When to listen to your instincts and when to tell them to jog on.

I wouldn’t call myself a natural runner. My joints are on the creaky side and I feel very self-conscious that I look like Phoebe from Friends, only redder. It’s not a hunch, actual humans have told me that this is true. Doing much too much with my long arms. Flappy. What are your arms supposed to do exactly? I’m never sure. 

Despite this, pre lockdown number three I found myself going for a run in the pretty Welsh countryside and trying my very best to get through the first gruelling five minutes in order to enjoy the view. Desperately hoping that the naggy inner dialogue would shut up so I could get into some sort of flow and breath more easily. “Make sure you don’t get lost!” it cries, “Wow that car nearly mowed you down!” it mocks, “Look at that man running, so effortless, his trainers look like they’ve actually been used more than twice.”  

Low and behold, I get there and as my body starts to kick into gear and join the party (weird party), I actually start to get into it and the dialogue quietens. It’s almost enjoyable. Almost.  

But then, after about fifteen minutes (yes, that’s just fifteen minutes), the naggy voice in my head is back, “I think you should stop now... that’s ENOUGH... this is really rather hard... nobody will know.” My body is screaming at me to stop too – my lungs are heaving, my calves are burning, my left knee is twinging with every inelegant stride. Everything is telling me to stop. Is this my instinct? Who knows but it’s loud and determined and I can’t ignore it, so I stop. Feeling a little deflated. I didn’t make it all the way home.  

And I’m left wondering, when is it good to listen to your mind and body? And when is it best to ignore it?  

Should I have pushed through? And if so, what would the consequences have been? Would I have made it and felt like an absolute #hero? Or would my knee have buckled and swiftly rendered me useless on the floor, stranded in the Welsh countryside with only sheep for company? 

In the same vein, when I feel edgy and “not right” for no obvious reason, is it time to pause and pay attention? Or keep on keeping on?  

When my nerves and anxiety are bubbling up before a big presentation, is it best to listen to what they are trying to tell me? Or squash them quick and channel my bravest self? 

Tricky business this.  

Thank goodness, it turns out I am not alone with this quandary. This noisy inner chatter has got noisier for many during the pandemic. Solitude can be painful. It’s like an echo chamber. And seeing the same people day in day out can be downright draining. No marriage vows included a lockdown clause. Kamran Ahmed, writing for The Guardian, cites a study from psychologists at Virginia and Harvard universities which found that many would rather give themselves an electric shock than be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. One reason why people find it so hard is their inner critic – that annoying voice in your head that chastises you and plays on your insecurities. 

One trick is to learn to tell the difference between this inner critic, spouting endless negative jibes and misery inducing back chat and your true self. Or as Prof Steve Peters puts it rather brilliantly, your chimp and your human. 

My chimp, it seems, is living its best lockdown life.  

Here are four Welfy ways to listen to your true self and tune out the negative chat: 

1.Sink into your knowing 

Glennon Doyle in her brilliant book, Untamed, talks about tapping into “your knowing”. I do realise this sounds a bit like magical pixie nonsense but stay with me. “StopMovingStopTalkingStopSearchingStopPanickingStopFlailing. Be still and know,” says Doyle. Got it. Not entirely straightforward when you’re doing your Phoebe run in the Welsh valleys, but I do get the gist. Let the noisy  voices still and tap into what you, underneath all that noise want to do. And I’ve tried it. It takes some practice, sure, but it works. There is a coach inside, you just have to remove the critic(s) from the pile on in order to hear them. 

2.Get on the meditation bandwagon 

Meditation is beginning to enter the mainstream with Apps such as Headspace and Calm now reporting 100 million downloads between them. Many businesses are investing in subscriptions for their employees during lockdown, including PWC for its 22,000 UK staff. There is method. As well as quietening the inner critic, meditation seems to slow the natural reduction of brain tissue that comes with aging and improves cognition and memory. Harvard researcher Sara Lazar found that 40- to 50-year-old meditators have key brain structures similar to those of non-meditators in their 20s. Maybe it’s time to give meditation a crack if you’re not already a convert? 

3.Get to know your gremlins. In fact, tame them.  

Rick Carson, in his brilliant book, Taming your gremlin – a surprisingly simple method for getting out of your own way – tells us that there is indeed a Gremlin in your head, and he’s out to make you miserable. Left to do his thing, he’ll zap your health, foul up your relationships, ruin your disposition, dampen your creativity, hamper your productivity, drive you into low-down funks, and wind you up in to fits of anxiety. I mean, that sounds rough doesn’t it? I am now a qualified gremlin tamer. It turns out I have several, including Professor Futile, he’s a hoot, Lazy Cow and Nasty Bitch – the last pair often appear together, like the two ugly sisters. Getting to know them and the simple framework for getting them under control is both amusing and extraordinarily helpful.  

4.Don’t ignore the niggles 

There is, it turns out, a distinct difference between ignoring the inner critic and ignoring our own mental and physical signals. If something is off, it is terribly stoic to bang it in a box and hope that it goes away, but there’s a fair chance that it will come back to bite you and your future happiness and wellbeing. We’re all rather expert at blocking out emotions with a host of distractions from alcohol to screen time but the pressure cooker effect this creates, has not only been linked to mental ills, but also to physical problems like heart disease, intestinal problems, headaches, insomnia and autoimmune disorders. Better out than in as they say.   

“I believe in intuitions and inspirations... I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am.” – Albert Einstein