Language is powerful.
Stories are meaningful.
What we say to, and about, ourselves is incredibly influential.
And that language and those stories are mostly influential on how we feel about ourselves.
If we use negative self-talk we’re writing a story of ourselves as someone less than. Less worthy. Less capable. Less likeable. Less everything.
Eventually these stories occupy more and more of our lives becoming the ‘truth’.
We have an experience that could easily show us in a good light but we focus only on the parts that make us not ok e.g. “I wasn’t funny like the others”; “I was judging that person in my head. Only bad people do that”.
We could have 55 minutes of an hour where we were someone to be totally proud of but we focus only on the bits that weren’t brilliant. This is soooo not good for healthy self-esteem.
Imagine if we could talk to ourselves like a coach. Or a caring relative.
Imagine using self-compassion instead of self-flagellation.
Imagine if the story about you was one of hope and self-acceptance.
I challenge you to start telling a different story about yourself. One filled with self-compassion (here’s a blog on self-esteem and self-compassion. One filled with hope and encouragement.
If you’re generally pretty good with your self-talk try improving it in areas that are a bit challenging for you.
And if you need a little reminder of what you are post this somewhere you can see it:
Imagine if you told a family living in abject poverty that there was a treasure of gold under the dirt floor of their shanty. They would only have to remove the layers of dirt hiding it and they would be rich forever. In the same way we are not aware of our true nature.
So start scraping the layers of dirt and wash away the grime (that’s all the years of negative self-talk) and let your true nature shine.
