Internal States
What are Internal States?
What is an internal state?
We have multiple internal states that allows us all the internal resources for a given task or set of tasks.
As we learn things and repeat these tasks our brain organizes these sets of resources together.
We then deploy them unconsciously as we begin to do the same or a similar tasks.
We have an internal state (or set of resources) that comes out while playing with a puppy or a kitten.
We have an internal state that allows us to get down to work and get things accomplished.
We have an internal state that we use when we go out with our friends and do our favourite things.
We have an internal state that tells us when to eat.
We have an internal state that we use when we interact with people we know and maybe a different one for interacting with people we don’t know etc.
This is the normal way that we function.
We access many internal states fairly often and we have many more that we don’t access all that often at all.
It’s worth noting that sometimes our feelings of stress, anxiety or insecurities or our confidence etc are part of an internal pattern that is part of what psychologists call internal states.
An internal state is the way you feel and think and is also connected to posture, the way you move and your breathing. Think of it like a set of resources your brain fires up, hopefully the right states at the right time. Just as you’re always learning from your experiences your mind and body will often go to a learned pattern as a way to address what’s going on around you or within you. This saves your brain energy by going to a learned pattern rather than creating a new one for every situation. This is known in neuroscience and is mainstream psychology.
This is sometimes called Parts (in NLP) or Ego States by Watkins and Watkins or probably more correctly Resource States by Gordon Emmerson.
These things are wired into our brains as we adapt and learn and grow.
We use probably 5-15 regularly and have more than a hundred in total but we won't get too far into that.
Only one part can be executive or in charge at a time.
A good example of an internal conflict between states would be as follows.
“Part of me wants to get ice cream for lunch, but it’s not a healthy decision so maybe I shouldn’t”.
“I want to enjoy myself and relax or go out for dinner, but COVID has me on edge being vigilant about safety”.
Here we have a part that wants to indulge in the sweetness of life in a conflict with a part that looks after health and wellbeing.
This is a set of electrochemical connections in your brain that is Neuroplastic therefore can be changed by you and your experiences to serve you for the better or for the worse.
What can learning to manage my internal states do for me?
Our self awareness can help us bring the right inner state to the right activities for better success and happiness.
Being in the right frame of mind or the right internal state for a given task can be an absolute game changer.
People who do public speaking will often have a ritual or a way of getting in the zone before going out on stage to speak to a group of people. Professional athletes also utilize ways of getting themselves into the right resourceful state for the activity.
Someone in sales can make a sales call while they are feeling unsure of themselves or nervous but success is unlikely. By taking a few minutes or so to let feelings of insecurity go and recalling in your memory times you felt confident and successful or in the zone (the right internal state) and really stepping into that feeling can allow you to access the resources you need. This reminds you that you have the resources online and you can feel confident in your work.
Someone who has learned to be combative when criticized even in the slightest may be held back because of an internal state meant to protect them but is actually now in the way of growth. By taking a few moments or so to let that aggressive or protective energy go. Recalling a time you took a step back and were able to learn and grow from this other person’s information they have offered, how might it be useful to me if I were open to it? You can get the right state of mind for taking in what is hopefully a constructive type of criticism.
By taking a moment to recognize this negative reaction is not the most useful in this situation, you can ask yourself how can I make something good from this?
How can I remember times where I’ve challenged myself to grow out of my comfort zone?
How can I use this opportunity to grow again?
All this can really help you and is even more important if you are looking to influence others.
How might I manage my internal states?
I will give you a bunch of exercises that will walk you through how to manage and change your internal states so that you can always redirect yourself internally to what is going to be best for you.
Exercise 1
Self Awareness Is Key
Firstly check in with yourself.
Ask yourself these questions;
How am I feeling right now?
Would it be better for what I am doing/going to do if I felt differently?
Can I remember a time where I felt a lot better?
What would it feel like to feel better/ how would you know you were feeling better?
By thinking about the resources that would be helpful and thinking about what it would feel like to have them and to notice that, fires up the part of the brain that brings those resources to you. You can then recognize them and be confident using them.
Another powerful way is to use your memories and your imagination to draw upon previous experiences. We all feel good when we are talking about our favourite subjects or doing our favourite activities.
Exercise 2
Bring Confidence
What is confidence and why can it be elusive sometimes?
Confidence is having the right resources for a given task and also recognizing that you have those resources.
The questions we ask ourselves are often a big influence here.
If you are thinking “Why am I so shy or why am I not good at this” or worse yet “why am I so stupid etc”, your brain will dutifully look for answers to this question scouring your history for any reason to answer the disempowering question.
Ask yourself empowering questions like “How will I find ways to get good at this?”. “What can I do today to move towards what I want?”.
How will you gain the resources or use the resources you already have to get good at being confident in a given situation?
Exercise 3
Posture Changes
Do this stuff like you mean it, with congruence.
Do your best to align your thoughts with the physical exercises for maximum benefit.
If you are thinking “this is not going to work” etc, you will be sabotaging yourself.
Act like it will work or pretend it will work and it will work.
This can be as simple as taking a few slow deep breaths and imagining with each breath out you let go of your tension or stress etc. and with each in breath you bring in empowerment or energy or calm, whatever you suspect will be most useful.
This works by changing your nervous system to a calmer or better state and allows you to influence yourself for the better.
Holding your hands over your head like you are at a concert or like you just won something and are celebrating.
Fist pump like you scored a goal in a hockey game. Play air guitar etc. Can you think of any more that are connected to positive empowering internal states?
When I was in music school there were good musicians who had bad stage fright presenting as a nervous shaky kind of feeling in the body and a racing mind. This energy can also be reframed and experienced as excitement.
This is an internal state that is trying to keep us safe from failure, if we don’t shake it off it can ensure we fail or at least make it difficult to be good at the presentation.
We were advised to get that static energy out by doing something active for a few minutes, jumping jacks or push-ups jogging on the spot. Anything like that can get that nervous energy feeling out of your body and put you in a different state of mind.
If you are in your own home and you’re not feeling very good, (or somewhere else you don’t feel weird doing this) you can start dancing and it won’t be long before your brain gets a message “oh we’re dancing things must be good! You will notice you can start feeling better. If you are going into a serious meeting with people you don’t know, dancing to get in a better state of mind might not be the best idea of course it’s you who gets to decide!
Exercise 4
Positive Memory Recall
Scientists who study the brain have learned a lot in the recent past.
Neurons that fire together wire together is a way of explaining neural plasticity. Counting good memories more often, helps you to appreciate the good things in life, more on this later in the positive psychology component.
It is commonly said that we give negative experiences five times the value of positive ones. This was likely very helpful through evolution to keep us alive. If we are not in mortal danger there’s a good argument for remembering positive things to give them more weight and help us appreciate our lives.
Close your eyes and allow yourself to remember a time when you felt safe, comfortable, happy, empowered or any other positive feelings. Allow yourself to really be in that moment as much as you can, what are the things you can see around you? What are the things that you can hear? What are the things that you can feel? Notice how this feeling can grow when you allow it.
This is particularly helpful if used to access memories of previous successes related to what you are about to do.
If you are feeling nervous or unsure at all before meeting with a customer or a supervisor or an employee or a family member use the exercise.
Firstly shake off the feeling.
Stand up and kind of shake your arms a little bit.
This helps to break the state of mind because our bodies and our minds are connected.
Remember times when things went well, when you made the sale or strengthened a relationship or got the outcome you desired and tap in to the positive experience.
Adopt empowering posture and movement.
This will help you recognize that you have the resources for the upcoming task and then go be awesome at it!
Exercise 5
Triple Warmer Tapping On The Hand
Tapping on the back of your hand with your pointer and middle finger together, in the spot between the pinky and ring finger above your wrist and below your fingers, see the video.
This is another Acupressure point. This one is used here to call or install positive resources. This uses parts of NLP which stands for Neural Linguistic Programming adding a physical anchor at the end.
It sounds weird and it works!
Stand confidently and tapping this spot while saying powerful positive “I am statements” that will serve you well as you prepare for your next activities.
I am feeling great!
All my resources are online!
I am learning and growing into the person I want to be!
I am confident!
I have a great attitude!
I enjoy life.
I’m getting better all the time!
Then look down at your hands and make a fist or squeeze your thumb and ring finger together (pick whatever feels right to you) to anchor the positive feelings into a physical state and say “awesome”.
This like the other tapping component I showed you comes from Dr Mike Mandel. Again It sounds weird and it works!
This is the last of the two tapping exercises I teach.