How's That Voice In Your Head?
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and fortunately, we are witnessing a transformational change in attitudes to mental health, it’s complexities from just feeling down, to more challenging circumstances.
We spend a lot of time in our minds, rather than in the experience of the moment. Caught up in the dialogue of our head, talking to us, taking our attention away from what is happening around us.
How often we experience this depends on whether, over time, we’ve slipped into a habit of MIND CHATTER.
Having conversations with ourselves is part of our humanness. Its how we process stuff and on many levels completely ok. However, it's when it moves into deprecating ourselves that there is cause for concern.
Negative self-talk is often adopted in childhood when we are most impressionable. Consistent comment, or at worst criticism, from an influencing ‘caretaker’ (parent, sibling, etc) weaves its way into our psyche and puts down roots, as the brain physiologically adapts accordingly and goes on ‘autopilot response’.
There are many factors, that can take us into negative mind talk. It is considered to be a practice that we do, so here's the good news, that therefore means it is something we can actually UNDO 😊
👇🏼
HOW YOU CAN OVERCOME IT
1. You need to be aware of what the underlying reasons for the self-criticism are. Then you can deal with the issues around them.
Put some light on it. Feel, process, forgive.
If the stuff that comes up makes you feel wobbly, then go talk to someone, and if necessary seek professional advice to help you process things.
The aim is for YOUR OWN POSITIVE SELF IMAGE TO RISE ABOVE THE NEGATIVE OUTSIDE ONE 🙋🏼♀️
Awareness is the first step to this.
2. You need a strategy for dealing with the habit.
I 💕 Eckhart Tolle's advice: BECOME THE OBSERVER:
When the inner critic kicks off, don’t resist it. Instead imagine yourself observing the conversation, looking on it from outside. Don’t judge. Just listen.
By looking in on what is being said, as an observer, you detach yourself from it, like it's not actually you the conversation is about.
With practice, this weakens the commentary and disempowers the critic. It raises your awareness and gives you a conscious choice to control what is going on in your head.
Make them good ones 🙏
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