Today I’m reminded that what you tell yourself can actually become a reality. People underestimate the power of their self-talk. It is really important. Positive thinking, of course, is not new, but people leave themselves out of that thinking usually. It’s important to think well of yourself and to adjust your self-talk.
How many times have you made a mistake and called yourself an idiot or worse? How many times have you caught your own image in a glass storefront and told yourself how fat and ugly you are? How many times have you said to yourself, I’m going crazy, I can’t handle this? Or have you said to yourself, I’m a bad parent or wife or whatever?
What about the times you tell yourself you’re really sick, probably, with whatever, or you whine to yourself that your knees hurt, that they’re bad. You’ll probably need new ones. Whatever self-talk you perform, you need to know that your brain believes you and acts on that belief like a code of operations. It does what your mind tells it. That is its job.
The cognitive approach to changing your reality is to change your thinking about not just others, but about yourself. Even the most empathetic and loving people frequently abuse themselves with their self-deprecation. This is unhealthy. One must think loving thoughts about oneself. If you cannot muster that, think of your dear self as a baby in your mother’s arms, innocent and beautiful and loved.
It’s not that you need to lie to your brain, you simply need to re-frame a true thought like, instead of my knees are going bad, tell yourself that the walking outside is making them stronger. When you start to have a meltdown, you can tell your brain that you can calm down if you want. It is powerful – just keep telling yourself you can calm down, over and over.
In one’s lifetime, of course, one develops many automatic thoughts that repeat endlessly. It is important to examine these and regard the situation. Do these thoughts create a reality or hinder a better one? What if your brain is the most loyal computer ever? Its output conforms to its input, which then programs your reality accordingly.
Self-talk improvement can go a very long way toward interpersonal well being. As that becomes the reality, then one can extend one’s love and faith outward into the world and universe to affect change. I hope we do that.
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