The Art of Talking to Yourself - Vironika Tugaleva


“You’ve no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.
What’s the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean.
Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient.
It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these.
So I’ve brought you a mirror.
Look at yourself and remember me.”
~Rumi


I dedicate this book to the truth seekers of the world—those who insist on searching for what is real even when it’s painful, inconvenient, and tiresome. You give me hope.


Table of Contents

Introduction
Self-Awareness Meets the Inner Conversation
Before You Speak
Searching for the “Right” Answers
The Addiction to Quick Fixes and the Static Self
Trusting Yourself
The World’s Foremost Expert on Yourself
Curing the Addiction to Certainty
Conscious Listening
The Voices Within
Lost In Translation
The Characters in Your Inner Drama
A World Beyond Ideas
Looking At Yourself
The Great Balancing Act
The Hero and the Villain
The Names We Call Ourselves
Balance’s Vocabulary
Inner Balance
Conversations That Heal
The Truth Seeker
How You Can Help (The “Marketing Plan”)


Introduction

In my early days of writing this book, a friend asked me what I was writing about. I said something like “self-awareness and the dangers of self-help.” He looked confused.

“In the past few years,” I explained, “I’ve met a shocking number of people who blindly trust self-help experts and their advice. They don’t think they know any better. I’m hoping this book can be different. Instead of playing guru and giving advice, I want to encourage people to be self-aware and trust themselves.”

“So…” he paused, “you’re writing …a self-help book …about …how people shouldn’t trust self-help books?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “I suppose I am.”

Another friend suggested that this book’s opening line should say, “I am an expert in knowing experts aren’t experts.” One of my beta readers joked that I am “a bit like a turkey voting for Thanksgiving.” As this book spreads, I am sure it will seem strange to many people. I admit that it is strange, ironic, and maybe even hypocritical, but not impossible and certainly not useless.

I do have a not-so-secret hope that one day this book will be part of a new “Self-Discovery” section. These books would point you toward the helping hand that you’re already extending to yourself (instead of giving you miracle tactics under studied or blessed authority). At the time of my writing this, only the “Self-Help” section exists. But I do not mean to blame my hypocrisy on the developed world’s book classification system. If anyone is to blame (or thank, I suppose, depending on your perspective), it is me. I just couldn’t keep my hand out of the cookie jar.

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