Imagine for a moment that the voice inside your head, you know the one—the self deprecating, impossible to get away from voice which says you aren't good enough—wasn't actually your voice at all.
If you gave it another voice, if you could dig deep inside the recesses of your mind and come up with an alternative owner, who would that voice belong to?
Our 'self talk' can be pretty harsh as times. It leads us to believe things about ourselves which aren't necessarily based in fact. And, because it sounds like our voice in our mind, we automatically believe what we hear.
The truth is, the voice we are hearing resides in our subconscious, placed there by programming which has often been given to us by others.
In our early years we soaked up all the information flying around us and based our understanding of our capabilities, as well as our place in the world, upon what we had been told and shown.
In our schools and in our homes we heard the voices of others—"don't be so stupid," "you have to do better," "you're lazy." etc. And these voices became ingrained in our subconscious, carrying us through life on a dark cloud of inner doubt and disbelief. We heard them so often that we accepted them as our own and, in later life, we continue the narrative of telling ourselves things which keep us in a dis-empowered mindset.
So, imagine again the voice inside your head and ask yourself if it truly belongs to you? Could it belong to a tired and disillusioned parent? An irate teacher who has become exhausted at the end of a long day? A friend or partner caught up in their own drama and not paying attention to the affect their words have on you?
Recognising the things we tell ourselves might not actually belong to us, brings the opportunity to identify the real owner of the voice inside our head and allows us to separate it from our own true voice.
Consideration Points
How has your self-talk been lately? Is it keeping you stuck and believing you can't move forward?
Can you recognise the voice you hear as belonging to someone else? If so, who does it belong to?
Are you now feeling empowered towards a healthier mindset?