👩🏾🔬 In living color #4: Pop Smoke said it best
Pop Smoke said it best: “Talk to me nice, or don’t talk at all”
How often do you think about how the voice in your head speaks to and about you?
We all have a voice in our head which narrates the world to us: “It’s kind of cold in here”, “I’m so stressed our right now”, “is that a spot on my forehead?”.
Oprah’s BFF spiritual teacher, Michael Singer, talks about the importance of realising that this voice isn’t you. Today, I’d like to start from the recognition that this voice helps you make sense of the world. As such, the way the voice speaks will have affect how you interpret what’s going on internally or externally.
Imagine someone you cared about walked up to you and angrily said one of these three phrases:
You’re a bitch
You’re being a bitch
That thing you’re doing is bitchy
How would your emotional response vary across each? For me, 1 would be much more upsetting and destabilizing than 3. 2 would probably be somewhere in the middle. The way we use language matters.
Let’s relate this back to how you talk to yourself. Take a look at these groups of sentences. Does your understanding and interpretation of what’s going on change based on how the issue has been phrased?
1A. I’m depressed
1B. I’m going through a depression
1C. I’m having feelings of depression
2A. Ugh, I have to work out now
2B. Oo it’s Tuesday, I get to work out today
I’d encourage you to spend some time just observing how you speak to yourself. After a period of observation, reflect on how healthy your self talk is. After this reflection, start modifying the way you speak to yourself to shift into a speech pattern that allows you to perform more optimally.
With love!