Attending to anything in the present tends to withdraw our attention from an internal voice that talks about the past or future, or about present events in some other place. Learning how to redirect our attention in this way can free us from being helpless prisoners of our thoughts. This undoubtedly accounts for the popularity — and immense variety — of programs that advocate learning how to "be in the here and now," some of which are thousands of years old.

The major difficulty with most meditative methods is that they typically take years of practice, and many people find them only partly effective. Another difficulty is that the idea of "being in the present moment" has sometimes become a universal prescription, applied to all self–talk, whether negative or positive. A voice that remembers a horrible past can also remind you of treasured memories and satisfying successes; a voice that predicts future failure and misery can also encourage you by forecasting pleasure and happiness. If you were always in the present moment, you would lose an extremely valuable source of support and optimism that can carry you through rough times.

Internal voices can be very destructive and disorganizing, or they can be very useful and supportive — and everything in between. This book will help you become aware of how you talk to yourself, and how you can change that in order to feel differently. We will be exploring a number of ways that you can transform your negative self–talk into something positive and useful.

For simplicity and ease of understanding, each chapter will be devoted to one or two methods for doing this, beginning with some very simple nonverbal ways that can be surprisingly rapid and effective. We will be exploring a number of ways to alter the voices themselves, both the words that they say and how they say those words, so that they become resourceful allies, instead of difficult obstacles.