Maybe I should say “give yourself a GOOD talking to”! What’s your inner voice saying to you most of the time? Is it saying: “I’m a truly wonderful human being” or “I am worthwhile” or “I’m always good enough”? I’m guessing that, most of the time, it’s more likely to be “Oh no, I failed again” or “Loser” or “What can I do/say/think in order to be accepted and loved?”
I’m a life coach, not a psychologist, so I can’t tell you why we do it, but as a member of the human race I can vouch for the fact that we definitely do it. Here in Ireland, maybe we even have an extreme habit of doing this. Our historically Catholic ethos does not promote our ability to be proud of ourselves, congratulate ourselves or speak confidently of our own achievements.
So with that sort of background and schooling, I’m guessing that most of you know the kind of self-talk that I’m getting at here. Fair enough. But what can we do about it? In my life coaching business, I regularly come across people who are very keen on positive thinking, affirmations, visualisations etc. Great. Great for about the 20 minutes that you are doing your affirmations/visualisations etc. What about the other 23hrs 40mins of the day? Hmmmm?
Here’s where I’ve got to so far. I started out doing yoga when I was about twenty. I thought it would change my life. I enjoyed doing it. I loved meeting other people who were interested in yoga. But it didn’t change my life.
Years later I trained in massage and aromatherapy. I thought “This is it! This will change my life.” I loved/love being a massage/aroma therapist. It’s very fulfilling. It’s part of who I am. Helping people is what I enjoy. It didn’t change my life.
I studied Life Coaching. Now - if ever there was something that would change my life - this would be it! I trained and practise now as a life coach, helping clients, blogging and writing an e-newsletter. I LOVE it. I get great feedback from readers and clients. It didn’t change my life.
When I started learning/studying NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) I began to see what was going on in my life. I read books by Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Michael Neill, Paul McKenna, Owen Fitzpatrick and Brian Colbert, among others and these writers helped me to make sense of my life so far. Things that fall into the “DO” category, do not change my life. They are actions I take in my life. I can use them to help me make positive changes. But they are not the changes, they are just the tools.
Things that fall into the “BEING” category, are the ones that change everything. When the things that I DO are in tune with the person that I AM, then my life starts to flow in a way that no amount of training can achieve. I am very proud of all that I have studied and achieved (although even being so proud of myself took years and lots of positive self-talk), but most of all I am proud of the person that I am. That is who I am 24hrs of the day. So, while I may spend time visualising, time meditating, time doing positive affirmations, the most useful thing I can do is to tell myself, 24/7 that I am loved, that I am worthwhile and that I am always good enough, just as I am.
Try telling yourself that, 24 hours a day for even a week, and see how you feel. You’ll sleep better, feel more relaxed and more positive about each new day.
I came across this clip today, and I really like it. I would put it in under my “Feelgood Tasks” because I think it relates to a whole change of behaviour, which will bring long term benefits to your self and others.
Let me know what you think. I haven’t heard of this group before, so I’m promoting them. I just like the clip. I like what it says. It’s positive, affirming, motivational and it gets us out of ourselves and our own little world and gets us to focus on how we interact with others. Hopefully we can make that interaction a positive one.
Have you ever considered laughter as a means of self development? It’s not what springs to mind. The first things I think of are meditation, affirmation, reflection, journaling etc. But what about this - there was a professor on the radio recently, being interviewed on the health benefits of laughter - a really, good, long, loud belly laugh. It got me thinking about how I feel after a good laugh. Even if I’m in a negative mood when I start laughing, it’s just impossible to stay negative while laughing heartily.
I find I happen to agree with the professor wholeheartedly. I believe that, no matter what our situation, our mood or our level of self development, a good laugh is going to anchor us in the here and now better than any amount of meditating or chanting could do. It is immediate, it is urgent and it causes an instant release of tension in the body.
So, apart from the self development work you are already benefiting from, I hope that, having watched the clip above, you are also laughing so much you can hardly read this now!
Have you tried affirmations? Do you think they’re all just New Age nonsense? Have you been doing them for years and feel that you’re getting nowhere? Are you afraid you’ll just end up muttering away to yourself in the small hours of the morning?
Let me ask you this? Do you have a little self-critic living inside your head? A little voice that, as soon as you have a great new idea, it goes “Who do you think you are, with your great big ideas?” or maybe “It’ll never work, just like that time you …” or even “There’s no point, you’re just no good at that” ? What do you suppose that is? Yep. It’s a little voice doing affirmations. BUT it’s doing negative affirmations!
We all have them, a little inner voice that criticises us when we try anything new, or want a promotion, or want to write a book, or stand up and make ourselves heard. So - if you don’t believe affirmations work - have you noticed how well the negative affirmations DO work? Do you ignore the voice? (Rarely) Laugh at it? (I wish I could) Do you not have an inner voice? (What???) If you don’t, then please write a book about it, because you are one in a million!
For me, affirmations (the positive ones we read about and try out sometimes) are just an attempt to level the playing field. If I’ve been programming myself with negative affirmations for years, it’s only right to start bombarding myself with positive ones to even up the balance. I have years of negativity to combat and conquer. This is not a moan, or an accusation or an “Ain’t it awful” . This is just a fact. I have been accumulating a huge recording of negative messages for years. I have also gathered positive ones, but the negative ones (for most of us) win out.
Now the worm has turned. The little guy (me) is fighting back. The meek are inheriting the earth. And positive affirmations are a fantastic tool in the arsenal of any self-improvement fan. I don’t always find it easy to formulate a “good” affirmation. The best format (according to various experts in the field) is that:
They must be framed in the positive e.g. don’t say you don’t want to be overweight, say that you want to be trim and a healthy weight for you. This is because your mind doesn’t recognise negatives. For example, if I say “Don’t think of a bright blue car” you’ve already gone and done just what I told you not to. Because - in order to know what it is NOT to do - your mind has to reference what a bright blue car is before it can tell itself not to think about it! You’ll think it’s crazy, but you have no idea how convoluted our minds are (and yet, completely logical when you think about it).
Affirmations need to be in the present tense e.g. “I enjoy eating healthily and maintaining my ideal weight”. Your mind can only deal with right now, this minute. Everything in the past has been filed, and what is yet to come is not able to be processed until it comes. If we affirm “I am going to eat healthily” it’s never going to be NOW, so we’ll always be “going” to do it, but never DO it.
The more clear we can make the mental picture, the better the affirmation. e.g. “I am enjoying maintaining my healthy weight of xx lbs”. It gives us a positive, measurable statement to ourselves, backed up by an image of our slender selves, or of our ideal weight appearing on the window of our bathroom scales. Whatever works for you.
I only use the weight issue as an example, it’s quite a common source of affirmations. You can use the same format for any personal development affirmations you want to devise for yourself.
I love hearing from readers when they try any of the self-improvement suggestions from this blog. Comment here or contact me at daria@lifepotential.ie .
