Thoughts vs Self-Talk

 A few years ago, a friend said to me one can never control one's thoughts, only one's actions. I have doled out this aphorism to friends on a few occasions myself. But, how accurate is it? In one of her videos,, Adrienne says "We can control our thoughts", pauses for a moment, and then says "or at least we can try". My own humble opinion is whether you can control thoughts or not depends on how broadly or narrowly you define thoughts. If it something that just pops into your head, by the time you are conscious of it, it is already too late. You have failed to "control" it. For instance, random thoguhts like "What are the lartine arrangements for he farmers protesting at the Singhu border". But, one does have control over self-talk, the inner monologue, which also qualifies as a "thought", at least in my book. To complicate things further, there are different kinds of self-talk. One is when you talk to yourself like you would to a second person. Telling yourself, for instance, "What is, is. What will be, will be". There is also more subtle self-talk when you comment about yourself or your situation without being necessarily aware of it. For instance, "my shoulder is never going to heal, and I am never going to be able to do upper-body exercises again". Of course, unconscious self-talk, if it is harmful, can be countered by conscious self-talk. Or, at least we can try.