“So why don’t more people work on their overthinking? Because everyone has too many thoughts and don’t know where to start.”
Soundtracks by Jon Acuff
My parents used to play this game with me; they’d use my hands and pretend to slap me in the face. It’s odd to write, but it was fun and silly, and I remember the giggles. I use it now with my daughter: she laughs & I laugh. On a more serious note, I talk to her about physically hitting yourself which is silly in this context, but verbally hitting yourself, which is not.
I brought this up in a recent coaching session because of how often we internally “hit ourselves” with negative self-talk. It can drain the life and pride out of hard work, real efforts, and marvelous successes. Becoming aware of those thoughts is where there’s pause. “I’m such an idiot” was one of my favorites that I would mumble to myself often after I said something dumb or inappropriate. I’d say it to myself after little mistakes like spilling something, but also after big mistakes, too. I could wallow in my own misery about how ignorant I must be. I had never even noticed I did it until I started working on this coaching stuff. Suddenly I was open monitoring my own thoughts. I was able to look at the “I’m such an idiot” comment and freeze. I’d wonder why that was the first thing that came to mind. It had been a routine comment, but steeped in unworthiness, simmered in low self-esteem, and had hard-wired long ago… Here’s the fun part. Re-wiring is gloriously possible!
First: catch the negative thought.
Then ask a few things from a place of curiosity: is it kind? Is it helpful? Is it true?
“I’m an idiot”= not kind/ not helpful/ not true.
Let it go.
Retrain the brain: work on catching it every time the thought comes up. Every time the “I’m not good enough. I’m not working hard enough. I’m unworthy. Who am I to X, Y, Z…. learn to drop it and find a new thought that serves you in those moments. This takes practice. Go easy on yourself.
There’s a kids book about Goblins I read to my son: Even Mamas Make Mistakes: My Mama Says There Aren’t Any Zombies, Ghosts, Vampires, Creatures, Demons, Monsters, Fiends, Goblins, or Things. It’s also silly and turned into a great phrase that I put on repeat now. So, when I goof up: big or small, with kindness I can tell myself: even mamas make mistakes. It’s a wonderful reminder for me and for my children. We can hug after mistakes, even laugh about it sometimes. I want them to know that mistakes are human. We all fail. We don’t show up 100% perfect all the time. This is normal and expected. How we talk to ourselves after and how we make up for those mistakes is up to us. I know I am far better off if I talk to myself kindly than I do if I berate and beat myself up. It just isn’t helpful.
Jon Acuff used an example of an experiment when people were exposed to “old age” words, those participants would subsequently walk slower in an experiment. It brings up the important concept: “This is a form of priming which Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman defines as the influencing of an action by the idea. Priming’s formal name is the ideomotor effect, and it works both ways. Your thoughts and ideas influence your actions. Your actions influence your thoughts. That’s why replacing broken soundtracks is so important.”
Find your broken soundtracks. Find the seemingly mundane things you tell yourself and start to replace them with something new: something kind/ helpful/ true.
This is part of why I love coaching—this is one really helpful tool.
So, it brings me back to the silly game I play with my kids, but this one has much bigger ramifications on your life. The way you talk to yourself matters. Your self-love, self-worth, and self-confidence MATTER.
For the love of God:
Quit hitting yourself.
