Thanks to our resident life coach, Merrisha for another fantastic blog. This one is all about self talk. It surprises me sometimes, how often I talk so badly to myself, without even realising! Thanks to Merrisha for this great reminder to treat ourselves as we would a close friend.
Love, Susie xxx
Raise your hand if you know you could improve your communication …specifically the conversations you are having with yourself?
Something happened in my business recently, and looking back on it, it would have been a HUGE faux pas! Fortunately I had a tribe of cheerleaders who challenged me, and held a mirror up so I could shout at myself “No!!!!’ before I messed up in a big way, but it certainly made me reflect afterwards…how had I almost got it so wrong? And I have to be honest… that despite being a Coach and having this wonderful toolbox….my inner critic had got the best of me!
I know I’m not the only one with an inner critic, infact most of us do. On a good day I can catch myself in the moment, make sense of the thoughts coming up and where they are really coming from, and separate bad thoughts from who I am. But I also know that lots of people really struggle with this.
Self-talk can be really powerful. It can essentially help or hurt your confidence. It shines a spotlight on all the things you have been focussing on, which can help with achieving goals if its positive self-talk. BUT, it can also highlight perceived failures if it’s negative self-talk.
When I catch myself talking badly to myself, which I know because I am generally left feeling abit rubbish, I like to call myself out, and infact, it is essential to challenge what you are telling yourself. Recognise that you are not your thoughts. If it helps, give your inner critic a name and have an image of them. This means you can literally say ‘Here goes Miserable Mavis again’ (apologies to all Mavis’ reading this) and this creates distance, allowing you to do something different with the voice.
I say all the time, having a child can be bliss and utter carnage in the same day, but what I know for sure, is that I would never speak to my daughter in a way that would damage her confidence. And if I mess up, which invariably I do at times, I apologise. And so that is my challenge to you, in a quest of leaning in the direction of self -love.
Listen to the things you are telling yourself, and even write them down on paper. Go on…everything you tell yourself about yourself. And I want you to then go back and look at that list, and highlight everything you are telling yourself that you wouldn’t say to your own child, a younger sibling, or someone dear to you. I can guarantee that the list of negatives is longer than the positives. But this is the start of you calling out your negative self-talk. I then want you to consider an act of forgiveness that you can do for yourself. Just like you would apologise to that other person….how will you apologise to yourself? In these times I quite often turn to mirror work…a literal act of having a conversation with myself in the mirror, and telling myself what it is that I forgive myself for (which really isn’t that easy to do).
And then, I want you to destroy this list in a significant way….go outside and burn it, rip it to pieces, let it float away. Literally let it go! Whilst this won’t change your negative self-talk immediately, this is the beginning of bringing this to your awareness, but also deciding, that from this moment onwards, you are choosing to love yourself.
If you would like to book a life coaching session with Merrisha, just drop us an email to enquire : admin@styledbysusie.co.uk
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