Self Talk
Just because you have a thought, doesn’t make it true.
Shifting your self talk from negative to positive involves noticing the negative thoughts, questioning them, and shifting them to a positive reminder/affirmation. It’s important to uncover where these negative thoughts originated from as this will help you heal the root of these thoughts. It’s also important to uncover how your body reacts to them, as your body knows what up before your brain does! This will help you identify what triggers these thoughts and where you need to build boundaries to protect yourself.
The same way boundaries are like a muscle, self-talk is a muscle as well; the more you practice positive self-talk, the better you will become at maintaining it. Negative thoughts will come in now and then, but what’s important is how you deal with them. Are you going to listen to them and interpret them as your truth? OR are you going to question them, evaluate what they’re trying to teach you, and shift them into a positive narrative?
7 Ways to Shift into Positive Self-Talk
1. Identify your survival mechanisms.
Your survival mechanisms are the voices in your mind that come in to ultimately protect you from something, but they communicate a false narrative (i.e. “you’re not good enough”, “you’re not doing enough”). When you identify these voices, name them, clarify their purpose, and understand how they manifest in your behaviour, you can begin to separate your truth from their negativity.
For example, I have a survival mechanism who I’ve named “Doubtful Dolly”. She tries to tell me that I’m not good enough and tries to protect me from embarrassment and judgement. In her most extreme form, when she gets very loud and consuming, I want to run away and hide from everything. But in her highest form, which I like to call Queen Dolly, she allows me to discern what is for me and what is not for me. She allows me to discern what I deserve. Doubtful Dolly serves a purpose, but it doesn’t mean that what she’s trying to tell me is true. Instead, she presents an opportunity for me to take the plunge and dive into new, scary challenges.
Identifying your survival mechanisms helps provide you with clarity and gives you another layer of protection to recognize that the thoughts are not your truth. They’re not your voice. So when that negative thought comes in, I encourage you to ask: Is this thought true? Is this voice even mine?
Pssst: I actually dedicate a full 60-minute Self-Love Coaching
session to identifying survival mechanisms!
Click here to learn more about my coaching services.
2. Evaluate what you consume.
Do the accounts on your social media reinforce your false-narratives? How do the people in your life talk about themselves or others’ appearances or capabilities? What are messages that your favorite TV shows are reinforcing? What about the music you listen to?
Evaluate the messages of everything that is filtering into your ears! If it’s not in alignment with what you want for your highest self, shift it.
3. Ask yourself: “How would my ultimate cheerleader support me in this moment?”
Imagine your most supportive, loving cheerleader.
How do they celebrate you?
How do they compliment you?
How do they show up for you on low days?
How do they talk about your body, your skin, your outfits?
How do they talk about your capabilities, your efforts, your successes?
Create crystal clarity around what they say, how they say it, and how they make you feel.
Now imagine this cheerleader lives within you. Because they do, if you’ll let them.
If you choose to:
You can show up as this exact cheerleader for yourself.
You can speak to yourself as they would speak to you.
You can treat yourself as they would treat you.
You can celebrate yourself as they would celebrate you!
4. Use music!
Interpret the lyrics to a song as if your highest self is singing them to you!
Some songs I like to use this practice with are:
5. Practice affirmations.
There are many apps out there (I used to use Mantra - Daily Affirmations) that will send your daily reminders of your power and brilliance!
Some affirmations I like to use are:
I am more than enough
I am not my thoughts
It is human to make mistakes
I am my greatest love
I am safe in this moment
These feelings do not consume me
Impactful ways to practice affirmations are:
Say them out loud to yourself in the mirror
Write them on post-it notes and put them around the house
Record yourself saying them in a voice note
Write them in your planner or calendar
Set them as a phone reminder
6. Remind yourself of how far you’ve come.
Re-read your old journal entries
Look back at old photos (pay attention to your eyes in old photos! Do you notice a lack of ‘life’ in them compared to now?).
Make a list of all your accomplishments
ALL of them! Yes, throughout your lifetime! Big or small.
Refer to this list when a survival mechanism gets loud in trying to convince you that you “haven’t done enough”.
You can even practice this on a daily, weekly, monthly basis! Set a reminder for yourself to note your wins.
7. Thank yourself whenever you practice self-care.
Out loud or in your journal, I encourage you to practice gratitude by acknowledging all the ways you’ve taken care of yourself that day / week / month / year. For example: “thank you for cleaning the house today”, “thank you for taking a shower today”, “thank you for maintaining a boundary”, “thank you for exercising”, etc.
Another activity you can utilize at the end of the day, is opening your journal and listing:
3 beautiful things from today.
3 things I am grateful for.
The process of shifting negative self-talk to positive self-talk is a slow one. You might fall off the wagon now and then, and that is perfectly OK! What matters more is that you pick up where you left off and continue the journey.
