Self Talk

(NB: For the sake of anonymity, I refer to a old friend as they/them.)

The other day, I was talking with an old friend from high school. We hadn't spoken in over twenty years, not because of a falling out or anything but because our lives just lead us in opposite directions. They immediately recognized my voice the moment I asked for them, and they sounded the same to me too... except, I noticed one thing they said several times in our thirty minutes together that really worried me.

My friend, as far as I recall, was never a stellar student but I always assumed that they just weren't interested in school. They were wickedly funny and we would make each other laugh until we couldn't breathe. Their razor-sharp wit was such that I never once thought of them as being a stupid person. But, these two decades later, they said several times "You know me, I'm such a dummy" when we were talking. And I couldn't help but wonder where that came from and why they said it so casually about themself.

Maybe they were making self-effacing jokes but I don't think they were. Sadly, I think they truly believe this about themself and it reminds me of a point I talked about with my own grief coach: the power of self-talk.

Think for a moment about the things we repeat to ourselves when no one else is around. I don't mean rehearsed mantras that we recite in order to talk ourselves up - I mean the ones we say out of nowhere that we just accept to be true. "I'm SUCH an idiot!" might be one when we misplace our car keys for the umpteenth time. "You're so f***ig stupid," we might growl under our breath when we can't figure something out. "You fat slob," we might sneer when we're clumsy.

Now, think about the voice you hear when you say these things. Whose is it? How old are you? And how do you feel when you hear it?

And, would you say any of these things to a child?

Self-talk is powerful. We repeat things we learned so young because we've come to believe them as facts. They deeply impact the stories we believe to be true about ourselves, and they inform our limitations and our failures.

I propose an experiment: the next time you hear yourself self-blasting, take a moment and stop what you're doing. Are you really a f***ing idiot? Or did you just make a simple mistake? In that moment, think about how you want to feel instead. Change the self-talk to reflect that. "I'm a f***ing idiot" becomes "Oops."

That's all. Just oops.