“Loose Change in My Head”: Taming Mental Noise with Chatter

lifealignmenthabit
11 minutes ago
4 min read

I’ve unbelievably read that about 5% of the population doesn’t have any inner dialogue at all. For the rest of us non-freaks, who do have that inner voice, how should we work with it?

Well, when Bloodkin’s Danny and Eric sing “loose change in my head,” this inner dialogue is what I always think about. Thoughts often feel like coins rattling around in a jar: client crises, (ping) the hiring process (clank), emails (ding), drama posts on agency social media channels (plunk), progress notes (tink), budget questions (tank), family responsibilities (bing), self care (clink), caring for others in my orbit (bonk)... Nothing super heavy enough to demand full attention, yet everything clattering at once. Ethan Kross calls this mental noise chatter—the spinning, repetitive self-talk that ramps up stress, narrows perspective, and erodes performance. That’s the bad news. The good news: you can turn that scatter brain into structure.

Here we’ll distill practical tools from Kross’s book Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It into a simple protocol to use between sessions, after ridiculous meetings, or whenever our “loose change” gets loud.

What “Chatter” Does to Us (and then Our Work)

Chatter hijacks attention. It makes us hyper focus on problems, catastrophize outcomes, and replay conversations on endless loop. In social work practice, it looks like:

Over ruminating after a challenging client encounter.
Second-guessing boundaries or a documentation decision.
Mentally rehearsing worst-case scenarios before a home visit.

Kross’s core message: the goal isn’t to silence the inner voice—it’s to steer it. The inner narrator that spirals can also plan, reflect, and problem-solve when we give it rails.

Some sport psychologists have put it “It’s not about getting rid of the butterflies in your stomach, it’s about getting those butterflies to fly in formation.”

The “Coin Roll” Model: From Scatter to Structure

Visualize your thoughts like coins on a desk. When they’re scattered everywhere and every movement makes them rattle. But when you roll them—sort, stack, and sleeve—the coins don’t stop existing; they’re just organized. Let’s use that metaphor to convert our chatter into clarity in three moves: Distance → Ground → Decide.

Move 1: Distance (Get Perspective)

These tools create psychological space so you can think rather than react.

Distanced self-talk (the “coach voice”)Swap “I” for your name or “you”:
“I can’t believe that happened” becomes “You handled that as best you could. Next step is to clarify the plan for tomorrow.”Kross shows this quick pronoun shift reduces emotional heat and improves problem-solving.
Temporal distancing (time travel)Ask: How will I view this in a week? a year? Zooming out shrinks the drama and reveals priorities. We’ve all looked back on a situation we thought at the time was dire and chuckle about how wrong we were. The key here is have that hindsight in the moment.

Script (30 seconds):“[Your name], this moment feels big. In one year you’ll see it as one step in a larger story. What’s the smallest helpful action right now?”

Move 2: Ground (Stabilize the System)

These are quick levers (“body” and “environment”) that calm our physiology and create mental order.

Breath + body resetTry 4–6 rounds: inhale 4, hold 2, exhale 6. Longer exhales downshift your nervous system. Pair with releasing your shoulders and relaxing your jaw. Become aware of any tightness and focus on letting it go.
Cognitive off-loading (externalize)Chatter grows when everything lives in your head. Get it out:
Two-column dump: left = objective facts; right = stories/assumptions we tell ourselves.
One-page plan: three bullets for “Must Do,” three for “Should Do,” and a small “Parked” list for later.
Order the sceneTidy your immediate work surface for two minutes (only two minutes). Visual order = fewer cognitive “coins” bangin around.

60-Second Grounding Drill:Exhale longer than you inhale, drop your shoulders, write three “musts” and star the first one. That’s your next step.

Move 3: Decide (Turn Noise to Action)

Chatter feeds on ambiguity. Decisions and action shrink it.

Define the boundary, not the battleInstead of replaying a tense exchange, decide the limit and the language you’ll use next time.
“I’m unavailable after 5 p.m.; let’s schedule for 9 a.m.”Clarity is emotional armor.
Time-box the worryGive the problem 10 minutes on your calendar. When it pops up at 11:07, remind yourself: “That has a slot at 3:20.” You’ve acknowledged and contained it.
One-move ruleAsk: What is the smallest useful move that moves this forward? Email one clinician. Draft three lines of the email. Book the consult. Momentum trumps perfection.

A 5-Minute “Loose Change” Protocol

Use this between sessions or before you drive home.

Distance (1 min)
Coach voice: “Okay, [Name], what’s true here?”
Time travel: “How does Future-Me see this?”
One sentence reframe: “This is hard and I’m capable of the next step.”
Ground (2 min)
Breathe 4-2-6 five times; relax jaw/shoulders.
Dump facts vs. stories in two columns.
Star the single top “must.”
Decide (2 min)
Write the boundary sentence you’ll use if needed.
Schedule a 10-minute block for any unresolved worry.
Take the first one-move action now (send, schedule, or start).

When the Noise Is About You (Not the Work)

Some chatter is self-directed: “You should’ve known. You’re behind. You didn’t say it right.” Replace global judgments with specific, controllable skills:

Global: “Man, I really blew it in that last client session.”
Specific: “Next time we meet, I’ll slow my pace, reflect feelings first, then ask one open ended questions.”

Specific = coachable. Global = paralyzing.

Self-compassion line:“Talk to yourself like you’d talk to your favorite colleague on a hard day.”

Bringing It Home

“Loose change in my head” is a perfect picture of what Kross calls chatter. The goal isn’t to throw the coins away; it’s to roll them—sort, stack, sleeve—so your mind stops rattling and starts directing. With Distance → Ground → Decide, you give your inner voice rails to run on. The coins are still there, but they’re quiet, useful, and ready to spend on what matters most: your clients, your craft, and your own well-being.