How Is Your Mind Health: Why Do We Beat Ourselves Up?
To clarify, I mean with our words to ourselves. How many times during your day are you telling yourself:
How smart you are.
How amazing you are.
What a great job you are doing.
That you can do anything you put your mind to.
How beautiful you are.
How important you are.
What an inspiration you are.
Most people do not spend any time at all recognizing themselves for all they are doing. In fact, they tend to be looking at all of the areas in their life where they are lacking. If you looked at the thoughts going through your brain on an average day do you tend to bring yourself up, or knock yourself down?
It is so easy to look for areas in your life that you have not mastered yet and tell yourself that you are not good enough, that you should be working harder, if it was really important, you would do it. We tend to latch on when someone tells us we didn’t do something good enough and then tell ourselves that we suck at doing that thing.
When you look around the world, which is so easy now with technology, we see glamorous people. Wealthy people. Fit people. Smart people. People who are changing the world. We look at our Facebook friends and see how happy their worlds are and everything they are accomplishing in their lives. We look at our neighbors and see their bigger houses. Driving down the street we see the people with exotic cars. We observe all of the vacations being taken, the jet- setting happening around the world.
It is very easy to forget that life is still 50/50: 50% good, 50% not so good. You see all the good happening for others and can fall into the trap of comparing and thinking you come up short, which is natural. It happens to everyone. We are human, and therefore it’s in our nature.
It happens in our everyday life. We forget to do something and we make it mean we are forgetful. We argue with our family, friends or co-workers and make it mean we aren’t nice. We judge ourselves because we didn’t get a “perfect” on our project and we make it mean we aren’t smart enough. We go into debt and make it mean we are terrible with money and will never be financially secure. We over-eat when our goal is to lose weight and we make it mean we will never be able to lose weight. Others are better at parenting. Others have better kids. Others’ relationships are better.
Whatever you are telling yourself, not all of it has to be true. We create these stories that make us feel terrible and we think we are just telling ourselves the truth, but we aren’t. They are just thoughts…thoughts that rumble through our minds because we have been practicing them for years.
You have to know that your ideas about what is healthy, and right, and correct and how you take care of yourself are just your opinions. It is only a version that you have created in your mind. A story that you tell. A story you choose to believe. What if everything thing that you have done and everything you haven’t done is perfect and part of the journey you were supposed to have? It doesn’t mean that you don’t try to do things better or keep trying to accomplish new things, but you let go of all of the negative self-talk you give yourself because it doesn’t help and just makes you feel bad. As long as you are in love with an idea of you, then you miss out on the real you.
So notice when you are not being as nice to yourself, as patient with yourself, as loving to yourself, and give yourself a bit of a break. Think of what you would tell your best friend, and try telling that to yourself instead.
by Angela Wigand, CPA
CEO & Life Coach
Inspiring One Woman at a Time
MindLogix Inc., www.mindlogix.ca
