choke your inner parrot

If I admitted to you I have voices in my head at the most inappropriate times of the day, would you attempt to cart me off to a psychiatrist with a view to a stint in the Priory?  

 Well, I have to admit; I do. I do. Continually.

Last week, I was about to do a pitch to an important client, which would have secured me a very lucrative work contract and was pivotal in order to develop my small business and achieve my goal of expansion.

 I dressed well, prepared well, had my nails done to give me that added confidence, even though it was a zoom call. Dialling in, radiating confident, successful businesswoman and looking forward to the discussion that would inevitably follow my presentation, I felt happy knowing that if I did this well, this was going to be a great day for my company and me.

 It was only when the client was running ten minutes late and they left me to sit at my desk in my silent home office that, out of the blue, the parrot started screeching.

 ‘How do you know your internet connection won’t go down?’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ my normal voice in my head retorted. ‘It never goes down.’

 ‘There’s building work next door. What if the dog barks halfway through your presentation?’

   ‘He’s never done that before.’

   ‘But he could…’

 Here’s another example of my parrot interfering in my personal life. Last year, because of the amount of wine I guzzled in lockdown, I wanted to give up wine for a few months. It had taken a lot of waxing and waning in preparation to stop, and after reading a superb article where the author suggested you leave a bottle of wine in your fridge to stop you obsessing, I was following her instructions and looking forward to kicking my wine habit.

That evening at the supermarket with only one bottle of wine making its way to my trolley, the parrot started screeching almost before I had placed it carefully at the far end.

‘Only one bottle?’

‘Yes. I’ve stopped drinking.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ 

‘How long did you last when you tried to stop a few months ago?’

‘That was different.’

‘Pah! Get more wine. It’s on offer. And it’s Friday. HAVE-A-DRINK!’

‘I’ve bought peppermint tea.’

‘You’re kidding me? We both know you’ll be drinking by the end of the weekend. Why put yourself through the pain? Buy a few more bottles, save yourself another trip tomorrow.’

I hurried away and paid for my shopping before I could throw three more bottles into my trolley. As I sat in a traffic jam, feeling very pleased with myself, the parrot stepped up his campaign.

‘You’re seriously not going to drink on a Friday night?’  

‘Seriously.’

‘Not tonight or tomorrow night or Sunday night?’ 

‘Nope.’

‘So what are you going to do all weekend if you don’t drink? Life is for living. You’re so boring.’

It’s the same with my writing. I can spend a productive day writing 2000 words and be very pleased with myself. Only to sit down a few hours later or the next day, and reread what I have written.

‘That’s rubbish,’ the parrot says. ‘The plot doesn’t work, the characters are wooden, and you’ll never get this published. Why bother?’

Or just before I sit down to write, the parrot says, ‘Your mind’s gone blank. You can’t think of anything to write, can you?’

I grit my teeth. ‘Yes, I can.’

‘Shall we have a chat about the difference between plot and story?’ says the parrot. ‘I don’t think you’ve quite got it. You see, you’ve written lots of plot stuff, but WHAT’S the actual story? You don’t know do you? Shall we go for a walk and think about it?’

And so the circle of inner doubt begins.

 The question is, why do we have these inner voices, or my parrot, as I like to call it? 

Well, it’s your unconscious or your inner fears and beliefs that rise to the surface in times of stress or when we are about to do something, that’s really important to us. The inner voice is there to protect us, but also sabotages us if we don’t know how to deal with it and can either hypnotise us into success or failure by constantly chattering negatively in our heads, sabotaging our positive thoughts and feelings. Our inner parrot often digs deep into our memories and drags things from our childhood that reminded us why we are not good at something or making a mess of certain situations. 

 After studying Neuro Linguistic programming (NLP) for the last ten years and becoming a Trainer Of NLP through its founder, John Grinder, I have learned how to deal with this annoying little parrot and effectively how to choke it. Although I would never like to get rid of my parrot, as it can be extremely helpful if handled correctly, I have been able to shut it up, train it and put it back on its perch when necessary. Here are a few tips:

 Listen to your Parrot

 Try to identify what your parrot is telling you. Acknowledge that this thought process is separate from your actual point of view. Remember that your parrot is not a reflection of reality. It is a viewpoint you adopted based on destructive life experiences and attitudes that you’ve internalized as your own point of view. And they sabotage your positive thoughts. Acknowledging that ‘the parrot’ is being destructive and trying to sabotage you is the first step to dealing with it.

 Train your parrot 

 Your parrot can be useful to give you feedback or helping you to troubleshoot potential landmines or things you may have not considered. Train your parrot to still give you the feedback but ask it to talk to you at certain times of the day so that you can write its suggestions in a notepad and ensure that you overcome any potential landmines. If your parrot talks to you in a calm, thoughtful manner when you are open to the feedback, you can help troubleshoot the parrots fears and concerns which means it will stay quiet if it is content that you have taken its advice and acted upon it. Ensure that the parrot agrees not to pop up five minutes before you are about to write, or just as you are about to submit to your dream agent. Bargaining with your parrot will quieten it down. All it wants is to be listened to. Once you do that and take the feedback on board, it will snooze on its perch.

 Put your parrot back on its perch

 You can respond to your parrot by writing a more realistic and compassionate evaluation of what it is saying. Yes, you may not get your target word count down, but there have been many occasions when you have. How can you ensure we replicate positive experiences? How can we fire fight to make sure that what our parrot says doesn’t become our reality? What was it specifically that you did that made your writing time so successful? How can you replicate that success?

 Be Strong

 Remember not to act on the directives of your parrot. Take actions that represent your own point of view, what type of writer you want to be and what you aim to achieve. Your parrot may get louder, telling you to stay in line or not to take chances. However, by identifying, separating from, and acting against, this destructive thought process, you will grow stronger, while your inner parrot grows weaker. Eventually, you can ask your inner parrot if you have missed anything or forgotten anything that you may need to consider for the future and learn to work together for positive outcomes.

 About me:

 I am an International Leadership coach and Trainer of NLP, mentored by John Grinder, the originator. I am also an editor and coach and am currently writing my debut novel, when my parrot has a day off!

Watch this space for an upcoming online workshop on ‘Choking Your Inner Parrot.’