What are you saying...

Your words have power, more power than you think. The words that you speak into the world and the quiet little words that sprint through on your inner dialogue all day long. I am learning to change the way I speak, the way I speak to others but especially the way I speak to myself. I think as humans we are inherently more critical of ourselves than anyone else, or maybe it's just me who does a pretty fantastic job of beating myself to a pulp with my words.

To be real transparent and vulnerable, I didn’t even realize how terribly I spoke to myself until about a year and a half ago when I was sitting with my counselor attempting to make some sense of what I thought was an atomic bomb that had just gone off in my life. I haven't a clue what I said but he literally stopped me mid-sentence and said “do you hear the way you are talking to yourself”? I had never stopped to think about how I talk to myself before and let’s just say, it was certainly eye opening to say the least hahaha. I would literally tell myself “you failed again, get yourself together, look at what everyone else is doing, you’ve accomplished a whole lot of nothing, you’re an emotional mess… I mean, I never said those words audibly but they certainly were very real in the dialogue that played through my mind.

Over the past year or so I have made a conscience effort to be aware of the way I am talking to myself and the things that I am saying about me because my words have power.  So instead of saying I am “trying” to do something, whatever that something might be, I have changed it to “I am” doing it. I have stopped saying “one day” this will happen and have started to make daily declarations that it is happening. Instead of saying “I am trying to go to the gym to get into better shape” I am now saying “I am killing it at the gym”. Instead of saying “I am trying to get out of debt” I am saying “I am getting out of debt”. Our brains are crazy cool and they recognize those maybe type words and run with them, those words of…  “I hope it will happen”, or those “I am trying to make it happen one day”, or the “one day if” words.  That doesn't mean that I walk around in this la la land that if I think it and speak it then it will happen but it changes the way I think, it changes my entire demeanor actually.  Instead of walking around looking at all of the things that haven’t happened I am more focused on the things I have done or the things I am doing. Its helped me dream more, to have a hopeful anticipation for the future,  a courage that I can accomplish and do the really big and hard things in life. So I challenge and encourage you to take a really close look at how you are talking to yourself. Are you always beating yourself and tearing yourself down or are you encouraging yourself to dream and hope even bigger than you can imagine??? Words have power so be cautious of what words you are letting take up space and have influence over you, even if they are your own words!