The King’s Speech, awarded 7 Golden Globe awards for best picture of the year, is a movie the viewer “feels” — as advertised. In addition to my enjoyment of the acting, the story, the people, feelings, and relationship facets, I clearly and unexpectedly saw tie-ins to negative self-talk.
No one mentioned NST I’ll admit. If you’ve been reading this blog somewhat regularly and you’ve seen the movie, you’ll recognize that the Duke of York, later King George the 6th was talking to himself all the time. I imagine that he not only thought and felt negatively about himself, but also about others.
“I’m a loser. I can’t speak without stammering.”
“I’m an embarrassment to my entire family.”
“I’m an embarrassment to the people of the British Empire.”
“I’ll never be able to speak publicly to inspire, persuade or inform.”
“ I cannot be King of England.”
About others:
“ My father has no compassion for my problem.”
“ My brother David is mindless and self-centered, thinking illogically, and behaving irresponsibly.”
“David was always the favorite. I was treated poorly and ignored by my parents. They never understood or seemed to care.”
The negative self-talk about himself, as well as his stuffed anger about his father, his brother, his parents, and even his first Nanny, contributed to his seeming inability to find his voice, to get rid of his stammer.
The very interesting point to me is that his inner critic probably had as much or a greater impact on his “disability” to speak than did his anger, frustration and other stuffed feelings about his family. In today’s terms, the former could have been fixed with self-help. The latter might require therapy. However, in the movie, the negative self-talk about self and about others was treated and cured in an unorthodox way by an un-credentialed mentor. What does this say about self-help for eliminating negative self-talk, reducing stress, increasing self-esteem and increasing productivity? You can do it! More on unorthodoxy coming up!
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True.
ReplyDeleteI loved the movie, too, a lot.
It also shows a men fighting to do "his best" even if it is terrible difficult for him.
Suggestion for your blog: instead of dates, on notes, put titles, more speaking to us!