Why Can't I Talk The Way I Do in My Mind

and so the first thing to understand is that like as long as that process can be improved then you will be a better communicator okay so to start with let's understand this

okay so why can't i talk like the way i do in my mind this is such a great question whenever i'm in my head rehearsing speeches or conversations i talk so

eloquently and articulated but when it's time to speak to when it's time to come to speak with my mouth i end up stumbling stuttering or

forgetting what i'm saying and about to say it happens to me a lot to the point where i don't want to speak sometimes and i wish i can talk like that attractive chad inside my head i do have anxiety and fear of judgment

along with adhd in case that affects it why does this happen and how can we train to overcome this does it have a term what a great question so a lot of times

we think thoughts in our head and the thoughts in our head are so pure so clean they make such perfect sense and then our beautiful mind is like hey let us share this brilliance with the world

and then something happens somewhere between the brilliance in your mind and the words that come out of your mouth something gets super garbled and it comes out like a hot mess and then people are super confused

because they're like why is this happening i understood it it made so much sense in my head i understood it so well in my head like what happened okay so

we're gonna talk a little bit about um you know why this happens so to start off with we have

thoughts that are kind of perfect in our head right so let's start with this like what part of our brain dictates speech right so we have like our left hemisphere is very speech

oriented we have something that i'm just going to go ahead and call the linguistic cortex so we have a part of our brain that like chooses words and formulates like how to say things but the interesting thing is that

thoughts are not restricted to the linguistic cortex right so for example we have the default mode network which is the part of our mind that gives us the capacity to self-reflect and is hyperactive when

we're depressed so when we're beating ourselves up in depression oh i'm i'm i'm stupid i'm dumb i'm this people don't like me people would be better off without me the everyone would have more fun at the party if i wasn't there like

all these kinds of thoughts those are not coming from the linguistic cortex right those are coming from your default mode network we have a limbic system we have frontal lobes we have all these different cortices that will manage things like

risk assessment and anxiety and mathematics we have all these different parts of our brain that think we also have empathic circuits of the brain right which are like help us

understand other people none of those things are the linguistic cortex so the first thing to understand is that when we have thoughts they exist in all these different parts of our brain

and when we speak all that crap has to get channeled through the linguistic cortex and by channeling it through the linguistic cortex we talk

and so the first thing to understand is that like as long as that process can be improved then you will be a better communicator okay so to start with

let's understand this so why can't the thoughts in my head translate to the words that come out of my mouth and the short answer is because communication

is a skill so you know there are all kinds of other things i can do in my head besides think right so i was like in the shower this morning

and i was you know washing my hair and whatnot and washing my face and i imagined doing a ninja kick i don't even know what that is right so i'm just making this up but like i imagine like jumping over the fence and like doing

all this parkour and it would be so cool if i could like jump and like i'm gonna be like star wars kid and darth maul and all this good stuff right and i can imagine those things but

why can't my body do those things i can imagine it and so why do we assume that communication is different why do we assume that just because we can think

one thing i can think in ninja moves or matrix martial arts sequences but that doesn't mean my body can do them why do we assume for a moment that just because i can think articulately that speaking

articulately should come automatically right so it comes down to the fact that communication is a skill so what are the components of communication so the first that we kind

of talked about is the linguistic cortex so if you want to be an effective speaker you have to like work on the neurons that translate

thoughts into words and we know that people do this right so like we know for example like if you're an author or let's say like you do creative

writing so i'm just gonna use writing as an example where you can have a scene in your head you can even have the words in your head he walked into the room and he was you know

covered in sweat like you can like think that and then you write it out and it's like that doesn't convey what i want right so like getting stuff through the

linguistic cortex takes practice so then people may wonder a little bit about um you know so what are some of the ways in which you can do this so the first thing that you

can do is you can write stuff out i don't know if you guys just noticed but what did i just look at did y'all notice what was i looking at

i did this i was like what was i looking at what do y'all think right so i've written things out and so as i write things out it clarifies things in my mind and

facilitates the process of getting the thoughts in my head out the linguistic cortex and like through my mouth so it's interesting right so you can write things out so i've also i sort of

also recently discovered or like not recently but somewhat you know maybe a year or two ago the part of the reason i'm successful on stream is that i spent about 10 years like trying to write a

book and it was crap so like the book sucked but what happened during those 10 years is i clarified a lot of my ideas so when you write stuff out you know you can go through the process of clarifying

ideas and so the clarification of ideas can be done through writing stuff out but i also do this in terms of like verbal communication without writing things out so let's say i've got a patient with

narcissistic parents and the holidays are coming up so when they come into my office and they're saying i'm anxious about the holidays i don't want to see my parents i know they're going to fight about this or they don't have to be narcissistic they can be like

irregular people but they're just going to ask me when am i going to get married and like i don't want to have that conversation and so there's a lot of stuff that they can tell me in their office

right they can say to me like hey like i i want to say this and i want to say this and i want to say this but when it comes to actually talking to them it's hard so what do we do we role play right we're like okay so like tell me what you would want to say

and then i'll help them with their phrasing and we'll kind of like coach them through like okay why don't you say this or you could say this i've had conversations like this with like patients of mine who want to talk to their boss about

wanting more time off or like you know breaking the news to their boss that they're pregnant because they're terrified of you know how it's going to affect their promotion and things like that forget the fact that it's illegal but you know no one cares about that

so there's all kinds of like practice you can literally do with your linguistic cortex so this can be things like role-playing conversations and you can like role-play it in your head if you want to but i think um

if you've got someone that you can talk things through with right so we also have these phrases like sounding board you can you can just practice so that's like the first thing if you want to be an effective communicator you

can practice the second reason this is kind of big that communication everything makes perfect sense in your head and doesn't translate

is because of assumptions so when you are thinking in your head you have a bunch of assumptions but you perfectly understand what your

assumptions are because they're your assumptions so there's no gap between like you know if i'm trying to say one two three four

but i don't realize that my mind is automatically filling in these gaps right so then oh this is like perfect it's a complete line fantastic but when i start talking it comes out

jarbled and what's missing it's the assumptions so when you communicate it doesn't come out the right way or people don't understand it the right way so the other

thing to think a little bit about is if we're saying how do i communicate effectively part of that effective communication involves the other person right so how do you deal with assumptions so this is where it's kind of

interesting but this is where the empathic circuits of your brain come in so even authors do this right because like and when an author is writing something

they may know more of the story than they want the reader to know but what they literally have to do is put themselves in the shoes of the reader and look at things from the reader's perspective

what are the things that are missing from this story what do i need to explain what are the things that i want to purposely keep from the story because every author who has sat down to write a best-selling novel that had a plot to us

at the end they know the plot twist from moment one but it's their ability to empathize with the reader that allows them to put in the plot twist because for them it's not a plot twist it's all figured out like they know everything right at the

beginning right so in a similar way if we want to communicate with someone else what we need to understand is what are our own assumptions and how can we have our audience

understand those assumptions and oftentimes what's missing between our head and the perfection of our head and what is what we give to the rest of the world what's missing is this stuff right

it's the in between stuff so as we learn how to be more empathic and we think a little bit about our audience we will start to be better at communicating so i know this sounds kind

of weird but like i'm a psychiatrist right so like what is my job what have i trained myself to do what i've trained myself to do is put myself into someone else's shoes okay what's

going on in this person's head it's not about who's right and who's wrong if i tell this person hey your thinking is wrong gg this is what you should do just get up every day like i wouldn't be

successful at all right so being a successful psychiatrist being a successful therapist being a good friend being a good parent being a good kid is about acknowledging your own

assumptions and meeting people where they're at right so if i want to like if i want to be an effective communicator and i want to convey you know this line i have to start by

understanding okay like where is my audience what do they have and what do they not have oh that's kind of interesting so they already have this part so actually what i need to to say is this part

which is very different from what i was envisioning because in my original vision i only needed this this this and this and so if you want to effectively

communicate instead of like operating from your own mind and this is how we get all these kinds of things like why can't you understand i don't know how do i get my kids to realize how do i get my

parents to realize that is you pulling them towards this instead of operating from here because when you start communicating this way you're like okay so they already get this part so i'm going to provide this

and i'm going to provide this and then we'll be golden so this is how you be an effective communicator so if you want your thoughts to translate in a way that lands well

with other people it involves your empathic circuits of the brain okay so in short we've got a couple of things to think

about so if your problem is why can't i talk the way i do in my mind the first thing that you've got to understand is that being able to convey the thoughts out of

your head is a skill so it can be practice like i can imagine all i can imagine a drawing but i can't make a drawing i can imagine doing gymnastics but i can't do

gymnastics there are all kinds of things i can imagine in my mind and your thoughts like you know communicating is no different and so this is a skill and what are the components of the skill okay just to

kind of summarize number one is training the linguistic cortex right so everything's got to come through the linguistic cortex whether you write or you speak

so this can involve things like writing things out right this can involve role playing even rehearsal right so these are examples of essentially practice they're practicing

a skill the second thing is it comes down to assumptions so the biggest gaps in our thinking are assumptions so like we just don't realize what other people are missing and if we want to be

effective communicators we need to engage our empathic circuitry understand what does someone else understand we need to start there because our communication is going to

depend on their understanding not our understanding right to bridge the gap between where they are and where you are i'm trying to drag people over here why don't you understand why don't you understand why can't you understand why

can't you understand my boss doesn't understand my girlfriend doesn't understand my boyfriend doesn't understand my dog doesn't understand instead we need to go where they are right and then we're going to go here and then we're going to go here and then

we're going to go here and then we're going to go here and then we're going to go here then we're going to go here then we're going to go here this is how coaching works so we train our coaches to meet their clients where

they're at so a client comes in and says i need to you know i need to get a job and so the coach is like okay cool so that's your goal for coaching right they're like yeah my goal is to get a job

and then over time like they may realize that like okay so that's what the client wants it's the fantasy that the client wants but they have so much crap on their plate they're not ready for a job yet every time they try to work on a resume

they deal with so much emotional resistance and shame they're like oh my god i'm so like they try to put together that i have nothing to put on my resume and then they quit and they like go distract themselves for a week

and so it's like the first thing coach has to do is like work on their shame but like if you tell the client hey you need to like process your shame before you get a job they're like no i need a job i need a job like that's my goal so you

have to like lead them there like one step at a time right so you have to start like you got to meet them where they're at if that makes sense okay so the last thing

that you can do is calm the mind okay so this is where if we look at clinical stuff so for example like let's look at mania

so when someone has bipolar disorder and they become manic there's an alteration to the thought process and there's an increase of rapidity of

speech as a result manic people make no sense if you guys have ever like talked to a manic person you kind of know what i'm

talking about but like their thoughts are super super rapid and they speak very very very rapidly and they make no sense i know everyone is joking about xqc but

xqc is not a good example of this xqc is actually very very effective at communicating xqc can summarize things very very easily

right like he'll drop serious like knowledge bombs seriously i'm not kidding that's why if he was really nonsensical and unable to communicate he would not

succeed on twitch you guys get that so i know everyone memes about that he's definitely very vata for sure and his thoughts kind of jump around all over the place so so do i for that matter

so in mania what we see is that you know speeding up the thought process and the rapidity of speech correlates with making no sense to the other people so what we can kind of infer is that calming down yourself will probably lead

to better communication so if i'm planning on giving a speech in front of my class and i do some kind of breathing exercises sometimes even as a psychiatrist i'll prescribe something like propranolol which is an adrenergic

blocker so reduces the effects of the sympathetic nervous system and reduces the effects of adrenaline and helps people give a public speech what are we doing propranolol is literally a drug

that slows down the speed of your mind the speed of your nervous system and as a result people are able to communicate more effectively so calm the mind and slow things down is

the last thing so you can do breathing exercises etc etc so if you want to be able to communicate effectively and you want the stuff in here to come out of your mouth in a way that other people can understand do these

three things practice with your linguistic cortex focus on assumptions and think about their point of view so that you can structure your communication to be more

effective and calm down the mind and slow down a little bit questions can you only do third sure you don't have to do all three

but those are the three different mechanisms that in my experience are at play like there are probably many more generally speaking when i face a problem

i find that rather than going all in on one solution that's sort of recognizing that problems are multifactorial right so like the inability to speak coherently

isn't it's not like there's a coherent speech circuit in your brain i mean this sort of is the linguistic cortex but there's all kinds of other things going on right because your brain is inside your body if your body is flooded with adrenaline that's going to affect your

neurochemistry so it's not just as simple as the linguistic cortex speech in the translation of thought is a complex phenomenon in the brain and therefore

we it has a complex solution do you think it's possible for people to rationalize their thoughts uh they can't say through expression arts music math problems sports freeform

games absolutely there's overwhelming evidence that that is the case so for example if you look at things like art therapy not only can you like rationalize your thoughts you can even

heal the mind through some of these things so we assume that therapy involves one human being talking to another human being but there are all kinds of other things that you can do

through music through art that will like emotionally process stuff so there's strong strong evidence of that yeah can you do the same type of practicing for casual conversations as

well absolutely right so like casual conversation is something you can practice like just about anything in life can be practiced you