Many of us tend to engaging in negative self-talk. It happens often unconsciously, we are so used to doing it without questioning it.
Watching my favorite show, The Great British Bake Off, I noticed this behaviour among the candidates as well, many times, men and women alike. Putting themselves down, being overly self-critical or calling themselves “stupid” when making a mistake.
I did that myself many years of my life, thinking that I needed that sort of criticism because I messed up so often. Well, let’s face it: messing up is part of being human. It’s totally normal to make mistakes, but in my mind it was not because I expected perfection from myself.
Since then I have learnt a lot and moved on. What I focus on now is doing things in a slow manner for starters and not judging myself when I make a mistake, whatever it is. Beating myself up is not going to change what has happened anyway. But it releases stress hormones in my body, damaging my wellbeing in the long run. It’s not worth it.
This reflex is hard to stop though. Human beings are innately judgemental, towards themselves and others. It’s so easy to point out the obvious: what went wrong and then to punish ourselves or somebody else for that mishap with words. Children pick it up from their parents, and might still experience at school that mistakes are followed by ridicule and punishment.
Doing things slowly and focusing on what I do, one thing at a time, is a good way of preventing mishaps in the first place. Whether it is at work, while cooking a meal or communicating with others. It requires intention, concentration and being present. No multi-tasking.
When I am not present but being somewhere else in my head, that’s when mistakes are bound to happen. That’s why rushing in stressful situations is never a good idea.
Ambulance workers for example don’t rush when they arrive on the scene of an accident. They are very intentional in their movements and that requires a lot of training and self-awareness. This approach certainly serves the people needing their help best.
Just keep good spirits when things are sometimes difficult, everything will work out later, and nobody can do at the beginning what he would like to do.
Vincent van Gogh
But once I (inevitably) mess up I try to stay calm and breathe, and then continue on with whatever I was doing. No blaming, no complaining, just taking a few breaths and then calmly continuing. No need to wreck my day by making myself feel inadequate.
That I managed to get this far is a huge achievement already. In the past I used to call myself an idiot. I have moved beyond that since.
I am human thus I am not perfect and I don’t have to be. And that’s what I am telling myself.
The temptation to get angry in that kind of situation is of course always there. Any deviation from my self-expectations can trigger me easily.
A big recurring challenge for me is when my day does not go according to what I planned. Hardly any day unfolds according to plan, in fact. This is just my normal reality and I decided that getting angry with myself over it is not helpful. This has now become my practice of accepting a degree of uncertainty in my life and going with the flow.
No chiding myself. No judgement. Be open. Just breathe and let go.
I repeat these words quite often in my head.
Good point in fact: don’t forget to breathe. In stressful situations I tend to hold my breath, therefore I give it extra attention.
That’s step number 1: quitting negative self-talk and allowing myself to make mistakes.
Moving on to positive self-talk is step number 2: acknowledging and encouraging myself. You did good. You’ll be fine. It’s ok to feel that way.
It takes a while to internalize it, but things do get better. It takes awareness and constant practice. As always, I really need to make an active choice to change my behaviour and aim to responding instead of reacting.
Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence. Hold on to the truth within yourself as to the only truth.
Buddha
Accepting life as it is. Accepting what is (Byron Katie). Accepting the inevitable.
It sounds easy but is so hard. It’s a very big deal, in fact. It makes you humble, realizing just how fallible we humans are and that nothing in life is a given.
We do not need to know or understand or be able to fix everything, or to slide through life perfectly well. These were once my beliefs I setup as a child. I let them go since and found more peace. They are still surfacing sometimes but they don’t control me anymore.
Riding the waves of life, navigating the everyday currents is essentially like bouncing up and down. This practice takes courage, acceptance and humility.
The only thing we can do is trying, every day again, to do better tomorrow and to treat ourselves better.
And acknowledge our small victories every time we succeed.
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Positive Choice 