What Your Self-Talk Reveals About You

Have you ever listened to the way you talk to — or about — yourself?

Have you taken the time to investigate where those ideas you have about yourself came from?

What Your Self-Talk Reveals

The other day we got a snow storm. After shoveling myself out of the driveway, I headed to the gym.

As I drove the familiar roads, I recorded my stream of consciousness as I spoke about why I was driving to the gym in a snowstorm.

As I listened back to the recording later, I heard the way I spoke about myself.

This was what I actually said to myself as I was driving in the snow to the gym:

Now, just driving to the gym in whiteout conditions because I’m a **fcking nut job* who needs a workout in order to plug in my brain and focus.

You can call it dedication or you can just call it necessary.

This is an example of how creating awareness of your habits can be both illuminating — and painful.

Why am I calling myself a “f*cking nut job”?

Where did that come from?

The Origins of Our Self-Talk

The way we speak to and about ourselves reflects the ways that other people speak to and about us.

Pause on that for a moment.

Especially if you have kids, or are around kids.

How you speak to and about your kids is how they will speak to and about themselves.

We inherit the stories we tell about ourselves. Those stories become embedded and enmeshed in our identity.

Sometimes it takes the harsh light of awareness to break through and really see how you are speaking about yourself.

The Stories We Inherit

This brief moment of self talk is a great example because it reveals three stories at once: the two different tracks that play in my head when it comes to my workouts, as well as the truth that I hold about myself.

On one hand are the people who tell me that I’m “crazy” and “obsessed” and “not normal” because I do some form of exercise every day.

On the other are people who comment about how “dedicated” or “committed” I am.

The third is what I believe: that it’s necessary.

Question the Narratives

It helps to question the narratives we receive from other people, especially when it comes to their narratives about who we are.

Think about all the things we do every day: eating, sleeping, taking a shower, brushing teeth, putting clothes on.

Mundane life activities essential for living.

When was the last time you heard someone say “you’re so dedicated to eating food every day.”

Or “you’re so dedicated to bathing daily.”

Or “you’re crazy for sleeping every night.”

Can you even imagine??

These activities are necessary.

What’s “Normal”?

The narratives other people offer us don’t actually tell us who we are; the labels people ascribe to us tell us who they are.

The way people label us reflects their insecurities or their shadows: the parts of themselves they have cast out or stuffed away.

Sometimes the labels reflect a dominant cultural view that has been conditioned as a prevailing belief.

Although we live in a culture that has normalized a sedentary lifestyle, that doesn’t mean that a sedentary way of being is “normal.”

Finding the Truth

The body needs food, water, and rest.

It also needs movement. Every day.

So what makes me “crazy” or “dedicated” for ensuring that I create time for a workout every day?

Nothing.

You can call it crazy. You can call it obsessed. You can call it dedication.

I get to define my own narrative .

I just call it necessary.

Because that’s what it is.

What narrative about yourself have you inherited from others that you are ready to reclaim for yourself?