Brief Musings: Self Talk
Howdy and welcome to May!
I'm physically back home from an enjoyable vacation, but my State of Mind is still catching up. (See what I did there? No? Nevermind, it's fine...) Thus, I'd like to share some quick, jumbly thought-bits on the topic of self talk today.
Oh, yes, I'm referring to the same inward speech that's the subject of thousands of self-help books; that's the one! (cue doubt)
But I'm someone who's seen self talk work first hand, and not necessarily in the traditionally positive sense, but rather in a negative way.
I'd say that in general, I'm just a negative person to begin with, particularly towards myself. I'm not very good at encouraging or motivating myself sometimes, and my self esteem levels wax and wane as weeks pass. Overall, I can be pretty doubtful and averse to most activities as well, if I let my anxieties run wild enough.
During the bouts of depression I've had, talking negatively and condescendingly toward myself played an integral role in my mental downward spirals. Basically, I found different ways to tell myself that I'm not worthy of happiness in some form or another. In a sense, I suppose you could say I was cursing myself to a negative outlook on everything (all religious connotations of curse aside).
"Of course it would turn out this way. What did you expect?" is a phrase I repeated often, not fully realizing the impact it had. If that's something you tell yourself now, just do yourself a favor and stop. Honestly, your perspective is what you make it out to be. Life throws good and bad at all of us, but if you fill your own head with negative bullshit all the time, you might actually start to believe it.
“Your perspective is what you make it out to be.”
While stopping the negative self talk is great progress by itself, reversing some of that damage by telling yourself you are worthy of happiness is something I'd encourage the depressed people out there to try too. I've personally had mixed results with this part of the equation, since I don't always find the positive things I'm saying believable. Occasionally, the beneficial words I've said will admittedly feel like cheesy rhetoric, but honestly it's less absurd than the 'doom and gloom' act I put on sometimes.
Despite those reservations I had, I figured: isn't it still worth a shot? What have you truly got to lose by being positive toward yourself and others? That being said, I can't really tell you the exact phrases you'll need to change your attitude if you're struggling; you need to figure out what it is that you're negative or insecure about and go from there to build yourself back up. If you choose to apply spirituality to what you tell yourself as well, that's great too!
All of this self talk stuff really breaks down into changing the way you think: if your brain is being overly negative, you're simply giving it some other positive options to consider by saying them. Here, I'll start it for you:
You, reader, are an excellent individual! I appreciate you.
Look, that wasn't so awful, was it? Now go tell yourself stuff like that!
Much Love,
Bryce