Talk to yourself like your best friend
The person we spend the most time with is ourselves, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year, so how you speak to yourself matters.
We can be our own worst critic and our own worse enemy a lot of the time and by doing this we can start a spiral of negative thinking and bring ourselves down.
One of the most powerful things someone has ever said to me was ‘You wouldn’t speak to your best friend like that so why do you speak to yourself like that?’ it did really get me thinking of what an impact the way we speak to ourselves has on our daily lives. I have said this to others and witnessed the powerful ‘lightbulb’ moment that stops you in your path of thoughts.
If we fill our minds with ‘I can’t do this’, ‘I am not good enough’ or ‘I’m stupid’ then we start to believe it, it becomes a pattern every time we want to do something but do not because we are telling ourselves we can’t. Imagine what a difference it would make if we changed those thoughts to ‘I can do this’, ‘I will try’ or ‘I am good enough’, surely the outcomes would be much more positive.
I think it is important that we try and recognise when we are in a negative thinking pattern, stop and think ‘Would I say this to a friend’ and if the answer is no then think about what you would say to a friend and try it with yourself, I guarantee that the outcome will be very different.
I know that this change in thinking will take time, I am guilty myself of using negative words towards myself and it can be challenging to speak more kindly but the benefits can be life changing.
Be your own best friend with your words and see the difference.
Take a look at this video from The School Of Life, a beautiful reminder of the kindness we can give to ourselves.
Author's Bio
Sophie Collumbell is a regular writer for the Counsellors Café Magazine. In Sophie's words: "I don’t take life too seriously, always joking and making people laugh! Family and friends mean the world to me, and my little cat tiggs! Music is my life, I spend most time with my headphones on listening to anything and everything, I believe ‘When words fail music speaks’! I am more creative than anything, I love writing and knowing that hopefully, writing my struggles can help other people is just the best feeling ever! I cannot wait for the future so I can train to be a counsellor and hopefully help someone the way my counsellor has helped me!'
