Inner Dialogue & Exam Stress

Inner Dialogue

What do you say to yourself or think to yourself over and over in your head? Some of us do it without realizing… when faced with difficult times: – ‘I’m too tired’, ‘I’ve no time’, ‘I can’t do this’. Or comparing ourselves to others: -‘they have it all, its not fair’, ‘what will they think of me?’, ‘why can’t I be like them’?

We all do it to some degree, we put ourselves down or feel sorry for ourselves, and then we press the repeat button over and over again. And then we add more ‘If only, I had more time/sleep/money/help/luck/love’ then it would be okay’.

Now I’ not saying some of it isn’t true maybe it is… but what does it do to us by hearing it over and over. It makes us believe that it is fact; unchangeable for ever more… And we live with it, accepting that this is our fate and nothing can be done about it. What if we changed that internal dialogue, some of you reading this may have already done it. You can change those deeply ingrained thoughts to more positive ones such as ‘I can handle it’, ‘I can do it’ or ‘I am enough’.

Life Coaching

Life coaching for me, changed everything. I realized what I had been saying to myself for years about lots of different things. There was hardly an area of my life that wasn’t affected by my inner dialogue. I wish everyone could experience this type of ‘awakening’ – that’s the only way I can describe it! Particularly mothers (and fathers too of course), since we generally try to do so much for others and sacrifice our own needs and desires. Since I’ve become a life coach and finished my course 5 years ago I left my job and started my Child and Teen Life Coaching Business, this was a very scary move. I coach children and teens on a one to one basis, and I slowly managed to do workshops in more and more schools and clubs, and I’ve great plans for the future.  I’ve realized that even though I have 3 young children I can do exciting things with them, like adventures, travel, camping, I can still explore the world and feel alive! Most importantly though, I have become a happier person. I still strive to have more, to do more, to help more, but I have realized that self awareness gives us the power to change, in the most positive way. You don’t have to complete a life coaching course to get this awareness. There are other courses and paths to take.. but it has to start with the realization, the awareness that what you are telling yourself becomes your reality. Start off by catching your negative thoughts, beliefs or self talk, and of course then, you can then help your children to do the same! To really change we have to replace the negative dialogue with a more positive one.

Hypnotherapy

I also completed a certificate in clinical hypnotherapy last year. Why hypnotherapy some people asked me? Life coaching already includes visualizations, to help the person to see the possibility of a positive outcome. Hypnotherapy takes it even further; it allows us to ‘speak’ to the unconscious mind. The part of our brain which stores all this negative self belief and self talk, some of it has been there since childhood. Some people are skeptical about it, but in actual fact it is similar to a guided meditation, it starts by deeply relaxing you and then with some active thoughts and positive words, allows you to change for the better…  but there is one very important aspect – you have to want to change.  I have just made my first 2 guided meditation/ hypnotherapy sessions available on my website: one is for exam stress and the other for study motivation. (It’s personally a big achievement for me, I’m not very technical and this has been a goal of mine for years!)

Exam Stress and Study Motivation

I have been working with students about to sit important state exams in June this year, some of their internal dialogue is:

• ‘I can’t do it’
• ‘I won’t do well’
• ‘I can’t study everything in time’
• ‘My friends will do better’
• ‘I won’t get the course I want’
• ‘I can’t remember this’
• ‘I’ll fail’
• ‘I’m not good enough’

In order to help them I have created 20 minute guided meditation / hypnotherapy recordings. They are particularly useful for helping teenagers to go to sleep at night, as that is a very common problem with exam students. Our teens are more stressed then ever and their mental health is suffering. There have been many teen suicides over the stress that exams cause in teenagers, they can’t see the future, they can’t see that its only an exam.

One is specifically to help them to feel less stressed and the other one for more motivation to study, they can be used by anyone, at any age to help them with exam stress and study motivation. Feel free to click on the links to read more about it, and to hear a sample.

I hope you found this article useful and interesting, please help me to get my first hypnotherapy recordings out there to teenagers who need it, by sharing and liking this article and tagging any friends that could use it for themselves or their children.

Thank you, Caoimhe x