Perspective - Part 1: Self talk (What you need to think and pray about these days)
This is part of a series focused on helping us have the right perspective during these "Covid-19" times. It's about the importance of being in a productive, empowering, and positive state of mind, not just to make it through these times, but to actually thrive. This is part 1 and its "Self talk" and its a perspective about it that you may not have thought about...
So recently, I started thinking about my thinking. I started wondering how my thoughts were affecting how I was managing things during these "Covid-19" times and I realized that these times provide the perfect storm for my mind to go crazy...in crazy directions, especially about myself.
So what exactly is self talk in this context?
It's the stuff you tell yourself that is powerful enough to build you up or tear you down.
Self talk is the stuff...the impressions ...the statements...belief you have about yourself that you build your self identity, sense of purpose on.
In fact, its from there that your very motivation and ability to purse your passion comes from.
Let me put this way:
Your best life is only as good as your self talk
Tobi Atte
Why is self talk a thing? Why is it a big deal right now? Because:
Negative self talk is more dangerous in isolation
You see, many of us live our best lives outside of our current realities.
Stay with me here...
Typically, most of us escape from our reality by going out and that's why being IN has been so hard.
We wake up in the morning, and "go somewhere". We go away from where we live. Most of our great memories are created outside of our homes. Most of our feelings of self worth are found outside of our homes and externally to ourselves.
We go out and get the spoken positive feedback from the world.
People tell us how nice we look, how brilliant we are, how useful we are and so on.
We go out to also get the unspoken positive feedback from the world.
We get that look of desire from someone on the train or the traffic light, we see people we are "doing better than" and feel good about ourselves, we crush our projects and feel great.
The truth is...
In some way or the other, we have built a sense of self that is based on what is not real but merely perception....merely on an illusion.
Now,
There’s no one to impress, no wanting looks on the train...at school or at work.
There's really no one outside our homes to make us “feel” good about ourselves
Almost no one to see and compare ourselves with so we can feel better about ourselves
It feels like you've lost yourself.
It feels like you're not "all that".
If feels low.
There is no escape from your true life....and that's part of why this can feel like its driving us crazy.
The truth at the core of this is that while we need those external experiences, while we need that social interaction (after all, we were created for relationships), we have depended on it in such an unhealthy way and this period is an opportunity to reset.
So what do we do? How do we manage this self talk? How do we reset? What's the right perspective?
1. Don't despise your environment, enhance it:
Take a fresh look at your environment at home. You will find waste. You will find opportunities to rearrange, to declutter...or you might find new reasons to appreciate what you have. You've lived a life of running out...so now that you have the opportunity to be in,renew that space.
2. Take time to center yourself and appreciate yourself:
Most of us haven't spent QUALITY POSITIVE time with ourselves ...with our thoughts...in a long time.
We were waaay to busy for that. We haven't worked on reminding ourselves our our INHERENT worth. For most of us, its been a long time since we went to the core of our thoughts to remind ourselves that we have within us everything that defines our self worth.
For most of us, we have built lives that depend on OTHERS (and outside environments) for self worth.
This is is the time to reset and to use self talk to well, talk to yourself. Remind yourself of your worth and center yourself.
You're going to need that to make it through these times, but also to thrive when things get back to normal.
So let me make my contribution to your self talk.
Let me jump start that battery...
YOU....were made well. By an intentional creator. Your very existence is valuable. Just because your're not out there, doesn't mean that you are worth-less. It just means that the direction of your value has temporarily changed from external, to internal. Its not that your worth reduce, its simply an invitation to spend that worth on your family, your home, and most importantly, yourself.
Can't wait to see the new version of you on the on other side of this!
PS: I am doing short videos on each of these topics on Instagram and Facebook. You should take a look.
In fact, if you're not following me, you should!
Dont forget to share this on social media! There is certainly someone in your circle of influence who needs to hear this!