Aerial Dance’s book club is one of my favorite dinners of the week. We get together for sushi and (sometimes) talk about the book we all (in theory) read. As the curator for the club, I always pick a book that is about self development and growth as I think it is important we keep learning about ourselves. At the April book club on “Badass Habits” we spoke about how we speak to ourselves. Man, what a powerful thing to really realize. At the meeting, and later on the member page, member Jackie posted this podcast: From The Mindset Mentor: How to have more self love and change your self talk.
There were two things that smacked me in the face from this podcast. First, the exercise where women write down everything they don’t like about themselves; then they are told to read that list to their little sister. Ouch. Second, when he has the room write all the things they don’t like about themselves and the list in 40-60 things long; then has them write what they like and people struggle to get ten things. Ouch.
But both are so true. And resonate so strongly. I’ve been working on my negative self talk for a long time now. I realized how mean I was to myself years ago. I realized I say things to me I’d never say to a friend. And you know what, even though I know it and have worked on it, that bitch is still in my head!
Since body image and body trust (aka believing I will come back from my last surgery) is big in my head right now I started paying attention to what I was saying in regards to specifically my body and health. Oh yeah, so not nice. No wonder my recovery is so slow when I keep saying things like “you’ll never get back” or “it will always hurt”. By monitoring my self talk I recognize that they are keeping me from my goal of healthy; the doubt, fear and negativity is real in my head and is translating to my physical health. I’ve realized I need to instead give my body (and mind) permission to be ok. So I adopted a “mantra” as suggested by Jen Sincero in “Badass habits”. For me it is “My body is healthy and strong. I am fit and beautiful.” For the past few weeks I’m saying this to myself every time I catch the bitch telling me all the other negative stuff. I am saying this to myself before and after workouts and therapy and when my shoulder hurts. Am I still in pain? Yup. But I feel the shift in my hope. For the first time in over a year I am hearing hope in my head that things will get better. That’s the power of your self talk.
If you haven’t done so, I highly encourage you to listen to the podcast and start to pay attention to your own self talk. Are you making life harder for yourself or are you an ally to yourself?
Image from: https://www.mindful.org/4-common-types-self-talk/