Talk To Yourself

Step 1 to sabotaging a relationship…. Stop talking to the other person. 

Step 2 if you talk at all…. Speak unkindly. 

The same is true for your relationship with you. 

The other day I was talking to a woman and she was telling me all about what happens when she is getting ready in the morning, especially when she does her hair. She was describing her experience, and how she gets “stewing” (aka thinking) she said, and got herself all in a tizzy to the point that she had a headache and her blood pressure was skyrocketing.

I was imagining what kind of conversation she was having with herself that morning. 

My husband makes fun of me because when I go in the bathroom in the evening I’ll be in there for awhile. He’ll yell in and say, “how you guys doing in there?”. He knows that not only am I washing my face, and brushing my teeth, most importantly I am having a good ol’ conversation with myself. 

I look myself square in the eyes in the mirror and we talk. (This is when you begin thinking I’m crazy, but stay with me). I go over the day with myself, I breathe in the moments. 

I spend the majority of the time talking about how proud I am of myself, all the things that I worked hard at, or overcame. And then of course I meet myself with a little compassion for the things that didn’t go so well. 

I say things like, “yeah, so you yelled at the kids, it’s okay. We all yell sometimes, you’re trying aren’t you?” 

Or, “Yeah, that other thing didn’t go as planned, but that’s okay, tomorrow’s a new day.” 

It has been scientifically proven that parents who take time to recap the positive events of a child’s day at bedtime, provide more opportunities for a child to grow up to be successful and happy. 

Think about your evening routine with your kids. You go in, snuggle up with them read them a book and then talk about all the wonderful things that happened that day, and maybe a couple of things that didn’t go so well. 

This experience is critical for so many reasons. It not only is teaching the child to build up that habit of processing the day's activities in a positive and helpful way, but it gives the opportunity to channel that pleasure point in their brain. Our brain loves to seek pleasure, and when you create pleasure in thinking about the day, it makes the habit of doing so much easier. 

So I challenge you to try it. 

Take a moment when you go in to brush your teeth in the evening to have a conversation with yourself. Start with what you did throughout the day that you are proud of yourself for doing. Talk about the hard things that happened, and how you overcame them. And focus on compassion when you touch on the things that didn’t go your way. 

Giving yourself this opportunity to connect is critical. 

Not only are you talking to yourself, you’re talking kindly. 

I think too often we over look this. We think the conversations we have with yourself have no effect on our life. NOOOTTTT TRUEEEEE.

How you talk to yourself has a direct impact on how you show up in your life. Our thinking determines how we feel, and how we feel, creates our actions, and our actions make up the results in our life. 

So not only should you talk to yourself, you should talk kindly. Just as you would talk to your child before bed. Give yourself that time to connect, And do it everyday. 

It will change your life.