four supportive voices; it is a nice number that works well. But you could also use three, or you could use more, and these additional choices might work better for certain people. Using three would make it easier to hear the details of the voices; hearing five or more could strengthen the chorus, even though the details of what they say would be harder to hear.
Next we will explore some additional useful ways of talking to yourself at the beginning of the day, so that you can start your day in a good state. If you start the day well, it is much easier to maintain it in the face of later unpleasant events. That is much easier than starting off badly and then having to work to improve it.
7 Starting the Day[2]
Some people bounce out of bed in the morning, eager to start the day, while others keep hitting the snooze button on their alarm, and then struggle to slowly drag themselves out of bed. The way you start the day is likely to set the pace for the rest of your day. If you start out eager and animated, it will be much easier to maintain that state, despite any difficulties that may occur later. But if you start the day discouraged, or in some other unpleasant mood, then you will have to work yourself out of that state in order to feel better, which is usually much more difficult.
What often makes the difference is what you first say to yourself as you emerge from sleep. You may awaken in response to an alarm clock, or in response to light, or to the sounds of others in the house getting up. As you begin to waken and sense the world around you, what are the first words in your mind? What is the first thing that you said to yourself this morning? …
How about yesterday morning? …
Now check several other recent mornings. What did you say then, and how did it set a tone for the rest of the day? …
Now notice all the tonal qualities of that internal voice — the tone, volume, tempo, hesitations, etc… . 1
If you said something like, "Ohmigod, I have to go to work today," in a discouraging tone, you probably had to work hard to get out of bed and get going, and that attitude is likely to persist during the rest of the day.
On the other hand, if you said something like, "Wow, which of my projects do I get to do first?" in an enthusiastic tone, then getting out of bed was probably very easy, and it would take a really unpleasant event to change your positive attitude.
If you would like to change how you talk to yourself in the morning, there are six simple steps:
1. Desired outcome First, think about how you would like to feel as you start out your day, …
2. Desired self–talk What could you say to yourself, and what tone and tempo of voice you could use to create that? …
3. Identify cues Next notice what you will see, hear, or feel as you first begin to wake up, and then say your sentence to yourself… .
4. Check for objections Notice any objections or feelings of concern that you might have about doing this… .
5. Satisfy objections If you have any objections, identify any problems with either the words that you chose, or the tonality and tempo that you chose. Then adjust what you say to yourself, or how you say it (or both) until any objections or concerns are satisfied. When all aspects of you are satisfied with it, it will be something that you are congruent about wanting, and it should occur spontaneously and dependably… .
6. Rehearse and test Imagine waking up in the future in order to test what you have done. Experience what it will be like tomorrow morning, when you first begin to realize that you are waking up, and notice what happens… .
If your morning sentence occurs automatically, you are done. If it doesn't, you may need to rehearse it several more times just as you begin to wake up to make it automatic, or you might have to back up a few steps and adjust what you say to yourself, or the tonality that you use.
Next, I want to offer you a somewhat more complex way to begin the day, one that can be used to change a wide variety of problems, as well as more positive outcomes.
Behaving ”As if”