Thanks to My Love of Writing I No Longer Bully Myself
When you write and motivate others, you should also be motivating yourself.
As a longtime journal writer, blog writer, ghost writer, ebook writer, and novelist, I can fully attest to the fact that writing can be an excellent source of healing. People in the world today suffer from all sorts of emotional pain. Their pain (just like mine) is often connected to any number of physical and psychological events from their past.
A few short years ago, one of the main ways that my own pain was manifested was by me bullying myself with negative self-talk. At one point, I even wrote about being a bully and beating myself up. Thanks to what I wrote back then; and my continuing to write, I no longer bully myself the way I once did.
Positive Self Talk
“I credit writing for helping me learn how to stop beating myself up and instead, find ways to lift myself up.”
Although I still get a little down on myself occasionally (after all, I’m only human), for the most part, I do a lot of positive self talk. I credit writing for helping me learn how to stop beating myself up and instead, find ways to lift myself up. I’ve been through a lot in my life, but no matter how traumatic or difficult things have been, I have no doubt that writing has been a major coping mechanism through it all.
Over the years, I’ve covered a multitude of topics, and offered plenty of useful advice when it comes to self-healing. If I catch myself doing something that I’ve written and cautioned others against doing, my conscious eats away at me until I correct it. That was why I recently pulled out and dusted off a list of important reminders that I created for myself and published a few years ago. That list is now available in a Medium story.
10 Self-defeating Attitudes to Avoid at All Costs
The 10 attitudes are a good example of my own bad attitudes and negative self-talk. But the list also includes what I’ve learned to do in order to successfully counteract those attitudes. Once I submitted the story to Medium, I realized how much I’d been beating myself up recently. Suddenly, it made me recall what I had previously written on the subject of self bullying.
In one of my little Amazon ebooks (Several Simple Solutions), I have a brief discussion about how we all have a tendency to bully ourselves. This excerpt is taken from that ebook:
“You’re still a Bully if you beat YOURSELF up!”
Most people would agree, there is nothing worse than a “bully”. When we see someone else being physically bullied, our first thought might be to intervene. Whether we break it up ourselves, or we call an adult, a cop, or someone else to help; we just want the bullying of another person to stop. Bullying can also come in the form of verbal abuse.
“Do you know that if you beat YOURSELF up, you are still just being a bully?”
The way that most people feel about bullies, they would never think to talk mean to someone that was feeling down or bad about themselves. This is also considered to be a way of “beating someone up”. Would you do this to another person?
More than likely, your answer to the above question is: “Of course not!” You wouldn’t think of beating someone up when they made a mistake, or when they forgot an appointment, or when they simply failed to meet up to your expectations. Then why would you do it to yourself? Do you know that if you beat YOURSELF up, you are still just being a bully?
Be Kind to You
Sometimes in life, we find it easier to be kinder to other people than we are to ourselves. We don’t always like the way we see ourselves through our own eyes. Not getting a job, or a romantic breakup is just the kind of thing to makes us “get down on ourselves.” When we make mistakes and failures along the way, we don’t forgive ourselves, the way we do other people. That is often when the bullying starts. You may begin with self-defeating thoughts like “I’m stupid”, or “ I’m unattractive”, or even worse, “I’m not worth anyone’s time”. If this sounds like you, STOP BULLYING YOURSELF!
Stop Self Bullying
Around the time that I first wrote about self bullying, I was basically scolding myself in public for being a bully. I used the same line of reasoning as @lauramohsene when she wrote: “Why won’t the voice in my head stop berating me and instead encourage me? I say encouraging things to other people all the time because I know how important it is to be supported emotionally.” Her words in this Medium story hit way too close to home!
Telling the Voice in My Head to Shut the $#@! Up
When I first focused on this topic, I gave myself a good public tongue lashing for being a bully (to myself). As a result, going forward, I was able to do a pretty good job of heeding my own advice. I focused my attention on doing much more positive self talk. But like most of us humans, I guess I started slipping back into old habits. This started up again several months ago, during a particularly stressful time. It wasn’t until recently when I reminded myself of what I wrote, that I began to follow my advice again.
Clearly, after offering such practical wisdom (not to mention knowing that the advice actually works), I’d be foolish, not to rely on it again. I’d also be a hypocrite. So, thanks to my writing, I’ve stopped bullying myself again. By continuing to following my own sensible advice, it also helps to keep me honest. I may have been a bully in the past, but nowadays, I’m back to using positive self talk, something that is actually a form of healing.
Thanks for choosing to read one of my Medium stories. Since the writing of this particular story, a lot has happened and I invite you to visit my Justiss Goode Medium profile and read some of my recent personal essays and miscellaneous life lessons that I know you will enjoy and benefit from.
