How to Effectively Change Your Self-Talk
How do we effectively change our self talk? And why do we want to change our self-talk?..especially when it’s negative.
Our self-talk effects the lens, filter, or frame in which we see ourselves in the world. If we say things like, “I can’t, or “I’m not enough” We need to replace that to see something different.
our minds actually work in story for and we look for and end result to every story. It’s called a closed loop in our brain. If all of our results are negative, our brain is actually going to continue to find that familiar story or result. It all starts with our self-talk, our own narrative.
We need to replace the “I can’t” with “I can”. Our thoughts are directly tied to our emotions. In fact, we lead with our emotions. And if we continue to experience the same emotion over and over again, its going to lead to the same thoughts. So if we have been what I like to call, “small T” traumatized in a relationship, we’re going to continue to experience that pain. So we have to change our thoughts. And changing our thoughts changes our perspective.
So here’s an acronym I use as a practice for effectively changing self-talk.
Remember the word A.W.A.R.E. You’re becoming aware of your self talk, so you can change it.
The first A in Aware stands for ACKNOWLEDGE. Simply acknowledge the disruptive thought or emotion that you notice. If your angry, sad, anxious and and have repeating thoughts you rehearse in your mind, this is pointing to your self-talk.
The W stands for WELCOME. Welcome the emotion you feel. Don’t resist it. Often we ignore it, fight it, stuff it or run from it. Those things often lead to self medication. Picture your emotion like a kid in the back seat of your car who is complaining or throwing a fit. You have to hear what it’s saying, but you still keep your hand on the wheel. You’re welcoming it, but your not letting it take control of where you’re headed.
The second A in aware stands for ABOUT. Ask yourself, “What is this ABOUT more me?” You’re digging in and investigating what’s behind that thought and emotion. Does it remind you of another time in your life? Whats the story your telling yourself ? Why do you feel that way? What did you learn from that experience?
Now the R stands for REPLACE. You actually have to replace the self-talk, You have to change what you are telling yourself. Because it isn’t true. Ask yourself, “How do I want to feel?” and “what do I want it to look like?”
If what you are telling yourself is something like, “I’m the worst” start saying “I’m the Best.” If you’ve been telling yourself something like, ‘What I do is never enough,” start saying,””everything I do is more than enough.”
And then ask yourself, “How does would it feel to be more than enough?”
The E stands for EVIDENCE. Find evidence to support the truth about the self-talk you’ve changed. Remember I time when you WERE “the best” when you WERE “more than enough.” Was there something recently happened that story and self-talk?
Our minds work like detectives trying to find the result of what we believe is true. So if we want to see something different, we have to look around and see something different. We have to become aware of our self-talk and replace it with better self-talk. Then we’ll start to experience something different.
- Aaron Tosti, Love and Self-Acceptance Coach