Quit the Negative Self-Talk ASAP: The Science Behind How Your Words Create Your Reality

Despite all the negative self-talk running in my head, for years I figured the whole “watch your words” thing was a load of bullsh*t. 
 
Then about three years ago I came across research showing that emotions have a recipe, and it was a total light bulb moment for me. 
 
So in this episode I’m breaking down the actual science of how the words you use shape what you feel, and how learning to control your emotions starts with paying attention to how you describe what’s happening to you. I’ll keep the mechanics simple, I promise. 
 
In this episode:

• The saying I dismissed as a kid and why I finally bought into it three years ago 
• The story of my photo getting stolen and how one sentence flipped me from mildly annoyed to full-blown rage 
• Dr. Kristen Lindquist’s research showing that emotions have a recipe 
• My potter’s wheel analogy 
• Why it’s so important to use the right labels for what you’re thinking and feeling
• The negative phrases I used to say to myself constantly and how I broke the habit 
• A simple exercise for picking one phrase to swap out, and the friends-and-family trick for figuring out which one

 
If you tend to spiral when something hard happens and you can’t seem to talk yourself back out of it, this one’s for you.

Related episode on how to change your thoughts: I was Toxic. Here's What Changed My Negative Mindset

Transcript

 Today I’m so excited to talk about one of my favorite, favorite discoveries I’ve made  around three years ago.  So what’s sitting top of mind right now for me is just how much your language affects how you experience the world, or in simpler terms, just how much you feel. And this got me thinking about this saying that I’ve heard so many times, and maybe you’ve heard it too, which is, “Your words create your reality.”
 
Now, this concept has been problematic for me on multiple levels.
 
So number one, I think it lands in the category of one of those things that sounds good and maybe even feels good. But when you think about it, what does this actually mean? How do you apply this as any kind of change in your life? And do you understand the impact? For me, I was missing all of these pieces.
 
And in fact, as a child, I remember whenever adults would tell me something like this, that if you speak it, you make it real, I instantly dismissed it as a load of horseshit. For real. And I think a lot of it was because of how my family raised me, you know?
 
Like, clearly my parents didn’t understand the power that words hold over any person. And my mom, you know, God bless her soul, she’s a dang potty mouth. So clearly I wasn’t raised with model examples of people who were really watching how they described what was happening around them or even how they spoke to people
 
The concept of nonviolent language didn’t really exist in our household, right? And maybe the same was true for you
 
And then you run into the other problem where I think mental health and psychology has made huge leaps over the last 20 and 30 years.
 
So even though back then people subscribed to the same idea, no one was able to explain it in a way that made sense, and definitely not in a way that a child could grasp. So what happens, you know, when a child hears something that doesn’t make any sense? They just kinda toss it out of their mind, and you forget about it.
 
Until something gives you a reason to bring it back in front of your attention, front and center And for me, that moment came maybe three years ago. Now, my whole personal development journey has been in the works for at least the last 15 years.
 
So even though this concept kept crossing paths in front of me, and I think I intellectually understood it, but I don’t think I really, truly grasped it until this moment when I came across this research and For me, that was the light bulb moment.
 
So if you are like me, where you’re very pessimistic with how you talk or how you describe things, and whenever something challenging happens, you tend to spiral and you can’t seem to get yourself out of it, then you might wanna stick around for this episode, because there are some pretty cool studies showing how what you say affects how you feel.
 
And I will be talking about the mechanics of this.  Don’t worry, it’s not gonna be super complicated. I’m gonna keep it simple. But hopefully this will click for you the way it clicked for me
 
Before I got into coaching, I was a photographer  I was lucky enough to do headshots for executives all around this area, especially for a lot of Expedia execs. And I remember for one of them, she was a vice president at Expedia. I did her photos,
 
And what ended up happening is a startup took the photo I had taken of her and used it on their website without consent, which meant without proper licensing.
 
As a private photographer, any photo that I took of my clients is automatically copyrighted. As in, I own that photo,  so when this startup took the photo that I had taken and started using it on their site and who knows whatever other marketing materials, I still remember the day I found out because I was like, “What the heck?”
 
I already didn’t feel good because I knew that they had taken my work without my permission but I remember the very first feeling being general uncertainty because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do
 
So it was mostly neutral with a tinge of negative, confused, slightly worried energy
 
That was my emotional state, and that lasted for maybe around one or two days. But the minute I said, “They stole my work and they’re taking advantage of me.”
 
That mostly neutral and slightly worried energy suddenly shifted into rage and anger, and I still remember feeling that heat wave just crash over my body, my ears getting hot, and I started getting sweaty, and my heart started beating faster. I remember all of those physical symptoms.
 
Now, this happened around six years ago. This was right in 2020, and I hadn’t come across this research yet that I mentioned earlier. So fast forward three years and now I’m a coach and I’m balls deep in everything psychology and self-development and mastery and of course, some of this time is spent around Brene Brown and the books she’s written.
 
And if you don’t already know, she did a HBO special called Atlas of the Heart . So I start watching this show, and in one of the earlier episodes, she talks about this research by Dr. Kristen Lindquist, how this woman shows that emotions have a recipe.
 
And I remember feeling like, “What?” I was so fascinated by this one section of the episode that I kept rewinding and watching it again. I must have watched that segment maybe five times, and then I went off to Google to look up the actual research by Dr. Lindquist.   So here’s the findings in a nutshell, okay?
 
This is for you if you’ve never believed that there was any need to adjust your language and your speech beyond just being socially acceptable, okay? I’m saying this is for you. You want to adjust how you talk about things because of you, so that you can feel better, okay?  the research basically says this When something happens you will usually first experience some kind of feeling in your body
 
But it’s mostly raw and unformed. It’s kind of like a blob sitting there. But then what comes next is the words you use to describe that experience, and that impacts that blob.
 
So in my mind, what I see is basically like a raw hunk of clay on a potter’s wheel. If you’ve ever watched anything on TV or in the movies, like in Ghost with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. You know, if you’ve seen anybody working clay, right? They start off with this raw chunk of clay. that’s the feeling first appearing in your body The words you use to describe that feeling or that experience you’re having is like you working the clay with your hands
 
And those two things together determine the actual experience you come away with, that emotion. So ever since reading the research, I’m always imagining that raw piece of clay in my hands working the clay into a shape.
 
So you can be somebody where if you’re really angry, and you’re cussing and yelling and screaming at people and breaking things, you’re like the person who just keeps punching the clay and making a huge mess. Or you can be somebody who’s trying to work through the problem or who’s trying to express yourself in a productive way, in which case you’re then the person who’s actually shaping this clay into something functional, like a bowl or a vase
 
Whatever you’re left with of the clay, that is a direct product of how you chose to work it. So are you the person who ends up with this smashed ball of goo?
 
Or are you somebody who actually tried to turn it into something that you could use or look at?
 
Whatever that is, that is what you end up feeling as the emotion. That is what you experience mentally, physically, emotionally.  Words hold so much more power than I ever imagined.
 
And that’s what I find super exciting because that tells me I don’t have to be at the whim of my emotions or the circumstances that happen around me. It’s not like I can control the weather or people being shitty to me, but I can control how I react to these situations, and I can control how I express myself in and about these situations or these people.
 
Which leads me into my second super exciting discovery about all of this emotions research, okay? It’s really important that you find the right words to describe what it is you’re feeling or thinking. Because when you use the wrong labels, you can inadvertently shift what it is you’re feeling to something else.
 
So remember the story I told you earlier about how I was feeling mostly kind of neutral and maybe a little confused and worried about my photo being stolen, and then how my feelings just flipped like a switch the instant I said that they were taking advantage of me? That’s why that happened.
 
I went from feeling slightly negative to this crazy, intense, full-blown anger and rage and resentment because I told myself this story that they were out to do me dirty.
 
So this is why every single day I’m constantly questioning myself, “What did I just say?  Do I really mean that? And is that actually the most productive or accurate way to describe that?”
 
This is how I’ve broken the habit of saying certain phrases over and over to myself like, “You’re so stupid. You’re so lazy. Why are you so dumb? You should have seen those things before.” I don’t say these things to myself anymore
 
Because I know that whenever I hear any version of that, I instantly feel not good. And the more I dig in on  that kind of negative self-talk, the worse and worse I feel.
 
And when I feel that shitty, I’m not able to get anything done. I feel really terrible about myself, so then that makes me a fucking barrel of laughs to be around, right? I’m not good company for my friends or my family, and it just kinda taints the whole experience for the next day or two.
 
So that was me making a conscious decision to always be really mindful about the words I choose to use, because now I finally understand that, yes, words do create your reality
 
 If you want to try this too, then pick one phrase that you know you say too much, and then choose what you’re going to say instead.
 
And if you don’t know which phrase to start with, try asking your friends or family what they wish you would stop saying, especially about yourself. That’s usually a clue.
 
All righty, folks. That’s it for this week.
 
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to text the link in the description or reach out to me on LinkedIn.
 
And if you have a friend who you know really needs to hear this episode, please feel free to forward this on to them because it’s a twofer it helps me grow this show and it might change something for them
 
As always, thank you so much for listening. And remember, I believe in you. See you next time.