“I'm ugly. I'm not good enough. My life doesn't mean anything. I'm not important. I don't deserve love. Success is for other people. I'm not a loveable person. I'm a broken person. I can't have...” Most of you would never dare speak to another human being the way you sometimes speak to yourselves. We've all done it. I certainly have. The negative self talk does nothing other than open a lifestyle that is laced with guilt, shame and sometimes many expressions of self punishment. Yet if you wrote down these things that you say to yourself and imagine saying them to a child you would be horrified. Yet you say them to your inner child every day. You deserve better. You really do. The thing is there's no device you can plug into the back of your head to hear your subconscious chatter. The only time you come across these thoughts and habits is when you are ready to step into something better. This is why it's not always a bad thing to catch yourself thinking a thought that is self critical. Sometimes it's just coming to the surface to show you that it's time to let it go.
I advocate being gentle with yourself as often as you allow yourself the awareness to be that way. When you are moving forward in life is often when your toughest challenges come to the surface and more often than not those challenges happen inside your own head. The tool I use to help me analyse what I am saying to myself is my diary. I've kept one since I was 14 and most nights I write. It's sitting back and watching what has come out of my brain that helps me to read between the pages of my life and see what I am allowing within my own energy. When I catch myself being too self critical I pay more attention to how worthy I am feeling. When I catch myself name calling to myself ( my favourite being, “not good enough.” ) I work on my sense of value. Now I am grateful that these don't show up too often in my mind but I'd be lying if I said they weren't still there from time to time. Normally when I set myself a challenge to move beyond where I currently am this negative inner chatter crops up. Sometimes it can catch me off guard to the point where I need a day or two to collect myself but most of the time I manage to recognise it, thank it for it's contribution and use it as a signal to move in the opposite direction.
I do highly recommend journalling as part of your spiritual well being. You don't have to do it as often as I do but how about weekly? Maybe sit there one night a week when you can find a spare 20 minutes and just do a “brain dump” of what's floating in your head and see what comes out? If you don't like what you're reading then atleast now that it's written you can take a step back and observe it calmly. Image speaking these words aloud. Imagine talking to someone else in the way you have just written. I remember a while ago when I recommended that someone try this and they outright refused saying, “If I read what I put down I'd probably go mad.”. The truth is not facing what's happening is it's own madness. The ego will try to convince you that facing up to how you narrate your life is something negative but being aware of how you create a dialogue within yourself is the first step to creating a dialogue with the world around you. You deserve gentleness. You deserve kindness. You deserve light. Open the doors in your own mind and let it in.
Thank you for reading.
Big Love,
Ryan James x
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