Make Your Damn Bed

(remastered August 2023) DAY 13: NEGATIVE SELF TALK 

If your inner voice manifested into a human form today, would you be friends with it? I think a lot of us would have to teach our new friend some manners before going into the real world. Which is wild to think about - that the most common voice, our most reliable narrator, our internal operator is kind of an asshole? Is really sad to me. If the voice we live with, and listen to the most, is not nice? What does that mean?

Negative self talk quickly trains your brain to believe that the criticisms of it are true. This is why it’s so crucial to train your brain that the good shit can be true, instead. 

If you cuss yourself out every time you drop something, or call yourself names when you make mistakes, I highly recommend this tactic: 

EVERY time you catch yourself thinking or saying something negative about yourself (or someone else) you MUST say OUT LOUD two unique positive things to counteract that thought. And take a second to absorb it and try to believe it. Train your brain that there are alternate ways of thinking and believing and perceiving. 

Now I fully recognize that reframing isn’t a miracle cure for everyone and everything, but this one, with enough practice and redirection - does work. And the less we complain, the less we see the world as a thing to complain about, and find a lot of the shit we were complaining about was not that big of a deal to begin with. 

Notice it. 

Then replace it with more positive thoughts. 

Then reward yourself with a lil hell yeah. 

And if this sounds hokey and too much for a simple thought - the magic of the practice is because it IS too much, it doesn’t reallllly take that long to stick in theory. Think about it, nobody is gonna wanna self correct and think of new original and unique compliments all day, especially if we struggle with positive self talk, so it’s  a real solid rebuttal strategy! 

The brain is a giant computer. 

Computer needs updates + reprogramming occasionally. 

We should be keeping up with this shit anyway. We need to “sleep and shut down” to keep the battery healthy. But this is a great way to do so. 

I recommend you start recognizing the negative speak first, then highlighting it by redirecting when you can - just to see how often you’re falling victim to your own bullying but not noticing because you’ve been living with them for so long. 

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.