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- You Need to Stop Using These Labels
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 43 seconds
Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Mrs. Wisdom Made Easy!
That’s right - she’s back!
You loved her first newsletter, so she’s back with another nugget of wisdom that you need to hear.
Let’s get WISER together!
The way you talk to yourself will influence your life.
If you go through your day telling yourself that you are weak or a failure, you will start to believe it and it will affect everything that you do.
On the other hand, if you talk to yourself kindly and you remind yourself of your strengths, you will certainly tackle the day more positively.
How you talk to yourself matters.
Let’s unpack this a bit more, shall we?
Which set of these labels would you rather use?
I know which labels I would rather use - do you?
Let’s look at someone who knows a thing or two about this:
“Talk to yourself the way you'd talk to someone you love. Most of us shame, belittle, and criticise ourselves in ways we'd never think of doing to others.”
Brené has an exceptional gift in sharing wisdom in ways that makes them relatable.
We all have someone that we love that we would never consider shaming, belittling or criticising - why would you do that to yourself?
Think of some of the things that you say to yourself in your head or even aloud.
“I’m stupid.”
“Why can’t I get anything right?”
“Of course I have to mess this up. I’m useless.”
“I’m so weak.”
I’m sure you have your go-to insult to yourself.
Now imagine sitting in a café and nearby are two people having a conversation.
One of them starts saying those hurtful things to the other and you hear it all.
What would you think?
What would you do?
Would you go over and tell that person to stop?
It hits differently when we hear someone else being insulted.
If it’s not acceptable to say it to someone else, why say it to ourselves?
Whenever I mess something up or forget something and I start with the negative self talk out loud my husband says:
“Hey! That’s my wife you’re talking about!”
That often kicks me out of my negative mindset (not always right away of course 😅).
And when he is hard on himself I often say:
“What would you say to me if I made that mistake?”
All of a sudden there’s a lot more grace and kindness.
Since we’ve had our baby daughter, I try to be even more mindful of how I talk to and about myself.
If she grows up hearing me make negative comments about myself, she will believe that to be the norm.
I want my daughter to grow up to be courageous, curious and adventurous.
She will inevitably make mistakes and I really want her to know and believe that she is loved and worthwhile no matter what.
Consider how you speak about yourself and what example that might set to those around you.
To consolidate today’s wisdom and understand how you can speak more compassionately towards yourself, journal through today’s Reflection.
Here are 3 journal prompts to help you explore today’s wisdom:
How can you catch yourself in the moment when you talk negatively to yourself?
What are some positive things that can exchange the negative self-talk?
Do you have friends or family members that often talk to themselves negatively? Share with them how important it is to change that!
Dove is a well known personal care brand and they have done some interesting ads in the past.
One of the ads is essentially the aforementioned scenario played out.
The ad focuses on physical beauty and targets women, but the idea also relates to our character and applies to both men and women.
Watch it here:
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Catch you in the next issue!
Thanks,
Michael