Step into Your Moxie. Alexia Vernon
moxie because we aren’t addressing the real issues in our lives. Usually, it means that while we appear almost clown-like, with a smile painted across our faces, inside — even if we are in denial about it to ourselves — we’re one trigger away from unraveling. And when we do, we often verbally flog the person or people closest to us.
That’s why my grandma’s death jump-started such a scary, seemingly bottomless downward spiral for me. Yes, we were bonded at the hip (and ankle and ear — and everywhere in between). Yet in hindsight, I realize that her passing also killed off my Cheerleader voice. I couldn’t tell myself, Everything will be fine, because without my grandma in my life there was a ginormous chasm and nothing, especially me, felt like it would be fine again. Up until this point, my identity was also completely enmeshed in my academic achievement and artistic performance. That B+ started a chain reaction of tectonic movement. But just like a volcano that often erupts in the aftermath of a big quake, the lava (in my case my Cheerleader-like self-talk, which had been masking a lack of intrinsic worthiness), had been building for years.
For each of these voices — and to be sure, many of us (yours truly included) are blessed with an ability to house a Critic, a Cop, and sometimes even a Cheerleader simultaneously — the solution is the same.
We must develop the right, succinct messaging to talk back to ourselves in the voice of the Coach.
Wait, what?!
Yes, we’re inviting another voice into our mental menagerie. But before I unmask her, let me explain why she’s necessary.
Many of us strive to hit the mute button on our self-talk. We erroneously believe that if we put a muzzle on our Critic, Cop, or Cheerleader we can force her into submission and reconnect with our real voice, with our moxie. But as we explored in the previous chapter, it’s not enough to pump ourselves up with affirmations or meditative and visualization practices designed to enhance our capacity for presence. Our Critics, Cops, and Cheerleaders are piping up in response to an underlying problem that must be addressed. And until it is, any and all efforts to quiet these voices — well, they will be as successful as telling ourselves, I’ll just have one scoop of ice cream. That might work if you are in an ice-cream store. But if you are at home, in less than five minutes, one scoop usually leads to an empty pint and a bloated belly. And so it is with our self-talk. When we say to ourselves, Stop it. Use your theater voice, our self-talk whispers turn into the finale of act 1 in The Phantom of the Opera (when the chandelier crashes to the floor).
How Our Self-Talk Impacts Our Moxie
Our communication with ourselves has a profound impact on how we feel, how we behave, and ultimately how we speak up in the world. In her book My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey, neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor (who at the pinnacle of her career had a stroke and worked for eight years to fully recover her physical functioning and thinking abilities), writes provocatively not only about her own harrowing experience but also about the direct relationship between our thoughts and our feelings. And by feelings I (and Dr. Jill) don’t just mean whether we are happy, sad, scared, angry, or bewildered but also how we physiologically feel in our bodies.
As Dr. Jill explains, the moment we have a thought, a chemical is released in the brain. It travels throughout our body, and we have a corresponding physiological experience. In other words, if you tell yourself I am a moron (or a more colorful version of that), then you are going to feel like somebody rubbed your internal organs with jalapeños. On the flip side, if you think I am built for greatness, then you are going to feel like you’re in the final two during the last five minutes of a reality show — and this time you know you are going to get picked — as the winner!
The physiological sensation you experience as a result of your thought is not permanent. Dr. Jill writes that our physiological experience will last about ninety seconds. After these ninety seconds, we’ll have a new thought, and a corresponding new physiological experience. This is great news if we are adept at choosing higher-level thoughts during the many moments when we identify that our Critics, Cops, and Cheerleaders are producing physiological sensations that are mucking us up. Of course, for most of us, this is as simple as winning the Tour de France without doping. After those first ninety seconds, most of us go right back into the same Critic, Cop, or Cheerleader thinking, again and again, and our physiological responses go on loop.
Think about the last time you got up to present an idea that deeply mattered to you. Undoubtedly you had the thought, I’m scared. (There was probably also a dirty adjective on the front or back side of scared.) Then your body reacted. Depending on your wiring, your heart rate may have sped up, your knees may have started knocking, or it may have felt like your large intestine swallowed your small intestine. Yum.
Then, when your ninety-second physiological reaction was up, I’m banking you went, Oh, [insert your name]. You’re [insert the thought that triggers the same physiological response]. This pattern continued, endlessly, like a mockingbird calling out for its mate through the night and into the dawn. As a result, when you finally did speak, you were a hot mess. More specifically, you were in your head rather than in your body, the words you used may have been coherent but it’s unlikely they were particularly compelling, and you almost definitely failed to foster genuine connection with the person or people you were striving to make a positive impact on. You (we all) need an intervention — one you both create and execute. In other words, it’s not okay to do what I’ve been guilty of doing (what most of us have been guilty of doing), which is to read about a new behavior or strategy, say to yourself, Woah, that sounds ah-ma-zing, and then not do a darn thing about it.
This intervention I’m about to share with you works. It’s simple. And really, like any habit that takes a bit of time to create (approximately twenty-one days if it’s a brand-spankin’-new habit and ninety to 120 days if it’s a habit that is replacing an existing habit, which this is), it simply requires a commitment to consistently practice it. And this new habit I’m asking you to create, your self-talk intervention, is inviting in the Coach to talk back, disrupt, and ultimately change the tone of the communication in your head. I promise, this isn’t woo — or high theory. It’s incredibly practical, and it works.
The voice of your new soul sister and friend, the Coach, is curious. She asks you questions that empower you to see opportunities amid obstacles. This part is massively important, so let me repeat it again.
Your Coach always asks questions.
Sometimes, lots of questions. This empowers you to turn your inner monologues into dialogues, rewrite your mental script, and prompt feelings that support your most high-powered speaking. Your Coach, she is a great conversationalist. The more face time you give her, the more you will reclaim your role of protagonist in the narrative running in your head. Through this process, you’ll also be set up to address the source of your unproductive self-talk. Fear. A lack of worthiness. A nagging in-law. (FYI: I have very supportive in-laws, fortunately, but I’ve heard some stories.) Simultaneously, you will boost your self-confidence. And as a result, the way you feel in your body and how you communicate in it.
I want to be very clear. While I want your thoughts to create feelings that lead you to be a confident and competent speaker, I am not telling you that you aren’t entitled to all your feelings, including the gross ones. When somebody constantly interrupts or belittles you, or you experience a devastating loss — a divorce, a death, a dance party gone wrong — punch your pillow, ugly-cry your way through a box of good chocolate, and hug everyone on your contact list who will let you. The only way through what you’re feeling is — wait for it — through what you’re feeling. What I want, as it pertains to your communication, is for you to liberate yourself from the unpredictable moment-to-moment physiological responses your self-talk is producing, particularly when it comes to high-stakes communication. Then and only then will speaking be something you look forward to doing, something you do well, and something that produces the results you want for yourself and others.
So how do you translate all this into practice? In real time? How do you let your Coach talk back to your Critic, Cop, or Cheerleader? Well,