Your Inner Voice

How do you talk to yourself?  Are you overly critical?  Can you change your inner voice to be more kind?  Yes, you can!  Join me as we talk about shifting our inner voice from something negative to something positive.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast Working on Amazing. This is podcast where we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life.

And I use that word rebuild because we are designed specifically for women who feel like they're starting over in the middle of their life. There could be a number of reasons that lead you to that point.

For me, it was divorce, for my sister, it was the death of her husband.

A lot of things can get you to that point where all your plans for the future kind of go up in smoke, your hopes and dreams, the different things you thought were going to happen are no longer part of the equation.

And it really feels like you're starting over. If that's you, first, let me say, I am so sorry. But I also want you to know you are not alone.

You're in the right place. Welcome. I am so glad that you're here.

So let's get down to today's episode. Today, we're going to be talking about mental health. If you'll remember, in the very first episode, I said there were five areas I focused on when I rebuilt my life.

I focused on my spiritual health, I focused on my mental health, I focused on my physical health, I focused on my financial health, and I focused on growth and goals.

So today is going to fall under that umbrella of mental health, and we're going to talk about that. And the exact thing we're going to talk about today is your inner voice.

And that may sound a little weird, but most of us have an inner dialogue that just runs in the background of our mind. Okay?

Now, I will say, there is a caveat, I did read an article recently that said 30% of the population do not have that inner dialogue running with themselves. They don't have that inner voice. If that's you, then maybe today's episode is not for you.

However, for the other 70% of the people, let's talk about our inner voice. Let's talk about how we talk to ourselves. I'm going to give you some examples and see if you recognize any of this stuff.

Okay? When we're defining what our inner voice is, it's yourself talking to yourself, right?

I mean, that sounds so simplistic, but an example, you're laying in bed at night, you can't sleep, so you're replaying a conversation you've had at some point, either earlier that day or two weeks ago, but you're playing that conversation.

And in your own head, you say, that was so stupid. Why did you say that? You're such an idiot.

Have you ever had a situation like that where you've talked to yourself that way? Or have you ever looked in the mirror and thought, why did I buy this top? It does not look good on me.

I look like crap. What was I thinking when I put my makeup on? This just looks ridiculous.

I don't like the way I look. Have you ever had negative self-talk? I think most of the time, we aren't aware of it.

It's so unconscious, just this thing that plays in the background. But it really matters the way we talk to ourselves. And we have to start becoming aware.

How do I talk to myself? What am I saying? And I think when we're in a better season in our life, where things are going well, we probably aren't as hard on ourselves.

We probably maybe talk to ourselves well. I'm not sure. I became aware of how I talked to myself when I was going through a really dark season.

And I realized I had an inner bully. I was my own bully. I talked to myself worse than anybody else in my life.

I really talked to myself bad. I would berate myself. I really fuss at myself over something I had done, maybe a mistake, maybe somebody had said.

That is not good. It's not healthy. It's not good mental health.

So we really have to start becoming aware of how do I talk to myself. What plays in your head when you see yourself in the mirror? What do you say to yourself?

Are you really critical of your looks?

When you remember, like I said, a scenario, a conversation you had with somebody else and you're replaying that in your head, are you really critical of the way you handled it, of the things you said or what you did?

That really negative inner voice, if it's negative, we've really got to work on figuring out how to stop it. So I don't know where you are. You may not have a super negative inner voice, but I did.

So for me, the first thing I really needed to identify, oh, my word, I talk really bad to myself. And it's really easy to not notice it.

It's really easy for you to be really self-critical, and it fly under the radar, because you're not saying these things out loud, you're saying them in your head. It's really easy to not be conscious of it.

So we really have to stop and realize, am I doing that? Am I berating myself? Am I being a bully to myself?

Am I really self-critical? How do we stop that? Okay, so I'll tell you what I did to stop it.

And it really was just kind of a happy coincidence. I don't know that I would have thought this through ahead of time, but the way it worked out was I started to become aware that I was being really negative to myself.

I had heard somebody talk about it, I'd read an article about it, so I kind of started to become aware of this negative self-talk. And during that time, when I was trying to figure out, how do I stop it?

You know, okay, now I know that I talk negatively to myself, but what do I do about it? During that time, I start, I was sorting through some pictures that I had, and I found a picture of my kindergarten graduation.

And I'm standing there, and I have on a cap and gown, and they're both red, and my shoulders are scrunched up, and my face is all scrunched up, and I'm smiling, and I just look like the happiest little kid.

Like, kindergarten me, super happy, so excited to graduate from kindergarten. I don't think I realized I had a lot more school ahead of me. I was just beginning the process, but I was so excited.

And when you look at the picture, it just really conveys happiness and excitement. You know, I was just really whatever. And so I saw this picture, and do you know what I thought?

My thought was, I would never talk to this kid the way I talk to myself. And she is me. That is me.

So I talked to myself really bad, but when I saw this picture of me, I would never tell her, you're such an idiot, why did you say that? That outfit doesn't look good on you. Why'd you buy that top?

That's ridiculous. I would never say anything like that to that little girl, would I? No, of course not.

So I decided to take that picture and make it the wallpaper on my phone.

So every time I pulled out my phone to do something, I saw this kindergarten picture of me, and it reminded me, if you wouldn't say it to her, don't say it to yourself, because she is you. Don't say negative things to you.

Only say what you would say to her. And I would catch myself sometimes in a negative cycle, where I would be saying really negative things. But seeing that picture every single day, every time I pulled out my phone, really helped stop that cycle.

For me, just looking at that little girl, and saying, I know I wouldn't say that to her. I needed a constant reminder. That's why I put it on my phone.

I know some people remind themselves by writing something on the mirror. They see it every morning when they wake up, every night when they go to bed. People do different things to remind themselves.

But for me, seeing that on my phone every day constantly, I needed that because it's so easy to slip into that habit of just really talking negative.

And I think when we're in a really, really negative season in life, things have not gone the way we planned. That's why we're here. We're starting over.

We didn't plan to start over halfway through our life. Something didn't work out the way we planned. And so when you're in a negative season and things haven't worked out the way you planned, it's really easy to be negative about other people.

It's really easy to be negative about your circumstances. And like mold, it just grows and it spreads, and you talk negative to yourself.

And we've got to be so careful when we're in a really dark negative season, that that negativity just doesn't spread everywhere. Sometimes negative things happen, and we cannot help them. They are beyond our control.

But that negativity can fester and grow inside of us. And when it comes into our own internal dialogue, that's a real problem. We've got to stand out negativity.

I feel like all the way around, if we want to live a happy life, a really amazing life, negativity is like mold. It does grow in the dark. And if you're in a dark season, that is really the analogy for negativity in the dark season.

It just grows. So we have to really fight against it. And I think that's why we're talking about it today, because you're so much more susceptible to negative self-talk when you're in a dark season, because everything else feels negative around you.

I do get that. But noticing it and identifying it is like, whoa, okay, no, I've got to stop this. And then having something to constantly remind you.

I don't know what you would pick, but I would really encourage you, go find a picture from your childhood. Go find little you and talk to that picture. Would you tell that picture of little you, all the things you tell yourself?

I think not. I think we need to speak to ourselves with more loving kindness, more grace, more tenderness, especially when we're in a dark season. So we have to stop the negative self-talk.

We have to remind ourselves because it is a daily thing that you could fall into constantly, because it's running in your mind. And we do it unconsciously and subconsciously, it just happens. And it's a really bad habit.

So you have to constantly remind yourself, oh no, I don't want to do that. I would pull myself out of a negative train of thought a lot. And I could still, to this day, need to pull myself out of a negative train of thought.

But you catch yourself enough times, it becomes easier to not go down that road.

It's just right now, your mind is so used to going down that road of berating yourself, of telling yourself you've done something wrong, of being really critical, that you've got to really work over and over, stop yourself, take yourself off that

train track, put yourself on a different train track. No, not today. We're going to go on a different track.

And you have to stop yourself, but that's okay, because at the very least, you're recognizing that I have this negative self-talk, I'm being highly self-critical, and I need to stop that.

The other thing I would suggest is, okay, you know that if you do have a child, right? Let's say the child, my kindergarten picture, that child, let's say they're standing in front of me.

If you spoke really negatively to them in their whole life, that would affect the outcome in adulthood, would it not?

And if you had the same child, and you just spoke positively to them, and were encouraging, and loving, and kind to them, and you did that in their whole childhood, that would affect their adulthood, and you could have two of the exact same children,

but one you spoke really harshly to, and negatively to, and one you spoke lovingly and kindly to, exact same children, but they would have very, very different outcomes. I think we can agree, like we get that, we know that, right?

So how much more so the way you speak to yourself, how much is that going to change your mood? How much is that going to change your behavior, your productivity? Everything in your life is going to be colored by the way you talk to yourself, right?

So we want to stop the negative self-talk. Yes. Can we replace it with something better?

Yes. So what I started to do is instead of, if I would catch myself, if I was berating myself over something I had done, that I thought was stupid or whatever, when I caught myself, I would say, I love you. It's okay.

Just like I was speaking to that kindergarten picture of me, like I was speaking to little five-year-old me, I said, I love you. It's okay. And I started to replace the negative self-talk with positive self-talk.

My inner voice went from being highly negative, like a bully, to being loving and kind. Now, this took some time. This wasn't a switch.

This wasn't a flip. This took time. I had to retrain myself in my inner voice.

But slowly, I began to talk positively to myself. And I will be real with you. At first, it felt very unnatural.

I've said, I love you, to other people in my life. My family, my children. I can say, I love you.

I had never said, I love you, to me. I don't know. That just wasn't something I had done.

It felt odd. It felt weird. But I did it anyway.

And I would pull up that picture of kindergarten me. Even if just in my head, I had to think of what that picture looked like. And I would say, I love you.

It's okay. I love you. It took a while for me to really feel like I loved myself.

But it's important that we love ourselves. And that's a journey. I get that.

But it really starts with your inner voice. It starts with the way you talk to yourself. It starts with how you treat yourself on the inside.

When you tell yourself you love yourself, and over time, you really begin to believe that, hey, I love me. Then you're not looking for love in other people and other relationships, like desperate to be loved. You know you love yourself.

You just come from life, you approach life, from a much stronger vantage point, when you have self-love. And the way to start that process, because that is a journey. I'm not trying to pretend it's not.

That is a journey. But we start by telling ourselves, I love you. It's okay.

I love you. And accepting ourselves right where we are. Before I lose weight and am in perfect shape, I love you.

I love you right where you are. Before I get my finances in order, and I have a savings fund, I love you right now, right where you are. It's not conditional.

I will love you. I will feel better about myself. Maybe this sounds more natural to you.

And if you said, I will feel better when I have X number in savings. I'll feel better. I'll be happy with myself when I lose 20 pounds.

That's conditional love, and that's not what we deserve and what we need to give ourselves. We need to give ourselves unconditional love. So I love you right where you are.

You need to tell yourself, I love you. I really do. I love you.

And yes, I want to be financially solvent. That is really important. I want to have a savings fund.

And because I love you, and because my love is unconditional, and it is not dependent on anything, I'm going to set healthy boundaries for myself, and I'm going to put in spending regulations because I love myself.

And as you change this relationship with yourself, your mental health will change. And it all starts with our inner voice and the way we talk to ourself. And in making the shift from super negative self-talk, right, to really positive self-talk.

And the easiest thing to do is just say, I love you. Over time, I think once you feel more comfortable with it, and you're more whatever with it, and you maybe start doing the affirmations, you can start saying more stuff.

But just start with telling yourself, I love you. Because over time, that will feel real and right and natural. I do love myself.

I do love kindergarten me. Kindergarten me is me. I love me.

I love you. As you tell yourself that, and you grow in that, if that's all you can say, and that's a super easy, simple thing to say, as you mean it, as you feel it, it will make a big difference.

So if you're somebody who struggles with self-criticism and really, really, really negative self-talk, and that is where I was. I was so negative. And once I became aware of it, I was so surprised at how bad my negative self-talk was.

Like, oh my word, I was so harsh. I would have never spoken to anybody as bad as I spoke to myself. And nobody in my life had ever spoken to me as harshly as I spoke to myself.

And it was eye-opening once I actually kind of tuned in to that inner dialogue and that inner voice, how critical I was, how mean I was to myself. But seeing that picture of kindergarten me made a big, big, big difference.

And I really do challenge you, find a picture of you in your childhood. What would you say to that child? Would you say those negative things?

And what loving things would you say to that child? I mean, just as a practice, pull out the picture. How would you speak to little you, to childhood you?

Because childhood you lives inside you. They're still part of you. What would you say to them?

And childhood you needs to hear, I love you. Childhood you needs grace. Childhood you needs love, and reassurance, and kindness, and tenderness.

Pull out the picture and talk to it. I mean, I know you don't want to do this in front of anybody else. You want to be alone when you do this.

People think you're crazy talking to pictures. But seriously, when you look at a picture of you, of yourself, from your childhood, I don't think you're going to be harsh. I think you're going to be very loving, and very kind, and very tender.

And as you go through this process of building an amazing life, and we're working on putting a life back together, and a life we can be proud of, and there's a lot of changes that come with rebuilding a life, right?

I mean, I went through so many changes. A move, a new house, a whole new routine with the kids, because I was a single mom. I mean, just everything changed, right?

As you go through all these changes, that's why it's good to fold in new changes with your money and new changes with your physical health, because when everything's changing, you can fold in more changes, and it's not as noticeable, it feels like.

But in this time of change, and as we're working on building an amazing life, this is a time where this positive self-talk is really going to come in to play. Let's say you've set a goal to lose weight. I want to get in shape.

I want to be more toned. I want to be more healthy. I don't want to have low energy.

I want to have more energy and just be in better shape. So talk to yourself like a child. Look at the picture of childhood you.

And what would you tell childhood you? You would say, this is what's best for you. We're going to get up and go to the gym because this is what's healthy and best.

How would you parent a child who only wanted to eat cookies and candy? You would say, no, that's not what's best for you. We're going to eat some vegetables.

We can have a little bit of that. That's fun, and that's okay. But we can't eat all that, right?

Sometimes we have to parent ourselves. So I really do encourage you to find a picture from your childhood. Sometimes we just have to parent ourselves.

Even as we're making changes, like we've got to save money. Look, I know you want those shoes, they look really cute, but you really need to pay your bills.

I know you want that new handbag, but you really are going to feel better if you have a fully funded savings account.

This inner voice and how we talk to ourselves and coming from a place of love as we talk to ourselves is going to make a huge, huge difference.

It's so much healthier, and it's so much better when you come from a place of love as you're making these changes. I love you, so I want you to have a good savings account. I love you, so I want you to be healthy.

Instead of, I'll be happy when I lose 20 pounds, I'll be happy when I get my savings account. That's a conditional thing. But loving yourself unconditionally, and speaking to yourself from a place of love and acceptance.

I love you so much, I'm not gonna let you just eat cake tonight. I love you so much, I'm not gonna let you spend money on something you don't need. A savings account is better for you.

When you love yourself, and it comes from a place of love, and that inner voice is there encouraging you, that's a whole different ball game. That's just living life at a different level.

And when we've gone through a bad season, and like for me, I was rejected by my spouse, it was cheating, it was a situation like that, so it was very, very easy for me to have horrifically negative self-talk.

I felt so negative about who I was, the way I looked, because I felt rejection, and I felt unloved, and unworthy.

All of the things that come, I think, when somebody cheats on you, is it's a horrible feeling, and I don't wish that on anybody, but going from that to a positive self-talk, going from that really negative internal voice to I love you is okay, I love

you is okay, makes a big difference. It's not like this is something that's going to make you super joyful. It's not like you're going to taste the rainbow and be like super happy. This is like a steady, down deep, better feeling.

And when we talk about mental health, and we talk about rebuilding our life, this is something that A, is going to help you make changes, because your inner voice is there, encouraging you or discouraging you, right?

So this is going to help you with the changes you have in the future. But also, think about our mental health, right? And so many of the things that I have talked about so far are almost like more external.

So we can do positive affirmations. We can do gratitude. We can get rid of clutter.

But internal is that inner voice, right? And if your inner voice is still really negative, it doesn't matter how much you wrap around the outside, you're still going to struggle with your mental health if the inside is toxic and negative.

If we get the inside positive and we work from the inside out, that's going to make a big difference, right? And if this is one of the foundations of rebuilding our life as good mental health, this is just fundamental.

The way we talk to ourselves on the inside and shifting that from this super negative self-talk to positive self-talk. It doesn't even have to be super positive, just, I love you. I love you.

That's all. I mean, you can go from there. You can.

But shifting it from the negative to the positive. And I, like I said, really believe that finding a picture of you from your childhood will really help.

Talk into that picture and the way you talk to that picture, let that be the tone of your inner voice. How would you talk to five-year-old you? What if five-year-old you had a really bad day?

What if five-year-old you said something offbeat in a conversation with somebody else? Would you berate them over that? What if five-year-old you decided to wear a quirky outfit?

Would you berate them over that? Would you tell them they look stupid? What would you tell five-year-old you when they were struggling with some of the things you are?

And I know you're an adult and they're a kid, but overall, how would you handle it with the child inside of you? And let that set the tone for how your inner voice needs to go. We've got to stop this really negative self-talk.

It's going to be hard to rebuild an amazing life if we have this internal critic going off all the time in our head. We can change the narrative. We can do it.

We just have to become aware of it. We have to remind ourselves, this is what I'm going to do. I am, oh yeah, I forgot.

I am going to talk to myself better. Oops, I slipped up. I started to say something really negative.

But you know what? I caught myself. So we identify it.

We stop the negative self-talk, and we start the positive talk. And this is a good key element as we rebuild an amazing life, because this is going to affect so many other areas.

Like I said, when you go to your physical health, how you talk to yourself, this is going to play a huge part in that. When you go to your financial health, how you do that, this is going to play a big part in that.

Even your spiritual health, your growth and your goals, how you talk to yourself, is going to affect every single aspect of your life.

Getting a handle on this, and really taking hold of how you talk to yourself, and taking back control over it, instead of letting it run in the background, is so key to rebuilding an amazing life. I know you can do it.

So tell me what you're going to do to remind yourself. Share your childhood picture.

I'm going to put my picture of me in my kindergarten graduation garb on Facebook, so you can see what I look like, the picture that I had on my phone for like two years. I'll put that up so you can see it, but show me your pictures.

Tell me how you're going to remind yourself. Hey, I've got to stop that negative self-talk. I would love to hear from you.

I'm working on Amazing. I'm on Facebook. I'm also working on amazing.com online.

Look me up, drop me a line. I would love to hear from you. Thank you for joining me today.

I look forward to hearing from you next time. Bye.