Making Friends with Your Self Talk

“OMG, don’t get me started on self talk”, said a coaching client to me the other day.  “I am so sick of how I sabotage myself, day in and day out.  Why am I so hard on myself when I’m not like that with my friends and colleagues?”

 Great question. 

 WHAT prompts us to be hard on ourselves?

And HOW can we shift that ‘hard’ to something a bit more forgiving and loving?

Here’s my take on the WHAT:

I believe that we each have our own collage of life experiences and influences that lead us to talk to ourselves a certain way… with a particular voice.  A negative encounter, an embarrassing moment, being yelled at for something done wrong, a bad grade in class for a report not well written… hey, I’m sure there’s no limit to the incidents in your past that might just be influencing your self- talk today!

 And here’s one thing you can do to address the HOW:

It’s not about blocking the old voice, but rather let yourself hear that old self-talk, acknowledge it and then consciously opt to reach for a better way.  A new way of speaking to yourself… different words that may not be as familiar as the old voice, but in time, can be your friend.  Invite yourself to change your very own self-talk from limiting and closed to expansive and open.

Making friends with your own inner self-talk is a really big deal.  It can, in fact, be a game changer.  I encourage you to give it a try.