The most important relationship you can have is the one with yourself. How you talk to yourself and about yourself dictates the type of people you attract in your life whether it’s through work, relationships, or friendships. And ultimately, most people want happiness and harmony in their life, but can’t have that until they begin to work on and improve the relationship they have with themself.
A great place to start is by addressing how you feel about yourself and being honest about it. Here are some prompts you can either answer to yourself internally, or you can journal about them. Just make sure to be in a quiet place without any distraction:
- How do you feel about the person you are at this moment? Why?
- How often do you say nice things and/or compliment yourself?
- What does positive self talk look like for you?
- How often do you say negative things or talk down on yourself?
- What does negative self talk look like for you?
- Where does your negative self talk stem from? What about your positive self talk?
- In moments where you aren’t speaking kindly to yourself, does it feel like you who’s talking or someone/something outside of you? Describe what it is.
- What is different about your voice (whether it’s internally or out loud) when it’s used for positive self talk?
- What is your truth? This is ambiguous for a reason.
You can continue asking yourself other questions about how and why you talk to yourself the way you do. When you’re done, take a look back at everything you wrote and reflected on. Are there any themes you are noticing, and if so, what are they? Do you have more limiting beliefs than you thought, or do you feel like the positive things you say about yourself outweigh the bad? Are there reasons behind your negative self talk that you can address and heal from?
Use this to create a t chart. So find a piece of paper, or you can do this in your notes on your phone, but draw a line down the middle of the page. Alternatively, you can create a 2 x 2 table in your phone or on a google doc.
On the left side, title it “negative self talk” and on the right side, title it “positive self talk.”
Write out all of the negative things you say about yourself on the left side, then write out all of the positive things you say about yourself on the right. Don’t think too hard about this and just go with whatever comes to you.
When you are done, really absorb everything you see in front of you. I want to encourage you to find reasons why everything you wrote on the left isn’t actually who you are, nor does it define you. Sometimes we talk badly about ourselves because of childhood wounds, how others talked to/and treated us, and because we just don’t know otherwise. Some people choose negative self talk over positive because positive self talk can also be associated with fear of the unknown. Think about it. Humans are creatures of habit, and we do things based on familiarity and comfortability.
In a way, negative self talk is normal to us and we almost accept that behavior, despite it not feeling good. Positive self talk, on the other hand, is sometimes weird and outside of our comfort zone. Why? Because we aren’t taught to talk about ourselves in a positive light. We aren’t taught to talk about what we love about ourselves-might I add regularly-because it comes off as “arrogant, cocky, conceited,” you name it. But rest assured, positive self talk is none of those things.
Positive self talk is liberating, freeing, empowering, fun, incredible, exciting, and so much more. It gives you your power back and enables you to tap into who you really are, which is a person that is love and light in their true form.
So go back to your t chart, and cross through each thing you wrote in the”negative self talk” column, and rewrite each of those statements on the “positive self talk” column by turning them into positive, loving, happy phrases that you can tell yourself.
For example, if I wrote “I dislike the way my stomach looks” on the left side, I would cross that out then add something along the lines of “I feel so connected to my gut. I’m so happy that my gut is always communicating to me whether it’s through my intuition, when it wants me to drink water, or stop eating.”
You don’t have to write the same thing as me or even get as specific as I did. The point is for you to be aware of what negative self talk looks like in your life, to no longer accept that voice, and to focus on embracing the positive things you have to say about yourself.
So continue working on this list and when you are finished with it, hang it up somewhere where you will see it. You can even take a screenshot of this list and save it as your wallpaper. Whatever you do, I encourage you to read your “positive self talk” list daily to remember who you actually are. <3
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash