Keep Talking I'm Listening

I remember hearing that it is OK to talk to yourself, as long as you are careful not to answer. I believe there is a word for people who answer themselves. Crazy. That is precisely the reason I've discouraged my daughter from the practice. What can I say? She was an only child for ten years. Let's just say she has a developed imagination. There have been times I'd follow the noise to another room. It seemed the people in that room were having such a good time. Time an time again I'd get to the room and find she was alone just talking and laughing with herself. I've accused her of being an odd bird for it. Still, the habit continues. Over the past few weeks though, the topic of talking, and listening to oneself keeps coming up. I've heard it at church. I've heard it from various speakers, and sources. It won't go away. Over the weekend I wasn't shocked to hear it yet again. Our pastor taught on exercising power over one's feelings, via fact and, talking to oneself. His message wasn't unlike the others I've heard recently, but he took it a step further. Without laying it all out, the gist of it was, far to many of us are feelings driven. We ignore the facts. We ignore faith. We follow and act on/out what we feel be it true or not.  He proposed that instead of listening exclusively to what we feel, we start talking to ourselves and tell our minds and hearts how to feel in light of faith and  facts.
Like I said this lesson is a reoccurring one so he had my full attention. Thing is, I've never considered myself a feelings driven kinda girl, but I'm female. I suppose it happens naturally. Our pastor has been about the forth person I've heard suggest talking to yourself. My mental response to him was, "yes, but that is the full picture of crazy right there." I've seen mirror mantra people and they scare me. Hey, if it's your thing, it's your thing. Something in this case is better than nothing. It's just that I don't think I'd be able to take myself seriously doing it. However, I'm beginning to see that there is truth in what I'm hearing...repeatedly. Far better than listening to yourself is talking to yourself. Far better than following a feeling, is telling yourself how you should feel based on faith and facts. Plus, I'm thrilled that I basically have a license to look, and act crazier than I currently do. I won't tell you I'm going around speaking out loud to myself, but conversations have begun. Looks like my kiddo, and the mirror mantra people were on to something all along.