Self-Talk

This episode addresses one of the biggest blindspots most people have when doing self-development and self-transformation work.  It’s the impact and influence of self-talk.

Too many of us have completely normalized horrible, awful self-talk.  So much so that when we initially contemplate it we think we’re actually pretty good at this.  Or we think that THAT’s not a real problem for us.

Think again, my friend.

This episode describes why self-talk is so important, what you can do right now to assess your own and how you can repair the damage to this critical aspect of your own relationship to yourself.

As you already know, I love this work, I love you and I love hearing from you!  Let me know how you’re putting this to good use in your own life.  I’m doing this work alongside you and I’m cheering you on!

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Transcript

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0:28

Hello friends. Welcome to another episode of Dr. Tammy talks. Today, we are talking about self talk. It is so interesting to me that this actually is one of our biggest blind spots when it comes to doing self-development work. We are so conditioned to speaking poorly to ourselves. We have normalized. Horrible awful. Self-talk I would say 90% of the clients that I work with when I first ask them. After we've had the initial consult and we've agreed to work together. And in our first session, one of the first questions I bring up for them. Is so overall, what's your relationship with yourself? How do you communicate with yourself? Are you kind to you? And when I ask this, 90% of people will say, oh yeah, like I'm, I think I'm pretty kind to myself. I'm, I'm pretty good there. You know, like that's really not the problem for me. And by the third or fourth session together, sometimes even in the first we've uncovered so many ways that they have been terrorizing them selves, truly speaking, and saying things to themselves that they would never say to another person. And it can be so horrific that they're actually saying things to themselves, that they would never even say to somebody they hated. And I wanted to talk about this because I think for so many of us that tend to be high performers, high achievers, we've confused. Conversation that we think is motivating with outright self-harm we have confused ourselves into thinking that the way that we speak to ourselves is just the way it is. So, let me give you an example because this can get really kind of like, okay, are we nice? Are we kind, are we not like, what is it to be mean to one's self? Why does it even matter? And why it matters is because every time you decide or you fall in to this habitual pattern, this is what it is. Our self talk is a habitual pattern. There's a whole neuro circuitry that this is running on. There's a whole biochemical profile in the body that this creates, there are downstream effects down to the level of our DNA. What, what genes are being activated or transcribed are affected by how we're speaking to ourselves? And if this is inducing a stress response, we need to care. Not only is it about a stress response, it's about befriending ourselves. Because as long as you are willing to throw yourself under the bus, as long as you are willing to talk shit to yourself, you will never feel safe in your own mind and body. The repercussions of this are significant your ability and your capacity to change your life and live a different future than the one you have now will require you to be kind to yourself. And if that's the price of admission to a beautiful life who isn't signing up for that, like I'm raising my hand right now. You can't see me right now. Cause this is a podcast. But I'm just wondering if your ticket to a better future was 100% predicated on having a compassionate, curious, kind, loving relationship with yourself. Would you be willing to go there? this is the question. So let me uncover what's the most common way that we communicate with ours. Even with my clients that think they're kind to themselves had had a conversation with someone, gosh, now was this like yesterday or two days ago? I can't even remember, but it was this week. And they had been experiencing a physical setback where they were needing to rest the body physically needed to recuperate. And the narrative so quickly turned into I'm lazy. I'm failing. This is a major setback. I can't believe this is happening. I'm weak. And this client had themselves convinced that that wasn't negative self. Had themselves convinced on some fundamental level that that was the truth. And this is what's tricky about your inner talk is you think it's truth. You don't even know to question it. You don't even recognize that it's hurting you. You don't even understand. That this is the talk that keeps you stuck, where you are. And so in conversation with this client, I was, I was, I was kind of shocked. I was like, wow, that is some powerful stuff. That is some powerful stuff. And one way you can know how to shift your talk from the sort of like negative self deprecating self depriving talk is to consider if my best friend came to me with the same exact situation. What would I say to them, what support and love and kindness and encouragement, what I have for somebody I deeply loved who was experiencing exactly this and the, the result of that is vastly different. Then the current monologue dialogue, whatever you wanna call it, that's going on in relationship to one's itself. And so I wanted to bring this here because this happens again and again and again. It's happened to me. It continues to happen to me every once in a while. I will come up with like a story and I go, whoa, that is so interesting. That is a habitual pattern of self sabotage self defeat, self destruction. That I'm no longer willing to continue. That is so interesting. And if you can have this kind of compassionate relationship with yourself where you recognize that these habitual patterns that are coming up are like, oh, mm that's just a familiar pattern. That's right. I'm not doing that anymore. When you can be kind to yourself, you have this capacity and ability. To gain, composure, to gain coherence, which is what I teach my clients, which now gives you access to the anterior gyrus, which gives you access to the part of the brain that allows you to shift your attention and your focus to what it is that is life affirming, that is self constructive. Instead of self destructive and we spend time focusing the mind intentionally on what it is. We want to create feeling that safety the biochemical byproduct of that thought process is a feeling is an emotional state. And I encourage myself, my clients, you as my friend, my listener, to do this for yourself, to be intentional about your thoughts. I know several episodes back the theme was mind management. We don't even recognize that our minds are being unmanaged. It's like the monkeys are running the zoo. And then we wonder why we feel stressed, overwhelmed, frustrated, exhausted, intermittently anxious, overwhelmed, burnt out. As long as you're willing to talk shit to yourself about yourself, or as long as you are willing to criticize complain, condemn yourself, you will not be able to see what really needs to be changed, nor will you have the capacity to change. And I know you. I know you're listening to this because you wanna change. I know you, I know you, you're my people, you are so ready to go. Okay. This way of life isn't working. I'm ready to change Dr. Tammy, show me how, tell me how this is it. This is foundational. The most important relationship in your life is the one you have with you, period. It's the thing that determines the safety you have in your physical body, the safety you have in your mental, emotional spaces. It influences and impacts how you think and how you feel literally literally shapes the lens through which you perceive the world and alters the internal processing mechanisms of the brain. Which affect how you process the stimuli incoming from the outside world and determines how you show up in your life, how resilient you are, how able, capable you are. And this relationship that you have with you ends up being the foundation for every relationship that you have. I hear a lot of people talk about not setting boundaries, not having enough time, not having enough energy, not having enough money, not having enough. Love all of these boil down to one central component. This is a stressed, nervous system and a stressed brain running on habituated patterns of stress based neuro circuitry. We've got to dismantle this, my friends, there are many ways to do it. I invite you to come and explore mine. It's effective. It's efficient, it's sustainable. It works. And. We want to come out of this stress based neural circuitry. We want to befriend ourselves while we do it. We want to turn into our own best friends. One of the most important things for you to do right now is to do an audit, do an internal thought audit right now, look at the last 24 hours. And how many times have you called yourself a name or names? How many times have you criticized yourself? How many times has your inner talk created self-imposed shame or blame. How many times have you showed up kindly and supportive and loving? How many times has it felt like you have your own back in the last 24 hours? You could take it out further. If you want 48, 72 hours. I don't care the whole week, but I want you to get really clear with yourself that you're an asshole to yourself. And right now commit that is over decide right now that you're gonna be your own best friend. Decide right now that no matter what goes down in this life, no matter how the cards fall, no matter what happens, you have your back. The reason why you feel abandoned, the reason why you feel like you're stressed and struggling and you're alone is because you have abandoned you. No other relationship can compensate for self abandonment. My. And you will search outside yourself for safety, for love, for belonging, not realizing that the one place that needs to be created is within you. Do this work, this is not selfish. This is fundamental to your ability to change and grow and become the most liberated, healthy, whole successful evolved version of yourself. I love this work. I love that my ticket to freedom begins with befriending myself. And we have to learn how to do this. We've been so conditioned to treat ourselves so poorly and think in some seriously sick ways that that's where success lives. And it has gotten you far. No doubt. Look at where you are, but this thought model will not take you where you want to go. This is, as far as it can take you, and it's gonna start taking you down, you've got to start loving on you. So decide right now, it's you and you baby, from the day you're born till the day you die. It is you with you make that the most important relationship of your. Make your inner talk, the strongest, most nourishing, most loving, most encouraging, most spectacular talk of your life and see what happens. And will you share it with me, please? I love this work. I love you. I love doing this work with you. Share it with me. Let me celebrate with you for you alongside you. Because I'm telling you this work, it changes lives. It's for me, it's for you. It is for us. This is our time. So happy you're here and I will catch you on the next episode.