You will never talk yourself down again after reading this
A simple guide to reprogramming your brain
In most cultures of the world, you will hear this statement :
“If you want others to respect you, you should start by respecting yourself”
First thing you think about when you hear this is that you should have regard to the feelings and the rights of others by being polite and acting decently.
But there is another side to the coin. Do we have regard to our own feelings and rights?
How do we respond when our body tells us it is tired to go out?
How do we react to contact with unhealthy food and substances?
What do we say to ourselves when we make an error or fail at something?
Do we put an end to situations that bring us down?
Every person has their own acquired quirks that they use to act and react.
Let’s take for example the situation presented in the first question above where your body is so tired and you are invited to go out.
Some people would rather stay in because they need to rest while others will definitely prepare themselves for the night-out.
If you see yourself in one of these two personalities, try to remember what social interactions meant for you as a child and a teenager, and remember your parents’ social life.
In most cases, people who always go out no matter how they feel have tendencies to please others, to fit-in, to preserve a large social network.
On the other side, the ones who prioritize their well-being and health were usually raised by caregivers who taught them to listen to their bodies.
This following story gives an example of what I’m saying.
A member of my family taught her children to express their emotions to her and she would always act on it. For instance, they were at the neighbor’s house and her kid seemed sad. She walked to him and asked him about his feelings. He told her that he felt frustrated, not knowing the reason, and that he would rather leave. She instantly walked him to the house.
When I heard her story, my intuitive reaction was that I would’ve told him to hang on a little longer. After all, he is a kid. Her response was that kids are future adults and if they have bad emotions, we should listen to them. This way, when they grow up, they would not repress their feelings to please others and therefore live a happy life.
Same goes for reactions to unhealthy food, procrastination, confidence…etc. They all depend on the person’s “programming”.
Shad Helmstetter puts it well in his book “What to say when you talk to yourself” when he says :
“Your success or failure in anything, large or small, will depend on your programming — what you accept from others, and what you say when you talk to yourself.”
Do you know what the good news is?
You can replace your programming the same way computer softwares evolve and get replaced by newer and more effective versions.
Let me share with you the three steps I use to rewire my brain, discard old patterns and create new solid programming.
- Notice the internal dialogue and accept the behaviour
“Knowing is half way the battle”, right?
Most often, we don’t realise the self-talk behind the unconscious reactions we have in life like overeating unhealthy food when sad or angry, abandoning learning a new skill from the first time or lighting up a cigarette every time we’re stressed.
The foremost step into taking action is noticing the negative self-talk and naming and accepting the behaviour.
So let’s say you are very sad and you walk to the kitchen and start eating. Remember to notice the internal dialogue linked to the action. Say for example : “I feel down, I need sugar”
When you learn to notice your emotions and name them, you make the unconscious conscious and this is the first step towards change.
Besides noticing, accepting whatever action we take with self-compassion is primary. In fact, labeling ourselves as bad or weak because we can’t manage to control our behaviours is the number one reason to repeat them.
Here’s the cycle : I am sad, I eat, I hate myself for eating, I feel bad, I eat more.
Try this instead : I am sad, I notice and name my emotion and therefore action, I accept my behaviour with compassion.
2. Write down your inner talk and rephrase it
Writing down our feelings and thoughts have been shown to have a very positive effect on one’s self being. But, in order to change the programs of our brains, we need to find the right phrases to tell ourselves.
Growing up, we formed our inner self-talk with repetition. For every situation of every day of our lives, we repeated the same unnerving phrases to ourselves :
“I am lazy”, “I am very clumsy”, “I am not good at remembering names”, “I can’t lose weight”, “I can’t stop smoking”, “I don’t know how to say no”, “I’m not good at math”, “I can’t talk with people easily”…etc.
Now, imagine your younger self in front of you and you need to convince them that they are not what they claim to be. How would you do it ?
I personally learned, from Shad Helmstetter’s book, several rules to rephrase old negative self-talk and I invite you to learn them too.
Here are the phrases I would tell my young self using the teachings of positive self-talk :
“I am lazy” → “ I am energetic” “I like to take action”
“I am very clumsy” → “ I am graceful” “I do things meticulously”
“I am not good at remembering names” → “I am interested in people I meet”
“I can’t lose weight” → “I respect my body and I like to eat healthy food”
“I can’t stop smoking” → “I love breathing fresh air into my lungs”
“I don’t know how to say no” → “ I am honest with myself and others”
“I’m not good at math” → “I commit to learning and challenging myself”
“I can’t talk with people easily” → “I love to connect to people”
3. Make a positive self-talk routine
It took your whole life to create your actual programming, so you need to have patience in order to replace it. And “repetition is a convincing argument” — Shad Helmstetter
But how can we manage, in our modern busy lives, to make these self-talk routines daily and stick to them in the long run?
I highly recommend the book “Atomic habits” by James Clear that teaches very effective ways to incorporate tiny habits in order to have remarkable life changing results.
Here are two out of four laws to create a good habit that you can use to rewire your brain using positive self-talk.
A. Make it Obvious
In order to make your new self-talk habit obvious, you may design your environment so that you practice it without prior preparations.
Personally :
- I put a block note on my living room table in order to easily remember to practice
- I associate it with my already established morning routine of drinking coffee by making an obvious clear plan : “When I pour my cup of coffee, I will sit down and write my positive self-talk phrases, every day with a new twist”
Another way that is also compelling, according to the book, is to record your positive self talk and play it out loud while you prepare yourself to go to work. Subconscious listening is very effective too in changing thought patterns.
B. Make it Easy
The more it is easy to do, the longer we stick to it.
Reduce the time spent on doing your habit. For example, write for only 5 minutes or even less.
State the number of phrases you write every morning and stop when you’re done.
You can also stick “post-its” of your positive self-talk on the objects you use the most. For example, you stick one or two on the bathroom mirror, others on the fridge or on your coffee machine.
This way, every time you are in front of these objects you practice self-talk easily.
Finally, always remember that :
“You are everything that is, your thoughts, your life, your dreams come true. You are everything you choose to be. You are as unlimited as the endless universe.”
― Shad Helmstetter, What to say when you talk to yourself
