Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: Does language shape our thinking, or does thinking shape our language — or is it both, running in circles rather than a straight line? Dr. Yasemin Yazan and Sabine dig into self-talk and affirmations, the emotional charge behind gendered language, NLP techniques for changing how a mental image or voice affects you, and why building small daily routines is what actually turns reflection into a trainable habit.
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
Good morning, everyone. Today we’re talking about thinking and communication, and above all, within communication, we want to focus specifically on the aspect of language. So, what influence do language and communication have on our thinking, and vice versa — that’s the question we want to explore today. This also ties into something that came up quite intensely in one of our recent rooms, that we should really focus on this aspect of language. So I’m really looking forward to looking at this together with you today, working our way through it and seeing what insights we can generate together from this room. With that, you’re all very warmly invited to join, as every morning, and simply share your first thoughts on today’s room topic, so we can look together at what emerges from it.
Just a quick reminder that we record the room for the entire duration, meaning anyone who joins automatically agrees that the whole thing will be recorded and published. And we have three small room rules: a profile photo where you’re recognizable, your last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. And if you don’t want that for whatever reason, you can of course also use the chat to contribute a thought or two. However, the prerequisite for us to open the reflection space is that at least one person joins, so we can actually turn the room into what it’s meant to be — a reflection space. That only works through shared exchange. So, thinking and communication as today’s room topic — what influence do language and communication have on our thinking, and vice versa? Today we especially want to focus on language. With that, I’ll mute myself for now and see who’d like to join first this morning.
So, how’s everyone doing? This silence reminds me of a time — I don’t know if some of you remember, back when Clubhouse first launched, there were these “silent rooms” where people would go in, and the goal wasn’t to talk to each other at all — everyone would just mute themselves and stay in the room. Over time that became so common that Clubhouse actually cracked down on it, saying these rooms are meant for people to talk and exchange with each other. Then there were warnings and so on, and it stopped happening as much. And I think we should be a bit careful here too, so Clubhouse doesn’t get the feeling that people only join our rooms to stay silent, so to speak. So, I’ll repeat the topic again — thinking and communication, what influence do language and communication have on our thinking and vice versa. That’s the topic we want to explore today, at least in theory, provided someone joins and the reflection space actually opens up. Otherwise I’ll wait just a moment longer, and if nobody joins, I’ll close the room again.
Just a quick reminder for anyone who joined later — we record the room for the entire time, and anyone who joins automatically agrees that the whole thing gets recorded and published. We have three small room rules: a profile photo where you’re recognizable, your first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio, and otherwise you can of course also contribute via chat. However, so we can actually shape the room together today, it’s important that at least one person joins. So I’ll mute myself again briefly and see who’d like to join.
Hello, good morning, dear Sabine. Can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you. I just switched rooms for a moment, because in my other room this wasn’t happening, but I didn’t want this room to fall victim to that. My first thought on the topic was actually that thinking happens somewhere on the inside, while communication goes outward. So if I have some great thoughts in here and keep developing them further, but I want to reach the outside world somehow, then I have to communicate. And I can communicate in so many ways — I can look at someone intelligently or not so intelligently, and that already starts communication. I can make wild arm movements, I can simply speak, I can simply move — those are all forms of communication. That was my first idea on this.
Wonderful, thank you so much. So we have gestures, facial expressions, language, and so on, that we can bring in here in the context of communication. I find this inside-outside aspect exciting. Though, if we think back to what we said earlier — that we also speak with ourselves in the form of thoughts, so to speak, there’s also this inner dialogue — then we also have communication with ourselves internally, which we’re maybe often not even that aware of, something we rarely think about, but which is also a form of communication. And overall, we’ve already established before, drawing on Watzlawick, that we essentially cannot not communicate. So that fits well with what you said about gestures, facial expressions, and so on — not just the language we use, but that quite a lot falls under this, and it’s actually not possible not to communicate, and all of that has an influence too.
And today it’s about looking at this again — if we can’t not communicate, and that also applies, for example, to the inner dialogue in the form of thoughts, which doesn’t necessarily have to be spoken out loud — what influence does language, for example, have on our thinking in that context? Not just in interaction with others, but also with ourselves, in our thinking. Sabine, what do you think about that?
Now I’ve gone and forgotten the inner dialogue myself! You’re completely right, Yasemin, and I think that’s almost one of the most important things — and we can also connect this to yesterday’s author breakfast — that I speak nicely to myself, that I tell myself, you’re a hero and you’ll make it, that I look in the mirror in the morning and say, if you set your mind to something, you’ll manage it too. So that you don’t go too negative with yourself, turning your positive thoughts right back into the opposite.
Yes, absolutely. And here we get right to this aspect of affirmations — there are whole schools of thought, you could say, on this, regarding what language actually does, and what forms of affirmations exist in self-talk, for example, encouraging yourself, maybe boosting your self-worth, or similar. And I also remember, in one of our rooms we talked about how, with affirmations too, it’s important — our brain can’t distinguish between what lies in the future or the past. But the affirmation, or what I tell myself, can ultimately only take effect if I personally believe in it to some degree. Just telling myself something nice that I don’t actually stand behind doesn’t have much of an effect in that sense.
And these are of course aspects to consider too. So the question arises, what actually comes first? Because if I first have to believe in it for it to work, or if I first have to put myself into certain situations, emotionally too, so to speak — how do I even manage that, or can I even achieve that, in air quotes, when I might want to use sentences that I don’t really stand behind? And how do I deal with that then? That might be interesting to look at too. Up to, well, we’ve already opened up various aspects in different rooms — the topic of communication keeps coming back. And aspects like this play a role here too, which we can pick up on again — what actually comes first? We’ve had this in other rooms too. For example, I remember we touched on this with the gender-language topic. There are, for instance, a lot of people who are in favor of us acting differently in language, using gender-inclusive forms and not just male-female, but including other forms too, because that’s meant to break something open, and also bring about a change, maybe even a societal change. That’s the idea behind it.
And we’ve talked about how the interesting thing is, there are definitely languages where gendering doesn’t happen at all, and discrimination and such still occur, meaning it’s apparently not just language that seems to have such a big impact. And so, to build that bridge again, how does language actually influence thinking? Does it have an influence, and to what extent, really? How is it for us? Maybe we have concrete examples we can think about together in exchange — what has the language, or the inner dialogue I’ve had with myself, actually brought about? Or what I’ve said to someone else externally, in interaction — what does that actually bring about? Sabine, would you like to add to that?
I just pictured this image in my mind, that these are all like rings reaching into each other, I think. You’ll never just think first, then have an inner dialogue, and then communicate outward. I think this will always interlock. And from that angle, when I communicate outward, I’ll probably also have an inner dialogue every now and then in between, and keep developing my thinking further. And one conditions the other. And what you just said about gendering — that also depends on who I’m communicating with, where they stand on it. If I’m communicating with people who don’t care about the gendering topic at all, then it probably doesn’t matter how I phrase things either. But if I think of my children, for whom it’s no longer indifferent, then I sometimes have to think about how I choose my words, so that I don’t, how should I put it, so that the whole thing doesn’t get thrown back at me and they say, mom, you can’t say it like that. And I think that of course also depends a lot on cultures. If it’s not seen that way in other countries at all — I think we’ve gotten a bit ahead of the curve here in that sense, and sometimes view it very sensitively. And that of course shapes a different language on our part too, or at least a more cautious language. We’ve had this in these rooms before too, that some people have said, but I still want to be able to say what I want to say, and not have to think about every single word, wondering, am I still allowed to say that, or do I have to phrase it differently?
Yes, absolutely understandable. And that’s exactly the aspect that possibly comes up in many places. It’s not just about language per se — you just mentioned this with your children too, this “depending on who I’m interacting with and which context” — we could bring in situational awareness here too, that we talked about before, that this can already have an influence on my consciously deciding, for example, which language I use, so that in the interaction it doesn’t become, well, a disruptive factor for the other person, which then already influences how the interaction unfolds. That means we might even end up on a track we didn’t actually want to go down in the conversation, that there are distractions, disruptions in the interaction, so to speak.
And I find that really exciting, because just as that can happen with the person we’re talking to — and let’s stick with the gender-language topic for a moment — take someone for whom this matters a lot on one side, and I don’t use gender-inclusive language, or vice versa, I find it rather unimportant, and the other person is constantly gendering everything. That clearly does something to us and can, depending on our stance or attitude, already affect our thinking in that moment. So I know, for example, that there are definitely people who, in rooms on Clubhouse where gendering happens extremely intensively, don’t stay in the room, but leave, because they find it hard to just listen to that. Not because they reject it per se or anything, but because they find it hard to stay engaged. And conversely, surely just as much, there are people who leave rooms because gendering doesn’t happen there. So you can see that this quite massively, and possibly ultimately, influences our thinking, simply because we have a certain stance on it, and what that does to us, so to speak — just the language that’s chosen. And if we transfer this now, not just to gendering, but to so many terms that are used or not used, the way people speak, and so on, that means — and this is stored as an experience within us in some way — that this leads us to interpretations, to evaluations, and accordingly we arrive at decisions too. So it must ultimately have an influence on our thinking to some extent. Sabine, what do you think?
Yes, that’s what I already tried to hint at — that when communication on the outside goes quite differently than you thought it would, that probably goes back to the inner dialogue and to thinking, and then the direction maybe shifts into something completely different than what you had originally planned. Then, even though you actually had a goal in mind, you veer off in a completely different direction and say, well, maybe that wasn’t it after all, or I think… and there you’re back to the point that this can of course also influence your goal, and that of course also depends on the environment. If I’m in an environment where I can’t achieve the goal at all, then I might veer off or look for a different environment.
Yes, absolutely. And a second level we could maybe also open up in this context — we have different forms, so to speak, of how we can speak or interact with each other in communication. One is, you remember, for example, the Schulz von Thun model with the four sides of a message, and then also the four ears with which I receive it. And there’s the purely factual level, so to speak — meaning, if what’s spoken is picked up on the purely factual level, as objectively as possible, and so on. And then there are moments — and we’ve talked about this too — imagine a meeting, where something is being discussed on the factual level. But if you verbalize that, it quickly becomes clear that while something is being argued on the factual level, and maybe there’s some kind of discussion or argument, on closer inspection it becomes clear that it’s actually something on the relationship level that isn’t right, or something similar. And that has a significant influence too. That means, in communication or interaction, and in the way we use language, both as inner dialogue and externally, this can ultimately have an influence on our thinking.
Because the moment I become aware of certain things and address them linguistically, not just on the factual level for the obvious purpose of communication, but uncovering aspects or similar — we’re quickly back in thinking processes again, because that can set off an initial spark, where we actually go beyond the content and, on a meta-level, look at the “how,” what’s actually happening right now, and so on, on a different level, thereby triggering thinking accordingly and even possibly steering it in certain directions. Sabine, what do you think?
I completely agree, only this can happen positively and negatively. And I think we’re often not even that aware of everything that’s happening there — that we just veer off somewhere else because we say, well, you’re on the wrong track. You maybe don’t go back and say, hello, who are you actually talking to right now? Is what they’re telling you, is it the right person saying it? Are they even in the right environment, or…? Instead, you sometimes bury your head in the sand and say, well, that’s just how it is. And that’s wrong for you. You’d actually have to deliberately do this feedback loop, which maybe you don’t do.
Yes, absolutely. And we’re quite quickly back at the aspect of evaluation. That means, consciously distinguishing here between, is this just an impulse, an impulsive reaction, the emotions that then lead to an evaluation for me or for the person I’m talking to? Or do I show the corresponding willingness, I’ll call it that, to go into conscious steering — and here we’re back at conscious and unconscious, which we’ve touched on in many rooms too, in connection with thinking. That means, do I go into self-efficacy here and try, for example, with various techniques — we’ve talked about this with creativity techniques too — that there’s definitely the possibility to try, with different methods or different approaches, to differentiate these from each other, to decouple them as much as possible, saying, okay, let’s first gather ideas and not go straight into evaluation. That’s the approach with many creativity techniques, for example, and only in a second step do we go into evaluation and consider whether it makes sense for us or not.
And you can basically do the exact same thing, if you steer it consciously or create this awareness and direct your focus accordingly, in communication too, in the language used, and so on — deliberately applying it so that thinking processes can unfold differently, different perspectives can be adopted, and a different language can be used. And speaking of language and thinking, something comes to mind — in NLP there are definitely techniques or methods used. I don’t know who was at the author breakfast with Dr. Susanne Lapp — she did an exercise with us where we visualized a person in our mind’s eye. And then she described how some people see this above eye level, so to speak, or below, to the right, to the left, and that this can vary. And sometimes it’s the case that this image you have of a person isn’t just an image, but that this person is also saying something to you. And there are definitely aids you can use here, saying, okay, try making the voice louder or quieter, or change what you hear so it sounds like a Mickey Mouse voice or something else, a deeper voice, and so on, and see how that changes things for you, how you experience it.
And there are thinking processes behind this too — something actually changes. You can definitely try this out. It’s really fascinating that, say, an image or a person saying something threatening to you, if you change it that way, louder, quieter, and so on, that the experience behind it changes too. And that ultimately connects to these thinking processes as well. So, if I deliberately use language and want to become self-efficacious, I can definitely do exercises to try this out — what effect does this actually have on me, if I say this or that in my inner dialogue, emotionally too, on my mood — what’s the actual effect if I speak lovingly to myself, so to speak, versus saying, are you being an idiot again today? Sabine, what do you think?
I understood the last example. I was at the author breakfast too, and I asked myself a bit whether this works for everyone in every situation. Don’t you already need a lot of practice, or a certain receptiveness for it, to be able to do that? I’d find that interesting if you could tell me more about that.
Well, in principle it actually works for everyone. The prerequisite of course is that the person actually wants to participate. And it’s just not necessarily suited to every situation, because, well, to first get into this calm state and imagine it mentally or so, I think it’s not the case that, without much practice, you could theoretically do it in a meeting, but then you’d of course need a certain amount of practice in that situation, where other people are talking and so on, to even get into that state at all. So that wouldn’t be the preferred method or technique to use in that situation, actually in an interaction situation with others. But if you do it as a practice sequence on your own, trying it out, or if it’s used in coaching, it’s usually the case that everyone can actually get something out of it. I’ve personally never had that in coaching. But you could of course consider that someone who goes into coaching already has a certain willingness to engage with something like that, whether that alone is factor enough, so to speak. But that’s of course a really essential prerequisite, I think — that someone actually wants to try one thing or another. I think in principle it can work for everyone, but of course I need a certain openness to engage with such exercises and techniques. And if I don’t want to, then of course it won’t work for me either. Sabine, I don’t know if that helps as an answer — we can’t hear you right now, in case you were speaking.
Sorry, you have to actually press the button. Yes, that helps me. Above all, for me this is also a certain process — this thinking, inner dialogue, and then, I’ll call it, the outward conversation — that it’s always a reflecting on these processes with each other. And that you probably need to consciously adopt this a bit more, and not just stay on the outside, but go back inward again every now and then. And also sometimes reflect on who you’re talking to, in what situation. How seriously do I need to take this for myself? Or do I just need to say, okay, all good, and go back into my own world, and it was nice to meet that person, but I don’t need to take on any more of that. That’s probably also in areas where you’re talking to people who have a completely different opinion than you do. Then of course you can discuss, you can have an argument, but in many areas you just don’t come to agreement. And if you picture an example like that, and think about the three things — where do you get stuck? Or is the goal to make something different out of it? I’m stuck a bit in that process right now.
That’s a really exciting aspect, because emotions in particular play a really, really big role here. We know this from many interactions, and of course this applies internally just as much as externally, that mood plays a huge role in this context — just a note, your mic is still on, Sabine, just so you know. And you certainly know this, we all know this, situations where emotions come through, where there might be a heated argument or something — there, thinking, so to speak, meaning conscious thinking and reflecting, is somewhat switched off in that situation. And then it can definitely make sense to end the conversation for now and postpone it to a later point. And the moment it’s picked back up calmly, once the emotions have settled, and language is then used quite deliberately in the interaction, also with the goal of wanting to understand the other person, listening, and so on — that doesn’t mean both people will necessarily agree on opinions in the end or anything. You can definitely still have very different views, even at the end of such a conversation. But the way you communicate changes because of this, and through that, just this willingness alone, this leaving emotions outside, definitely affects the thinking that runs in parallel too, which I can indeed observe on the meta-level. Sabine, what do you think?
Does thinking also feel like it carries more appreciation over at the same time?
I don’t know if it’s always appreciation. You said earlier yourself that it can be both positive and negative. That means, here too with thinking, it has a lot to do with what my attitude is toward the whole thing, how I stand on it. It might first lead to an overall more appreciative or respectful interaction, meaning at least that people don’t attack each other, so to speak. And I mean that both externally and internally — we can also be quite disrespectful toward ourselves, in how we speak to ourselves and how we think about ourselves. And I think that actually falls short quite often — that we’re trained or sensitized very strongly to pay attention to this externally, but especially regarding what language I use when speaking to myself, what thoughts I have when I look in the mirror, to pick that up from yesterday again — we’re maybe far too little sensitized to that. But that ultimately has a huge influence too. We talked yesterday about something like self-worth. That means the way I speak to myself, how I think about myself, ultimately has effects on how I see myself, who I am, and what I then, conversely, project outward again, how I come across, and so on, because that radiates from the inside out and of course also has an effect on communication and interaction with other people. Sabine?
I think I need to sit with this a bit more today, and every now and then this — I’m picturing this image right now of the three rings going into each other, and permanently exchanging contact back and forth, information, emotions going back and forth, and I think I’ve done that quite unconsciously so far.
Yes, thank you so much for being so open and honest with yourself, so to speak, and communicating that too. I think we’re all allowed, no matter how much we’ve already done this, to keep directing our attention to it again and again, and look a bit into it, consciously look at what’s actually happening, and go a bit into self-observation. And internally we can do this through self-observation, externally we can also observe. We’ve said that this meta-level is definitely also very useful in interactions and so on, to, for example, observe in the situation, analyze, reflect — what’s actually happening here right now? Because only in that moment can new thinking processes be triggered again, through which we’ll probably arrive at some insights. So, deliberately setting an initial spark. And I find what you said about these circular movements or wave-like movements really important too.
We’ve said in many places already that there isn’t — well, we tend to think in linear processes. And that just helps us take out the complexity. That means we think about what comes first, what comes after, and so on, process-like. But ultimately, and this is also proven from neuroscience, these are all circular processes happening there, all intertwined with each other. And it’s not like it’s in one area — we had this with learning too, with memory stores and so on, that it doesn’t go from one memory store to the next and then end, but that there’s an interrelationship in both directions, in various directions. And we can think of it the same way here. That means it’s neither just language first and then thinking comes, but that there are interrelationships, and sometimes it happens quite fast. And that’s why it makes sense to direct awareness to it, to observe what’s actually happening here. And what can I then do with what I observe and perceive? Sabine, would you like to add to that?
I’m wondering right now, is this also a kind of learning success if I keep forcing myself, so to speak, to do this, so that it becomes more internalized and I do it permanently, directly from within? I meant these three processes in sequence.
Yes, I would personally definitely underline that with a yes, because being able to adopt this meta-level, going into observation and self-observation, reflecting, deriving certain things from it — these are conscious processes I’m carrying out, which aren’t just handed to me at birth or anything, but here it’s ultimately really about self-steering and self-efficacy, through the fact that I even think about it in the first place. And for that I need, on one hand, the awareness that something is happening that I can observe, all the way to, well, what do I do with the observations generated from that, do I derive insights, and how do I then translate that back into action, for example? And the better I’m practiced, so to speak, at being able to switch perspectives, even in the moment, the situation — at first this might not be so easy, I might need calm, or a quiet space, where I try to observe certain things within myself. Over time, with more training, more practice, I can definitely switch to the meta-level even in a full conference room, in the situation, and look at what’s happening right now, whenever I have the feeling, or get the impulse, that there’s some kind of disruptive factor here right now. Or learning to recognize what the actual indicators are. We have this, for example, in meeting situations — you already have a sense for it, something’s not right here, or we’re not making progress right now. But how often does that actually get verbalized? And only through observation, through perceiving the impulse and then communicating it, do I even open up the possibility of opening that door, to talk about it together and look at it together, and change something about the situation. What actually changes, we often don’t know. But we’ve at least set an initial spark, so that things can now take a certain direction. And that’s why I would clearly count that as a certain learning success at this point. Sabine, would you like to add to that?
Yes, I’d like to add one more thing. Can I turn this into a kind of routine? I’m picturing it right now like throwing a stone into water, and that sets the process in motion. And if I maybe pull myself together every now and then and say, hello, I’m in the middle of the process, that maybe this reflection inward happens more often, and the three processes come one after another.
Yes, that’s a beautiful question, or a beautiful impulse. Sure, can I do that in the moment when I…? And here we’re at, why do we do things like gratitude journals or thankfulness journals or similar? That means you can definitely develop routines here, where exactly these aspects get transferred into a kind of automatism, in quotation marks — not the content of what we think, but at least through routines that help us keep making this switch, so to speak. On one hand this can be things like gratitude journals, or it can be something like — we’ve touched on this before — this “date with yourself,” where you decide for yourself at what interval, but where you also take time to withdraw, for example. That can also be a routine. If I say, this happens once or twice a week, or every day, or this routine we’ve developed here in Deep Talk Club, being here every morning at 8 and thinking about various topics, that’s a routine too. And all these routines connected to this, where it’s about thinking about certain things, turning inward, coming down a bit, reflecting on things — these are all routines I can build, to deliberately get into a practice like this. The better I get at this over time, once it’s developed as a routine, the easier it naturally becomes for me in everyday life, in all sorts of situations, whether internally or externally, to call up certain patterns I’ve learned in my approach to thinking, for example. Sabine, does that make sense to you too?
Yes, absolutely. No, I need to switch rooms again for a moment — I just went into the other room today so I could talk to you in peace, but I was just over there, there’s just too much going on.
I completely agree with you, and that’s the point I just experienced again too — then my son comes along, wants to talk to me, and I’m already out of the topic. And I think that’s something people really lack — this three-part process, I have to do it very consciously and with a lot of concentration, and I think often people don’t have that concentration.
That’s a fantastic point you’re raising, namely distraction. And regardless of how trained we are — I know this too, by the way, and I’d claim I’m quite well-trained in calling up these processes and so on. But of course we have our sensory channels. That means the moment something pops up that’s surprising, someone comes in, and even if they don’t say anything, they do something, our focus of course goes there. That means we’re distracted for a brief moment. Or it could be an email program in the background, or a WhatsApp message that reaches us, or whatever. That means we’re constantly dealing with distractions too, and it’s also a question of how I can deliberately block out distractions, how I can also prevent them sometimes. And especially in the digital world we move in, this is often a topic for many people. Do I really leave notifications on? Do I really want to be notified all the time, or do I turn off my email account every now and then, so I don’t constantly notice that a message has arrived?
And this requires, again in communication, on one hand this awareness, to then consciously make decisions for myself again, against the backdrop of the reflection and thinking process I’ve undertaken, to generate insights and then translate them into action, and then communicate that accordingly again. We’ve seen this in many places. If we take the example, just think of the Covid period — many people worked from home then. What a huge adjustment that was for many, because at work you might have had an office, closed rooms, it was clear where your workspace was. And now, every time you wanted to hold a meeting, someone would burst through the door, or knock on the door. It doesn’t even have to be that someone bursts in — but even the knocking, you somehow have to react to that, in quotation marks. So having rulebooks or something for this too. And so all of this is connected. But I find the point you raised really, really important — and we can’t completely eliminate distraction, but sorry, I have a frog in my throat, we can, one moment… okay, I hope it’s better now. We can’t completely eliminate distraction, but we can at least reduce it. And we can think about — and here we’re back at thinking — what we can then do to reduce it, and then afterward communicate that verbally too, so it’s not just, we often talk about expectations and so on, so it’s not just something I have clarified for myself internally, but that I communicate it both internally and externally, again through language, so it’s even accessible to the other person. Because if I don’t communicate it, it’s nice that I had a thinking process about it, but it won’t be of much use to me in the interaction. Sabine, would you like to add to that?
Oh yes, for whom? I feel so at home with you right now.
Yes, that happens to me very often too. Then I want to… are you back in your club house?
Then people walk around me and I can actually hardly concentrate. That’s why I went to the office today of all days, and today is a bridge day, so there are other people walking around here too. So I see the topic of concentration, but also the topic of discipline, self-discipline, as a prerequisite for the process we talked about earlier, that you simply take yourself in hand and say, yes, I want this now. No, it’s okay, I steer myself and I want this now, this way. Or maybe simply communicate it to the environment with a certain matter-of-factness — I’m doing this now.
Yes, absolutely. Wonderful, thank you so much. I think we’ve brought together quite a lot again today, and a lot becomes clear. There are various factors that have an influence. On one hand, that the whole thing can’t be thought of linearly, but is, on one hand, circular, and on the other hand, there are interrelationships in both directions. And that language definitely has an influence on thinking, and vice versa. And so it’s worth actually going into observation and self-observation, both internally and externally, to trigger various processes, thinking processes, on the meta-level, to see what insights can be derived from that, and then to decide, self-assuredly, what I actually want to do with the insight I’ve gained. How do I deal with it? So I think it’s been very, very varied today. Let’s go ahead and wrap up here — on one hand with a short closing word for today’s room, and then I can also announce tomorrow’s topic. Dear Sabine, what was the highlight for you from the room today?
I think I’ve set up a little process for myself. So concentration, discipline are kind of the prerequisites for getting into thinking — you’re always thinking, but this conscious thinking, then the topic of inner dialogue with yourself, the self-talk, always this self-reinforcement, that you actually follow through with what you want to do. And finally the topic of communication — everyone probably has to work on that. But, as I said, I was at the conference last week, and we had a communication trainer for half an hour. She did it so wittily and so well, and I thought, well, this is so simple, just take a few things with you. I took a lot away from that, and today I took a lot away too. Thank you so much, Yasemin. I wish you all a wonderful bridge day, and I hope you all have as many people bouncing around you as I do.
Wonderful, thank you so much. And here too we see, in what you just summarized, that you again captured a linear sequence for yourself, so to speak. That’s exactly what we talked about earlier — we always tend to do that, actually, to take out the complexity. So there’s nothing wrong with that either, that we actually look at how we might capture this for ourselves as a process, so that it becomes comprehensible for us, because our brain always needs exactly this linearity, because we’re often not able to think in this circular way, or in this exponential way, or whatever. If we think of AI or something like that, we have this challenge too. So it really helps us to take out the complexity, mind you — but we’ve underlined and emphasized several times together today that it can go in different directions, that it doesn’t necessarily always have to be the same order, but that it’s a back-and-forth, a switching, so to speak, between the different levels taking place, and that I don’t just have a starting point or an ending point, but that I can also reverse the process. And, for example, if at the end we have communication, language, we could also take language and communication as a starting point, so to speak, to start there and see what changes if I change the language, and so on, and accordingly bring in and take into account this circularity, or these interrelationships, again.
I find that wonderful. Thank you so much. I really found there were so many impulses in there today. I think everyone can connect somewhere and look at, where do I currently stand, and what can I use for myself here, and maybe try something out, going on a journey of self-discovery, so to speak. And tomorrow we’ll continue with thinking and daydreaming — day in parentheses, because we don’t only dream at night, we definitely have daydreams too. I’m really curious what comes together there. So you’re all very warmly invited to join again tomorrow morning at 8. I’m looking forward to it in any case. So, until then. Ciao.
