The Art of Mastering Your Self-Talk

Welcome to This Daring Adventure podcast, where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life. In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills you need to make your life the adventure you want it to be. Here's your host, mindset mentor and life coach, Trista Guertin.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of This Daring Adventure. Thank you so much for joining me today.

In this episode, I wanted to talk about how you talk to yourself and the conversation that's going on in your own head and what you say and the tone and the words that you use, because the words that you use are very, very important. And if there's a lot of negative self talk, it will impact you, it will have an effect, and it won't be good.

So, let's dive right in. When you talk to yourself, what do you say? What is that voice inside your head saying to you?

A lot of times what we are doing is judging ourselves. We are talking down to ourselves. We are criticizing ourselves. It might be about our appearance, it might be what we're thinking. It might be something that we've done or we've said it might be something that we've failed at, or maybe something that we didn't do. It could be about our past. It could be about our ability and capacity in the future. It could be about not meeting expectations, whatever it is, it's very negative and it can be name calling, it can be put downs, it can be judgment, it can be a wide range of things, or in fact, all of them. I know that I have subjected myself to all of those at some point or rather. What's clear is that for most of us, we would not talk to anybody else in the same way. Certainly, we stopped calling each other names when we were maybe in school, primary school, high school, right? And we certainly wouldn't talk to our children like that, our partner like that, our friends and our family.

And for some reason, it's okay to talk to ourselves like that. But not to others, and I think part of the reason is obviously that there isn't the same consequence. We're sort of stuck with ourselves, and I think it's also a mechanism of our brain. We do default to the negative. We are looking for problems. I think there is a train of thought that believes that we are protecting ourselves. We are trying to make ourselves do better ultimately, like sort of the negative motivation. And regardless of the reason, we know that this is really not okay. Of course it's not okay. So what can we do about it? Because I promise you that it does matter. It will directly affect your relationship with yourself. And your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you will have, or you, that you do have. And this relationship affects every other relationship that you have. It affects how you show up. It affects how you do. It affects what you will try, what you will go after. And it affects how much effort and your energy that you will put into something. And so it basically will affect how you show up for everything in your life. And if you're not having a good relationship with yourself, then other relationships and everything will be that much harder. So this really is work worth doing. Figuring out What you can do to start to change that narrative in your head. Probably, this is a pattern, a habit that started many, many, many years ago, probably in adolescence. And so it's a hardwired habit in your brain that just happens or feels like it happens automatically, and then you have no control over it. This is just the way it is. The truth is that with neuroplasticity, we can rewire the brain. We can start to make changes. Nothing is set in stone. We can start to change the way we think. And one of the best ways to start doing this is just to become aware. Observe how you are speaking to yourself. The words that you use, the tone that you use. Is there name calling, the put downs, the judgment? Just observe all of it. Don't judge yourself for it. If you catch yourself putting yourself down, name calling, don't judge yourself. Just be curious and maybe reflect a few minutes as to why, what's going on for you, and then you can start to look at the facts of the situation. Perhaps you are You're putting yourself down, calling yourself a name because you didn't do as well in the pick a ball game that you were playing in and you lost. And you want to look at what is the fact. The fact is you lost the game. The fact is maybe you made a mistake or your partner made a mistake. Everything else you're adding is just drama and it's not necessary and it's completely optional. So, separating that out and just looking at the straight, bare minimum facts and understand that the story that you're telling yourself is a lot of drama that's not necessary. And that includes the name calling and the put downs and the judgment.

The other thing you can do is just reframe the story slightly. If you made a mistake, if you lost the game, you can just say, you know what, it was a good experience, you tried your best, you learned a lot, you're making improvements, you're figuring it out, you're having fun, you get to play again next time. Figure out a way to reframe it so that you're not focusing so much on that loss or what you're perceiving as the problem. But tell your brain. and give it something a little bit more positive to focus on that seems to feel a little bit better than the former story.

Have some compassion for yourself. Whatever's happened, whatever you think is wrong with you, whatever mistake you think you made, whatever problem you think there is with you, try to be curious and have some self compassion and some kindness and some love for yourself. The same way that you would for anybody else in your life, your best friend, whoever it is that you feel a particular affinity for. You know that if there was a problem, if something had gone wrong, that you would have no problem expressing that self compassion and that love for.

So imagine being able to have that same compassion for yourself. Don't blame yourself for anything. Know that you're human, this is all a part of the human experience, that nothing has gone wrong.

Sometimes, if there is a particular pattern that you cannot break free from, You may have to be a little bit sterner and a little bit more emphatic in the way you speak to yourself. In that I mean the same way you would maybe speak to a puppy that you were training and being far more assertive and direct, like stop it. That's not acceptable. No, we're not doing that. Use that tone with a little bit more authority to stop what you're doing and just simply do not tolerate it.

Finally... You will want to choose thoughts that are more empowering, more positive, that are slightly believable, more believable than, than the negative thoughts.

There's a great app called Retrain Your Brain, and what you can do is record yourself reading statements, saying statements that you get to choose. They do have some suggestions. In the app itself, and so you can record a few minutes, 5, 10 minutes, whatever it is that you want to play back to yourself every morning when you're in the car, when you're getting dressed before bed, whatever it is and. They will help to reinforce some of the messaging, the more positive messaging that you want your brain to start to believe and to embody. And this is a great way to start changing the narrative in your head. Choose thoughts and statements that are slightly believable. You don't want it to be completely unbelievable, completely ridiculous. Like you never believe that you'd be able to, to embody it or, or to, to become it, and most of them aren't like that anyway, the ones that they've suggested in the app, but choose ones that resonate with you basically. And then you can always change it. You can add to it. I've added. I started with five minutes. I'm up to 12 minutes now. I've got this entire recording that you can add to as you go. And as you find new thoughts to add. So, it's, it's a really interesting and fun tool to use to start to retrain and reprogram that narrative in your head.

Again, Be patient. This will take work. This will take effort. This will take a little bit of time. You've probably been thinking this way and tolerating this way of speaking to yourself and thinking years and years. But over time, you can make changes. The brain is able to change. You are able to change those thought patterns and make the improvements that will help you to show up differently in your life. Because you know, that the put down to the judgment, the criticism aren't serving you. And they aren't going to help you to create the life that you want. They're not going to help you show up as that person that you want to be.

Alright, that's what I have for you today. I hope that's helpful. If you have any questions, any comments, please feel free to email me. I will add my email in the show notes.

And as always, if you have a moment to rate, review, share, and subscribe, I would greatly appreciate it. Help to get the word out to other potential listeners and, and learn about all the great content that we're putting up here and the podcast.

If you're interested in learning more about coaching and trying it for yourself, I do offer a private one hour coaching session free of charge the link to my calendar to set something up will be in the show notes as well. It's a great opportunity to get some clarity and some certainty on any issue that you wish to bring. Learn more about what it's like to work with me. I offer an amazing transformative three month coaching package and I would love to meet you.

I would love to hear from you and hear what's going on and what issues you're facing and show you how powerful coaching can be.

Talk to you next week.

Thanks everybody. Bye. Bye

Thank you for listening to This Daring Adventure podcast with your host Trista Guertin. We hope you enjoyed the tips and conversations on how to get excited about life again.

As always, you can head to tristaguertin.com for additional resources and to book a one on one coaching session.

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