As individuals, we are too comfortable with ourselves. We talk to ourselves in all sorts of ways – be it negative or positive. Neither end of the spectrum is healthy for us. If you flood yourself with deprecating self-talk, you will destroy yourself to a point of no return. On the other hand, too much positive self-talk leads to an inflated ego. There has to be an equilibrium. You may ask yourself what you need to do in order to find it.
How does negativity affect you?
To start, we need to understand how our bodies work. Your physical body has ears the same way your mental one does; the only difference is that you cannot see them. This means that every thought you have is heard and responded to accordingly. Say you have an extremely unproductive day. For some reason, you have been really sleepy or unable to start. The thought, “I hate myself because I did not get a single thing done,” is going to translate into your body language, attitude, energy, and even the tone of your voice when you speak to other people. A simple rephrasing of “I know I did not get a lot of things done today, but I did the best I could with the circumstances my body put me in,” changes everything.
What can I do?
For starters, you need to remove any self-demeaning thought that would only fuel a sense of disgust and disapproval within yourself. Instead of saying, “I hate myself,” you should opt for something like, “I did the best I could with what I was given.” Suddenly, you find yourself forgiving yourself for a shortcoming rather than pitying yourself for it. The same applies to phrases like, “this is the worst day of my life,” “I am an idiot,” and “I am a failure.”
There are things you simply cannot say to yourself the same way you would not want to say them to someone else. Your body responds to whatever you choose to put inside it. If you start thinking about your thoughts the same way you would think about your nutrition, you would think twice before you ingest a negative thought.
Practice makes perfect
Of course, this takes a lot of practice and there is no set timeline. However, the one step everyone shares is the fact that you need to begin. Essentially, you need to be self-aware of your thoughts. You have to be patient because some days will feel harder than others when it comes to controlling your thoughts. You must always keep trying if you truly care about the health of your mind and body. Remember that relapsing does not mean that all your progress is lost. After continued resilience, a day comes where the thought of insulting yourself would not even cross your mind because you already worked so hard on nurturing self-love. The destruction of a negative habit goes hand-in-hand with alienating it from your life. It entails you moving on and realizing that you were in a toxic relationship with your former way of thinking.
Subconsciously, you would find that self-esteem begins to improve because self-hatred has been replaced with a forgiving mindset. You would begin to understand that you can cut yourself some slack, the same way you would for someone you love. Mistakes only make you human. The more ingrained that becomes for you, the easier it will be to forgive yourself and talk yourself out of self-degradation. Before you become the best version of yourself, you have to believe that they are in you to begin with.