[2021-09-14] Self-talk
The September 12 entry in A Year of Positive Thinking provides an important message about the power of self-talk:
The most important conversations you will ever have are the ones you have internally. What you say to yourself becomes your truth.
Praise yourself often and share your successes with others. Speak about yourself with patience, forgiveness, and love. Humility and pride are not at odds with each other; you can be humble and still be proud of your accomplishments.
What you say to yourself inwardly affects the way you experience life outwardly. Be kind with your words to yourself, because they are incredibly powerful.
When I was younger, I engaged in negative self-talk. (I still do to some extent, but I did so more frequently when in my teens and early twenties.) I felt that I wasn't pretty, sophisticated or accomplished. I often felt like the people around me were more attractive, popular and competent. I compared myself to others and concluded that I didn't measure up.
I know that I'm not alone in focusing on my shortcomings. ReachOut, a nonprofit that provides online mental health support to young people and parents in Australia, notes that we all talk to ourselves, even if we're not aware of it. In 3 ways to talk yourself up, the organization states:
Self-talk is basically your inner voice, the voice in your mind that says the things you don’t necessarily say out loud. We often don’t even realise that this running commentary is going on in the background, but our self-talk can have a big influence on how we feel about who we are.
As its title suggests, the webpage offers three ways to identify, check and modify negative self-talk.
- Listen to what you're saying. Notice what your inner voice is saying. Recognize whether your self-talk is mostly positive or negative. Note what you're thinking each day.
- Challenge your self-talk. Ask yourself whether there is any evidence for what you're thinking. Consider what you would say to a friend if they were in a similar situation. Ask yourself whether you can do anything to change what you're feeling bad about.
- Change your self-talk. Make a list of the positive things about yourself. Instead of saying, "I'll never be able to do this," try saying, "Is there anything I can do that will help me do this?"
I got better at managing my self-talk as I grew older. It became easier to recognize when I was being too hard on myself. Through my reading and writing, I learned to change what I was saying to myself. That, in turn, changed the way I experienced life. For example, the more I told myself that I was attractive and lovable, the more others seemed to agree.
The words we say to ourselves—be they positive or negative—are, indeed, very powerful.
I'll conclude this post with an exchange between the boy and the horse in The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse:
"Sometimes I think you believe in me more than I do," said the boy.
"You'll catch up," said the horse.
