Calm in the chaos

Lately, I’ve been watching Amelia play. I can see her little mouth moving as she creates different scenes in her head, and I wonder, is this when we begin to process our internal chatter?

We’re all born with an internal conversation mechanism. It’s what drives a baby to reach out for help, to cry when hungry, or to learn that a cuddle makes the world feel better. These small moments enrich our inner world.

But something I heard recently really caught my attention. Professor Ethan Kross, a leading expert in emotion regulation and self-control, explains that we all have an internal conversation mechanism. It’s a remarkable tool that helps us process information, plan, cheer ourselves on, and recall what we need. The problem, he says, is when it turns into negative chatter: a looping spiral of self-loathing and internal bullying.

So, when did the innocence of our internal language shift?

When did it go from cuddles, milk, fairies, and pretend lands to:

Am I good enough?

Why don’t they like me?

How could I have been so stupid?

They know I didn’t know the answer, now I feel terrible…

Come on, don’t be so lazy.

You get the drift. I bet you’ve said something like this to yourself already today.

I heard a wild fact: we say about 4,000 words a minute to ourselves. That’s like reading the first Harry Potter book in under 20 minutes. Crazy, right?

It got me thinking… what does my internal voice sound like? And how much of it is helping me achieve my goals, stay motivated, remember things and plan?  Or does it leave me spiralling in self-doubt?

Could this be why we feel overwhelmed and caught up in chaos?

Maybe it has nothing to do with the outside world, especially if we live in relative safety with no war, no famine, and consider ourselves lucky. Maybe the chaos is inside?

If I compare my life to that of my great-grandmother, or even my mum, and the type of lives they lived, through war and so many disasters, has the battlefield shifted to our minds?

Dr Kross explains that negative chatter becomes harmful when it overwhelms us. It moves from being supportive to sowing doubt and confusion. Yet in its purest form, our inner voice exists to help us:

• Simulate and plan (like prepping for a presentation or cleaning)

• Remember information (like phone numbers or dates)

• Motivate ourselves (e.g. “Come on, let’s go to the gym”)

• Make sense of the world (Why something happened or what it means)

That all sounds great, I need that kind of internal conversation!

But if I’m honest, it’s not always like that. I still have to check and shift it constantly. And the scary part? Sometimes I don’t even realise I’ve been having a full-on internal argument until hours later.

Recently, I was listening to a podcast with Mel Robbins, where she interviewed Dr Kross. He talked about having a toolkit for managing internal dialogue. He said we wouldn’t show up to a job as a carpenter with just a hammer, and the same applies here. We need multiple tools to support our inner voice and select what works for us.

So below are a few of his tools, and a few of mine that I’ve discovered along the way that could help encourage calm in the chaos.

Planning / Preparing / Organising

Say these three words on repeat, and I’m in my element. But I’ve come to realise there’s a fine line between being organised and using organisation as a coping mechanism.

It started when I was young. I used to be teased for always cleaning my room. But during my parents’ divorce, that behaviour intensified. I couldn’t control what was happening around me or make sense of the chaos, but I could control how clean and tidy my room was. So, I did. Cleaning became my way to silence the noise.

And to this day, when the chatter gets loud, I clean. But now, I ask myself what triggered the need to clean in the first place.

Here are some questions I use:

• What’s making me feel like cleaning right now?

• What am I trying to control that feels out of reach?

• How do I want to feel instead?

Next time you catch yourself organising, listing, or decluttering, pause. Is your mind noisy? What’s making you feel out of control? Cleaning isn’t bad, it’s only a problem when we use it to escape the internal dialogue we’re afraid to hear.

Making Sense of the World: The Calendar Check

This next tool is one I made myself: I call it The Calendar Check.

It’s how I make sense of things when nothing seems to make sense.

There are times in the month when my inner critic gets louder, times I feel full of doubt, anxiety, self-loathing, and restlessness. I’ve learned to recognise the signs. It feels like a tightening of thought. An out-of-body experience, but inside my own body.

So, I check my calendar.

And wouldn’t you know it - it’s always the week before my period.

Lately, I’ve also been questioning whether I’m entering perimenopause (especially when a surprise pimple shows up or I burst into tears for no reason!). But instead of spiralling, I’m learning to acknowledge what’s happening. To recognise the chatter. That rising inner chaos? It’s not because I’m going crazy, although you might want to check with Jorge! Something physical is shifting. My body is speaking up, and it’s time to listen.

Sometimes the act of just checking my calendar and owning it helps put it all into perspective. So here are a few things you can do:

Ask yourself:

• What part of my cycle am I in right now? Could hormones be playing a part in how I feel?

• Have I been here before? What do I know about this pattern?

• If my body is speaking up, what might it be asking for?

• What do I need today: rest, space, reassurance, nourishment?

• Can I give myself permission to soften, rather than push through?

• Swop “What’s wrong with me?” To “What do I need right now?”

Using Chatter to Motivate or Control

Dr Kross shares a great tool to help us shift perspective. These help me when I’m spiralling into: This isn’t working… It’s all falling apart… It’s because of you, Vikki!

That’s when I pause and ask:

• How will I feel about this in a week?

• Two weeks?

• A year?

• Three years?

That shift in time perspective immediately lowers the intensity. The challenge becomes less “everything” and more “just a moment.” But I do have to remind myself to speak kindly after that and not just silence the inner bully with more bullying!

Using Chatter to Remember What Matters

When things feel truly overwhelming when I’m stuck in thoughts like “no one understands what I’m going through”, or “this is all too much!” I look at the picture of my mum in my office. And I recall her stories of food shortages and hiding in the London Underground tube system for safety. I think of my dad and how he would go hunting for food, predominantly hare, in Brussels to help feed all the family (don’t ask what happened to the neighbour’s posh cat!)

In those moments, I stop and can take a minute to recognise that my problem is not so big that I can't work through it.

This isn’t about playing the comparison game or guilting ourselves into gratitude. It’s about finding a moment of stillness and gaining some perspective.

Calling on Nature:

This is a classic and one of my favourites. When things feel like they are going to explode, go for a walk. There’s nothing like nature to bring awe back to our minds and to remind us that we are just a small part of this incredible universe. I love letting my thoughts float through my head as I take one step at a time. 

So, this week, let’s lean into the science and compassion behind our inner dialogue. Chatter is normal, we all have it, but with awareness, patience, and kindness… we can change its tone. And maybe, just maybe, the space between those words will begin to feel a little calmer.

Love,

Vikki