How Do You Treat Yourself?

Ever had a friend or family member who talked to you in a very disrespectful way? They might even have insulted you, called you stupid or blamed you for everything or things you didn’t do? How did that make you feel?

Now I want you to think of how you are talking to yourself. Ever made a mistake and thought „I’m so stupid, I can never get it right!“ or looked in the mirror and thought „Ugh, I am so ugly!“. While one part of you is saying that (usually not out loud), another part of you is listening. Now, how do you think that part of you might be feeling when you say this to yourself?

We often pick up patterns that we grew up with - people told us we weren’t good enough, the way we feel is not acceptable, we need to get better grades in school (=be better, be perfect to make our parents happy), etc. After a while we internalize this dialogue. Because if we did x, y, z it meant that we ended up unloved and unsafe when we were a child. While this voice in our head is trying to keep us safe, it is hurting another part within us (our inner child). 

How can we move past this negative self-talk? It’s not by making it an enemy - like I said, it just wants to keep you safe and given the past experiences it has learned how to do it. We have to get to a place where we feel safe enough (internally) that we don’t need this false sense of safety anymore and the way to do it is to be unconditionally loving with whatever comes up - even the negative-self talk. Meet it with love and compassion instead of pushing it away. You can even tell it something like „I hear you and I know you want me to be safe and I’m grateful for this! But this is not my childhood anymore. I am all grown up and I can make new and better memories now and I want to try it differently now.“