Break Away From Negative Self-Talk: You Do It Bird By Bird
Hi there. Welcome to One Day You Finally Knew: A Podcast For Women Breaking Away. I'm your host, Jessica Chasnoff, and I'm super excited about walking together on this journey, home to ourselves. Let's see where our walk leads us today.
Hello beauties. Mmmm. I would like to talk a little bit today about breaking away from negative self-talk. I'm laughing here because I was just about to say, this is hard, which, I mean, I feel like I'm going to be a bit of a broken record. It's funny. I, I listened to Glennon Doyle's really wonderful podcast, 'We Can Do Hard Things". Anyway. So I'm thinking, you know, she's talking about hard things. I'm talking about hard things. How many podcasts can we have where we're talking about hard things. But things are hard. Things are hard in our inner world and things are hard in the outer world.
Breaking away from, from negative thoughts, again, not an easy thing. And what I want to say from the outset here is that we're never going to fully break free. There's going to be things, situations, people, even that I may talk about in our time together. As this podcast goes on, I'll be talking about lots of things that we might not be able to break away from completely.
And this is definitely one of them. Negative self-talk. And these thoughts can be intrusive. As always, I'm going to be transparent here and say that in the course of my day, every day, I am having to work with negative thoughts, self doubt, imposter complex, or imposter syndrome, whatever they're calling it now.
I always have called it Fraud Complex, but I think Imposter Syndrome is the way it's been popularized. All kinds of thoughts about not being good enough, about not being worthy. I imagine this is familiar to you. And the, the thing that makes this unique to people who identify as women is that women's worth, the way that it's approached and the way that it is quantified, it's very different from the way that men's work is quantified. So we're already coming into whatever we bring to the world behind this curve and we have to work, you know, we find ourselves working, we shouldn't have to, but we find ourselves working, especially hard to feel like we have worth in this world.
I think that this is why often, we get caught up in scarcity mentality as women, because we feel like there actually isn't enough to go around for all of us. And part of that is because we're getting what's left over from men. A friend of mine has described this, in a different context, but I think it fits there too is, you know, women getting to drippings from what men have.
And that's still very much true. It's still true. I think that's why that's in me. And I think in all of us. I don't think I'm alone in saying that I have to work with this regularly. Maybe not all of you have to work with it daily, but I certainly do. I have a way that I, I kind of have to talk myself through my day sometimes.
And especially now with trying new things. Letting myself expand in that way. I'm moving out of my comfort zone, you know, the podcast and some writing that I'm doing and getting myself out there more. Those thoughts are coming more frequently. So what I want to talk about is how to work with them.
Even if we can't break away from them, we can work with them. There are steps we can take to work with them. I'm going to go through those here. The first thing, and I believe this is the first thing with everything is awareness. When we are aware that something is going on, already we have brought ourselves out of the soup a little bit. Instead of swirling in the soup, we've actually kind of hoisted ourselves up onto the rim of the pot.
Okay. Still hot, still uncomfortable. Still slippery. Can fall back in. But it gives us a little bit of space to work with this differently. The moment you have awareness that something's happening, it's changed the thing, right? When we hang out in that meta-position, right? This place above where that thought is already. That's something.
Okay. So that's our first step. That's what we want to have. And again, that's practicing. It's very easy to have the thoughts going on for a while. Moments, minutes, hours, days, years. You know. Before we can actually stop and say, "Wait. Oh, there's this thing going on. This is happening". Okay. So the noticing that it's happening in and of itself as a game changer.
Once we notice it's happening. We want to label what it is. We don't just notice it's what we're doing. We're actually telling ourselves, this is what we're doing. Thoughts want to be thought. That's what they want to do. They start as just this, you know, these footprints going along kind of bushwhacking through, but as they keep going and going, they make a trail.
And then before long, they make a groove and then that groove becomes a rut. And it's created the super highway inside of you. In your brain. That's what they want to do. They want to get thought and thought and thought until they just become the super highway, the streams of thoughts move through. When we label what it is we are saying, wait, I'm not necessarily going to let this go on its merry way without saying, "Hey, I see you.
I know what you're doing". Right. Just giving a little tap on your shoulder." Hey, self-doubt. Hey Imposter Syndrome. Hey, fill in the blank. Okay. I hear what you're saying to me. I got it". We want to acknowledge it too. Okay. Thanks for showing up. We label the thing. That's really important. So having the awareness when the thought has come in, as soon as we can. Right?
It might be going on for a while before we notice it, but then we notice it. Then the labeling, right? When you give it a name. Okay. This is what's happening. And then giving the name, doesn't make it more real, right? It's not going to go away just because we think, okay. If I don't give it a name, it'll just go away.
No, no, no. That's not what's going to happen. These things are stage five clingers. They're gonna hang on. So you're kind of starting to like bust it open. That was my busted open sound, my busted open sound effect. And you do that when you start to label it.
Okay, now this piece, this next piece is really important. And, you know, it's interesting. So, you know, I talk about this with clients a lot, and it's amazing when I say what I'm about to say to you. I cannot tell you how often I get the eyes that basically I can tell that my clients are wanting to flip me the double bird when I say this.
And I, I often point that out. I'm like, I'm noticing this look that you're giving me. And I just want to say, you know, you can flip me the double bird about this. It's, you know, it's okay. I am not offended by people flipping me the double bird in our sessions. We just bring that right. You know, I'll tell you why people do this, because what I'm about to say, people don't necessarily like to hear.
And that is. I'm not the first to say it. Don't believe everything you think. Your thoughts are not gospel. I mean, I just, I love my clients. And, um, I mean, I've had a few clients say that. Like this to me, like, what are you talking about? Every single thought that my brain has is brilliant. This wonderful sarcasm and, um, and this great self-deprecating humor, which I understand well. Right. You know, we want to believe that our thoughts are gold. We don't want to have disbelief around them when they pop in. We don't even really want to suspend our disbelief. We're just like, yeah, this is, this is my thought that I'm thinking and so it's true. But it's not.
I mean, we can be, oh man, we can be brilliant, bad-ass babes and we can still be full of shit with the thoughts that we think. Both/And babies. Both/And. You're gonna hear me say that a lot. Both will happen. You will have brilliant, amazing thoughts and wonderful things that come from that, but you're also gonna have thoughts that are full of shit. And so it's important to notice that when the negative self-talk comes in, to at least entertain the possibility that this thought is horseshit. That you don't need to believe it. And, you know, getting curious about, okay, if I believe this thought, what does that do to me? You know, I spend a lot of time with that. Okay. This thought just came in. It's about self doubt. It's about feeling like I'm a fraud or I'm a whatever, whatever.
And, how do I feel believing that this thought is true. Even when we do things that we maybe could have been more artful or skillful around, it doesn't help us, even when we're giving ourselves constructive criticism, it doesn't help us to bash ourselves. It helps us so much more, if we can find this way to just like, okay. "Pick myself up. Dust myself off. Start all over again."Right? Like, that's what I, that's one of my things I do every day. I mean, I, I'm literally doing that every day when I do something that I think I failed at, or might've actually for reals failed at, I sing that little ditty to myself. I recommend it. I recommend finding a little, something, just a quickie thing, you can kind of sing or say to yourself.
Okay. So anyway, back to not all our thoughts are gorgeous and amazing and true. Working with that. And then, you know, acknowledging what just happened, right? Like, okay. This thought came in. I was aware of it. I've labeled it. I've gone through. Okay. I don't need to believe this and then acknowledge it. Okay, great. Thanks. Bye.
Just like, okay. I hear you. Right. Let it know. It's okay. That it is a guest and your guest house , as Rumi would say. Just letting it know. Okay. Thanks for stopping by. Had a little metaphorical cup of tea, dollhouse size, and now you may go. Off to my day. Off to yours. I mean, it's hard not to be like, go torture someone else, fuckwad.
I try to stay away from that language because then I get into a fight with that thought. "Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm not this. You are.I am, you, I dare you not to say! Oh, I double dog dare you. I triple dog dare you!" Yeah, that can happen. So just notice that. So acknowledge it and then let it go. It will come back.
It's gonna persist, especially if it's an intrusive thought, you know. It's just going to keep showing up and keep showing up and keep showing up. Sweet peas. Do not be discouraged. Just because this thought keeps showing up does not make it true. It doesn't make it true, just because it's always there. That's a really important thing to remember. Just because something is persistent doesn't mean that it's true.
So you just repeat this over and over and over again, you, you get like a broken record. Okay. I'm aware that you're there. I've labeled you. I've reminded myself. Don't need to believe everything I think. I've acknowledged the thought. Thank you, bye. And now it's back and I'm going to do that whole thing again.
This is just how it is. I would love to tell you that you're going to be able to break away from this completely. Hey, if you do. Yeah, let me know if you can completely stop that because I, you know, I just don't, I think we need to abandon all hope of fruition with this one. We just work with it in the moment. Moment by moment. Bird by bird.
Some of you may know this story Anne Lamott tells. She's so amazing. Her writing and just as a human being. And, in her book, Bird By Bird, which is actually a manual on writing, she talks about how I believe it was her brother had procrastinated doing this paper on birds for a long time. And then finally, the night before it was due came and they're sitting around the dinner table.
And he's freaking out and he's like, "how am I going to write this paper that I saved to the last minute" and their father, you know, Anne Lamott's father was like, "bird by bird son. You're going to do it bird by bird". I also just have to say, I love that this came up this, uh, bird by bird, saying just that actually, came up in, um, Ted lasso, which I love.
Okay. Never break away from Ted Lasso. If you're watching it. Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt, please keep making this show because it is awesome, in all the ways! Especially around the work on toxic masculinity and getting rid of that. And everybody's just amazing. Anyway. Okay. All right. Enough, enough enough. So bird by bird.
You do it bird by bird. Okay. Every time one of these thoughts comes in, you work with it. Go through those steps. Let it go. It will come again. You do the same thing. What we're actually doing here is we're setting a boundary. Okay. We set boundaries with other people. There's a way that we are attempting to, we're saying what we need.
We're attempting to kind of train their brains to do what needs to be done if they're going to stay in relationship with us. And sometimes that works sometimes that, that doesn't, we, we know not everybody's going to be able to meet our needs, but we got to ask. You know,as grown ass women, we get to ask for our needs to be met.
And we, you know, if we hear that's not gonna work, then okay. We figure out what we're going to do, because we know now.
We can set these boundaries with our thoughts too. While we can't say "you're out of my life" in the same way that we can to a person who is not meeting our needs and refuses to abide by the boundaries that we're setting, we can keep setting that boundary over and over. For me, and when I've spoken with my clients about this, how they're doing with this, this is the feedback that I get.
Even though I need to work with this every day I move through it more quickly. I move back into a place of like, "Hey, you know what, Chasnoff, you're okay. You're okay. Just keep going." I'm move back into that place. Much more rapidly with this practice. So I'm curious to see how it works for you. Try it on, check it out, see what happens. And, uh, you're certainly welcome to let me know. I would love to hear.
Okay, sweet ones. Thank you for your time and thoughtful attention. I really appreciate you. If you are enjoying this podcast, please subscribe and give it a five star rating. If you're someone who's a fan of reviewing, I would certainly enjoy reading your review.
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