Chatter

When he receives an anonymous threatening letter, the author undergoes the painful experience of obsessive thoughts and untimely brooding. How can he put an end to the voices telling him he is incapable of protecting his family from this danger? How can he think of anything else? This episode leads him to more closely study “inner voices”: he then discovers that we all develop this internal discourse from childhood, notably to give meaning to our experiences and to evaluate our progress in relation to the goals we set for ourselves.

However, these voices can become incapacitating when we go through painful events or are subjected to strong pressure: if we aren’t careful, they quickly tend to anchor themselves in negativity. To remedy this, the author conducts various studies and experiments to determine how to shut down ruminations and nuance negative thinking. He thus proposes a whole array of techniques and practices that can be applied on a daily basis: visualizing the situation from the outside, addressing ourselves in order to decenter ourselves creating rituals to anchor ourselves back in the present and put an end to repetitive thoughts… Beyond individual techniques, he also offers advice to determine how and when to lean on our entourage when we are beset by dark thoughts.

A book rooted in practice, which incites us to face up to the fact that we speak to ourselves in order to regain control over this internal discourse.