Talking to Yourself Like You Would a Friend
Have you ever taken a second to think through your thoughts about yourself throughout the day. What did you say? Were your words uplifting, or did they tear you down? Our words to ourselves oftentimes go unnoticed at first, but when we step back, those words make a huge difference in how we act and how we believe on all levels of our lives!I oftentimes will encourage my clients to practice something I call positive self talk because we know that the way that we talk to ourselves makes a HUGE difference in how we act and how we care for ourselves. When you think of yourself kindly, you'll WANT to take care of your body! You'll WANT to move in a way that brings joy! You'll WANT to spend time creating meaningful relationships that bring health and happiness to your life!
Why is self talk important?
So why is it important to talk to yourself as you would talk to a friend? You're with yourself constantly. How you act and how you feel is directly correlated with how you talk to yourself. Think of a time you maybe spoke to a friend in an unkind way. How did that make your friend feel? How did that make your friend act? It probably tore down their self esteem, depleted their confidence, made them feel like they didn't want to contribute to the relationship.Maybe your "friend" has a more "rebellious" type personality and she pulled away, didn't want anything to do with the friendship, and had the opposite response of, "I'll show you!" and went to an extreme.
Though I hope you've never experienced the pain that is a fight in a friendship, I do know that we're all human and the likely chance is that you can relate to this with at least one experience.And in the same way that a fight leads to either lack of confidence and pulling away or rebellion with friendship, when we speak poorly to ourselves we can often find ourselves taking one or two responses...
one: Pulling away, cowering, losing our confidence
or two: flipping sides and rebelling against what we know is best for us.
Negative self talk brings about an inner coward or inner rebel.
So how would this look in terms of eating and moving and all things taking care of your body?If your daily self talk includes words such as "fat" in a derogatory way, "not enough _____" and "too ___" (fill in the terms), then all you're doing is preparing to wage war with yourself and your body instead of working with your body in the way it was meant to be worked with.
These derogatory words to yourself will only lead to you feeling a lack of confidence in yourself, and probably lead you to ignore your body's signals with how to care for it. You will be less inclined to honor your hunger and notice your fullness, more easily tempted to soothe emotions with food rather than confronting them, and less likely to engage in movement that may help relieve stress and help you on a deeper level to connect with your body.On the flip side, what if you started each morning with something positive about yourself? What if for each negative thought that comes to your head (they'll still come, it's just about learning to combat them), you replace them with three positive thoughts? What would change? How would your decisions be different with caring for your body? How would your life feel more fulfilled and how would you be able to be more true to your inner self?
From experience, I can tell you that the simple act of working on your self talk, talking to yourself like you would a friend, can make a world of difference in your whole health! And sometimes you may need help working towards this place of positive self talk which is totally ok!
Positive self talk takes practice.
Here's a couple of exercises you can use to help strengthen your inner self talk and start talking to yourself more kindly...more like a friend :) !
Start each morning with a positive affirmation about yourself.
Have notecards with positive words or phrases that you can pull out if you're feeling down.
If you notice yourself continually thinking negative thoughts, practice stating 3 positives for every negative.
Fill your life with people who are speaking positively about their bodies...we become who we hang out with.
Let me know your thoughts!
Do you feel like your self talk is more positive or negative?What are you going to start doing to work on speaking to yourself more like a friend?