By Rokelle Lerner

Years ago I saw a film entitled, “The Gods Must Be Crazy.” There was a scene at a bar where a gentleman on a bar stool turns to a woman next to him and says, “Excuse me, does the noise in my head bother you?”

Many people, especially those in early recovery from addiction, complain about the internal dialogue in their brains that dampens their spirit and contaminates their joy. I’m not talking about schizophrenia here, but the barrage of self-deprecating messages and insults that seep into so many of our waking moments. For some of us this inner dialogue is so rampant that we rarely find a moment’s peace.

This internal attack is an accumulation of stored up negativity that came to us at a young age, perhaps from parents, teachers, or even bullies on the playground. Since children don’t have clear emotional boundaries, these messages lodge themselves in our limbic brain and we play them back on a regular basis. Scientists would call these responses “neuronal firings” in the brain over which we do have some control. However, without some sort of discipline, we just give in to them and drown in our own abuse.

POSITIVE SELF-TALK
There was a time in my life when I felt like I was under a siege of paralyzing criticism and shame. The negative “voices” would occur primarily when I was alone and without any specific plans. To buffer this negativity I made sure that I was busy day and night, throwing myself into a perpetual state of exhaustion. One day after work, when I was driving home, the messages became so loud I felt paralyzed and I knew I had to do something about it. That’s when I started doing what my mentor suggested, which is using affirmations. This technique was so life changing for me that I decided to write my own affirmations. Through this process a book was born called “Affirmations for Adult Children of Alcoholics.”

The purpose of affirmation is not to put “frosting on a rotten cake,” as the saying goes. The purpose is to feed our brain with different thoughts in order to see the world in a new way. It’s the antidote to the toxic messages in our limbic brains.

Many people tell me that when they start using affirmation it feels awkward, phony and they don’t believe what they’re telling themselves. This response is to be expected and it’s where many of us give up. Most of us have spent years with these messages swirling around in our brains. In fact, I remember one man who grew up with physical and emotional abuse and needed something to counteract the barrage of internal self-hating messages he received daily. He began using affirmation.

One morning after a couple of days, he asked impatiently, “Rokelle, how long does this take to work?” My response was, “How long were you a child?”

USING AFFIRMATION CHANGES LIVES
Our storehouse of shame accumulates over a lifetime and it takes more than a couple of times using this tool to change the neuronal firings in our limbic brain. But with proper and regular use, within a month’s time we can expect to start feeling better, the “voices” get quieter and we start feeling more optimistic and energized.

In order for the healing to take place it is essential to practice patience, persistence, compassion and discipline. These are all the ingredients we would hope for in a loving parent.

In essence, by using this tool we’re learning to re-parent ourselves. Not only that, but we’re taking charge of our own healing and relieving others of the responsibility to do this for us.

Rokelle Lerner has received numerous awards for her work with children and families, and has appeared as a guest consultant on numerous television shows. Her articles and interviews have been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, People and Parents magazine. She is the author of many books including “The Object of My Affection is in My Reflection: Coping with Narcissists. She is co-creator and facilitator of InnerPath Programs at Cottonwood Tucson.