Image by Mohamed Hassan

In This Article:

• What is the internal rule book and how does it affect us?
• How does the chatter mind amplify emotional reactions?
• Why awareness is key to overcoming subconscious triggers
• How meditation and mindfulness can help rewrite mental rules
• Practical tips to create positivity and resilience in your life

How to Stop Letting Your Chatter Mind Control You

by Alexandra Leclere.

Everything in our physical life is recorded in our subconscious mind as a rule in what I call our Internal Rule Book. Why do I call it a rule book instead of a ledger? Because whatever is in it rules our life.

We have no control over what is recorded. It’s automatic and begins when we’re a fetus. Everything we hear, feel, or experience is automatically recorded in our subconscious mind as we experience life—and for each recording there is a value judgment added. This creates rules that bring us joy as well as fear and anxiety.

Originally this was done to protect our animal body. If a fetus heard loud voices arguing, such as when Mom and Dad were having a fight, the equation would be loud voices equal danger. Those equation entries became rules that we would then automatically follow.

All of our future physical and emotional reactions are influenced by what we experienced in the past, how we perceived those events, and whether they were considered positive or negative, safe or dangerous.

For our survival, emotions were hardwired to our Internal Rule Book as an immediate response mechanism. We didn’t need to think about what to do; our emotions dictated our physical reaction. The result is that we immediately react to a stimulus before we’re able to consciously evaluate what’s going on.

The Internal Rule Book in Action

Our Internal Rule Book always controls our emotions and completely bypasses our logical mind altogether. When an event occurs, our Internal Rule Book attaches an emotion to it. This means that in our daily life, before we know it, we are happy, sad, distressed, or irritated. Suddenly our heart is thumping happily, or we are furious. Or perhaps we are completely depressed.

It takes our mind a while to catch up, but by the time it does we’re saturated with an emotion and often “we just can’t think straight.” This is because our thoughts are filtered through our emotions, which are generated by our Internal Rule Book. As a result, we may wind up with the completely wrong analysis of an event and then suffer the wrong emotion.

The Chatter Mind in Action

Connected to our Internal Rule Book is an automatic alert system that communicates with our conscious mind. It’s a separate voice that keeps random thoughts running continuously through our head. I call that voice our “Chatter Mind” because it incessantly comments on everything.

The Chatter Mind is the voice of our Internal Rule Book and as we know, the Internal Rule Book puts a value judgment on everything that happens to us. We wake up in the morning and immediately our Chatter Mind begins reminding us of the rules that correspond with what’s going on. Have we woken up too early or too late? This is usually followed by either kudos for getting up at the right time or more often than not, berating ourselves for staying in bed too long or even getting up too early and thus not getting enough sleep. We contemplate our agenda for the day, and the Chatter Mind jumps in with opinions about all of it.

This could be followed by unpleasant remarks about how we aren’t doing our job very well because we are too disorganized or not smart enough or some other negative belief. The Chatter Mind seems to have something to say about everything! It also can take any event or conversation and embroider it into a whole story. That story can be pleasant or it can be extremely upsetting.

Originally the Chatter Mind was, like the Internal Rule Book, a useful tool that helped us to survive. For example, if we were taught to wait for the light to turn red for cars and green for pedestrians, we will always have a hard time crossing a street against the light because our Internal Rule Book will command our Chatter Mind to remind us we are breaking a dangerous rule. In this case, our Chatter Mind is our friend.

However, all too often our Chatter Mind is not our friend. We humans tend to be very creative thinkers and have the questionable talent of spinning false stories based on our Chatter Mind and our Internal Rule Book. Before you know it, an unlikely scenario has been created.

Real Life Example: The Chatter Mind Interferes

Sarah and Sam had been dating for a year and were soon to move in together. Sarah’s Chatter Mind had been busy telling her how wonderful it would be to live with Sam and reminded Sarah that it was the first-year anniversary of their first date. Her Internal Rule Book and Chatter Mind had Sarah lost in dreamy bliss, imagining romance while living with her beloved Sam, who would always be the perfect man in her life.

Full of expectations of his loving response—a smile, or perhaps a kiss—she looked lovingly at Sam and noted, “Today is the one-year anniversary of our first date.” Reflecting on when he’d first met Sarah, Sam remembered that he had been on his way to get the recall adjustment on his car done but because he ran into Sarah he got sidetracked and it slipped his mind and never happened. With this, Sam realized that he had forgotten about it and still hadn’t done the recall adjustment! He was horrified and angry at himself.

Sam’s Internal Rule Book and Chatter Mind took over as he heard his father’s voice lecturing him about how important manufacturer recalls were. Sam got a disturbed look on his face as he listened to his Chatter Mind. Sarah, meanwhile, had expected Sam to smile and say something sweet to her, but viewing the expression on his face, she now thought maybe he didn’t really love her after all. Her Internal Rule Book and Chatter Mind reminded her of her previous boyfriend who had suddenly and unceremoniously dumped her.

“You’re moving in with me next week!” Sarah said with an edge to her voice.

Sam, who was still thinking about when he could get the recall done, emerged from his thoughts and mumbled, “What?”

“What? You’re asking ‘What?’ We talked about this for two months! It was your idea. You brought it up!” Sarah snarled.

“I did? I mean, I did. I did,” Sam mumbled, still a bit lost in the conversation.

“So you did want to move in with me but now you don’t want to anymore!” Sarah declared. “Well, I don’t want you to move in with me, either!”

This conversation between Sarah and Sam is a perfect example of how our Internal Rule Book triggers our emotions and creates expectations. Sarah’s emotions of love and passion and her expectation of a loving response from Sam collided with Sam’s emotions of concern and anger and his feelings of incompetence.

Clearly, they weren’t on the same page—their individual Internal Rule Books had taken them to opposing places. Had they been stripped of the interfering Internal Rule Book and the Chatter Mind, they would have been fine.

Meditation to the Rescue

Many people who are authorities on meditation tell us that we have access to all the answers we need via meditation. I believe this is true.

How this works is that our Soul can access all the information we could ever want. Given this, and the fact that meditation enhances our mind/Soul communication, just add some energy cleansing work and voila! We can alleviate the damage done by our Internal Rule Book and Chatter Mind.

It’s true that being in meditation, away from the maddening crowd—either in our own quiet space or on a retreat in nature—is conducive to Soul communication because we’re able to mitigate potential triggers that constantly spring from the stimuli around us. But although meditation can be a wonderful way to handle an emotional trigger and help you to silence the Chatter Mind, or at least muffle it a bit, it won’t eliminate damage done by the Internal Rule Book unless you’ve already created the necessary internal rule that posits that meditation will bring you peace.

In fact, if you try to impose meditation in the middle of an emotional tsunami, you could be making your situation more difficult for yourself. You might feel you aren’t meditating correctly so instead of invoking peace and calm, you might be feeding the fire by adding another reason why you’re a screwup: you can’t even meditate right!

The best approach is to create a meditation process that you do when you’re feeling good. If you set up your own sacred space and perhaps your own altar, you might add a special shawl you wear while meditating. Every time you meditate for even five minutes, try to use the shawl and the same meditation space. Picture the shawl as a protective blanket designed to instill a sense of hopeful tranquility.

The chaos that we experience and that requires our remediation is caused by a mind that’s all too frequently clouded by emotion. While meditating at the right time and in the right frame of mind can certainly help, what we really need to do is create a paradigm where hope is the overriding factor.

In that paradigm, anything is possible. It’s all about picking yourself up, facing another day, adjusting expectations and desires, being grateful for what is, and finding things and people to love and identifying and accepting the love that is offered to you.

This requires us to constantly be aware of what’s in our Internal Rule Book. For example, in the story of Sam and Sarah, if Sam had been aware of his thoughts he might have begun to wonder why he was thinking about his father’s disapproval and stop allowing his thoughts to carry him to a very sad place. The same can be said for Sarah. Her Internal Rule Book triggered the painful memory of her ex-boyfriend and fear that Sam didn’t care for her anymore. Awareness is the key.

Overcoming the Dictates of the Internal Rule Book

Although they are not always easy to do, the basic steps to overcoming the dictates of the Internal Rule Book and the Chatter Mind are as follows:

1. Be aware that your Internal Rule Book and its Chatter Mind exist and may be affecting you negatively.

2. Distance yourself from that Chatter Mind by understanding that it can be ignored.

3. Learn to temper all your emotions so that when an emotional tsunami arrives, it doesn’t drown you.

4. Seek out enjoyable experiences and put a positive spin on all of life’s events. In other words, always look for the silver lining!

5. Make a Happy Go-To List of five solo activities that you can use to distract yourself from spiraling into anger or depression. On my list I have soft serve vanilla ice cream that’s dipped in chocolate that hardens. Going to a special place, watching a special show, or reading a funny book are all possibilities.

The more we seek out happy and funny things to read, watch, or listen to, and the more we participate in enjoyable interactions with family and friends, the more we feed our Internal Rule Book’s experiences of joy and positivity, which will serve us well in difficult times.

Copyright ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
Adapted with permission of the publisher, 
Destiny Books, an imprint of Inner Traditions Intl.

Article Source:

BOOK: Healing Wisdom from the Afterlife

Healing Wisdom from the Afterlife: How to Communicate with the Spirit World
by Alexandra Leclere.

Sharing insights from her more than two decades of experience as a practicing medium and energy healer, Alexandra Leclere presents wisdom from the spirit world on the cycles of death, life after death, and rebirth and reveals how communicating with spirits can help you navigate daily life and support your Soul’s purpose. 

Presenting spiritual Journey Work techniques, Alexandra reveals how to clear the negative traumas and memories that are holding you back from happiness and the purpose that compelled your Soul to reincarnate.

Click here for more info and/or to order this paperback book.XXX Also available as a Kindle edition.

About the Author

Alexandra Leclere is a clairvoyant, clairaudient, and clairsentient medium and energy healer with more than 20 years of professional experience. She is the author of the book Seeing the Dead, Talking with Spirits and also facilitates sweat lodge ceremonies. Visit the Author's Website: AlexandraLeclere.com/

Article Recap:

The internal rule book and chatter mind dictate much of our emotional responses, often bypassing logical thinking. These subconscious patterns can lead to unnecessary emotional turmoil and negative self-talk. Overcoming their influence requires awareness, distancing from negative thoughts, and cultivating positivity through meditation and joyful experiences. Practical tools like a "Happy Go-To List" and reframing emotional triggers can help rewrite these inner rules, fostering emotional freedom and resilience in challenging situations.

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