For a long time, I thought my thoughts were just background noise.
Something that happened to me rather than something I was actively participating in.
It wasn’t until I began paying attention to my inner conversations that I realised how influential they actually were. Not the dramatic affirmations or visualisations, but the quiet, repetitive dialogue running underneath my day.
The things I said to myself when nothing was “happening.”
Those conversations turned out to matter far more than I expected.
What We’re Really Doing All Day
We’re talking to ourselves constantly.
Not in a strange way. In a very human one.
We replay conversations. We anticipate reactions. We justify, defend, rehearse, explain. Most of it happens automatically, without much awareness.
What surprised me was noticing how consistent these inner conversations were, and how closely they matched the situations I kept experiencing.
Neville spoke about this often, though not always in the way it’s repeated online. He wasn’t suggesting we police every thought or strive for constant positivity. He was pointing to something subtler.
The direction of our inner speech.
Inner Conversations as Creative Acts
What we say inwardly is an expression of what we assume to be true.
Over time, I began to notice that my inner conversations weren’t neutral. They carried expectation. Tone. Identity.
When my internal dialogue was defensive, life felt confrontational.
When it was resigned, circumstances felt heavy and immovable.
When it softened, things around me softened too.
Not instantly. Not magically. But recognisably.
Neville shared a story about a woman who felt constantly criticised by her employer. What stood out to me wasn’t the “technique,” but the realisation she had, she was mentally arguing with him all day long.
Once she stopped rehearsing those inner arguments and quietly changed the conversation, his behaviour shifted.
Not because she forced anything, but because the assumption underneath her experience changed.
Mental Diets Aren’t About Control
This is where mental diets are often misunderstood.
They aren’t about suppressing thoughts.
They aren’t about pretending you never feel frustrated or disappointed.
They aren’t about getting it “right” all the time.
For me, a mental diet became about awareness first.
Noticing what I habitually returned to when my mind wandered.
Not judging it. Just seeing it clearly.
That alone created space.
Why Inner Conversations Matter
Neville suggested that inner conversations don’t disappear when they’re over. They carry forward. They become expectation. Then experience.
I’ve found that to be true in a very practical way.
When I consistently held internal dialogues that assumed things would go wrong, they often did. When I softened those conversations, life didn’t become perfect, but it became less combative.
This wasn’t about positive thinking.
It was about alignment.
What I inwardly expected gradually became what I outwardly encountered.
A More Grounded Way to Approach a Mental Diet
If you’re exploring mental diets, this is the approach that helped me most:
- Notice what you’re already saying to yourself
- Observe recurring inner conversations without trying to fix them
- Gently redirect when you catch yourself rehearsing outcomes you don’t want
- Let new assumptions feel ordinary, not forced
The shift doesn’t come from effort.
It comes from familiarity.
Living From the End, Quietly
Neville often spoke about hearing and seeing what you desire inwardly before it appears outwardly. For me, this wasn’t about vivid scenes or emotional intensity.
It was about how I spoke as myself.
Was my inner dialogue coming from someone who expected relief, or someone bracing for disappointment?
That distinction mattered more than any technique.
If you want to see how mental diets fit into a wider understanding of imagination and assumption, I’ve laid it out more fully in my complete imagination and assumption guide.
Patience Is Part of the Process
Changing a mental diet takes time.
These inner conversations didn’t form overnight, and they don’t dissolve instantly either. There were periods where nothing seemed to shift externally, and those were often the moments where my awareness deepened most.
What changed wasn’t always the situation.
Sometimes it was my relationship to it.
And that, quietly, changed everything else.
A Final Thought
Your inner conversations are not something to fear or control. They’re something to understand.
They reveal what you assume, what you expect, and who you believe yourself to be in relation to life.
When those conversations soften, life often follows.
Not because you forced reality to comply, but because you stopped arguing with it inwardly.
Want to Explore This More Gently?
If you’d like something practical to work with, I’ve created a free Mental Diets Practice Pack you can explore.
It’s designed to help you notice your real inner conversations, work with them more consciously, and see how small shifts play out over time, without trying to control every thought.
Download FREE Practice Pack
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