She's tired, she's scared and she feels depleted.
She's been trying so hard and life remains difficult.
Life feels shockingly unfair.
She's worried about her health and about how she's spending money unnecessarily.
Her narrative is peppered liberally with all sorts of nasty commentary about herself and her life that she thinks are facts - but to my ears, are actually just her own harsh judgements.
In a moment of quiet, after all the sadness has been spoken, she looks at me with eyes that express her feelings of helplessness about her situation.
She thinks it's all happening outside of herself.
That it's happening TO her.
We'd been speaking about spending money so I say to her,
"If you wake up every morning with 10 of your currency to spend on wellbeing, how much of your 10 do you usually spend on thoughts and activities that make you feel good and healthy and hopeful, and how much do you spend on thoughts and activities that make you feel bad about yourself and hopeless and depressed?"
She looks at me and rolls her eyes.
She already knows this.
"Yes" she answers with a sad little smile.
I continue, "You probably even wake up in the morning 5 in debt from the nasty things you've said to yourself the day before.
Imagine if you said things that bolstered you and created more wellbeing instead of less. Then you might wake up with 11 or 12 the next day..."
"It's funny you know", she says, "I can do that for my son. I can say encouraging things to him, and I don't get stressed at him or frustrated he's not learning faster. But I don't do it for me. And my health is starting to show it"
She's right.
It will affect her health.
And everything else.
What few of us realise, is that every thought you think to yourself is either depleting you or building you.
There is SO much research by now showing us clearly that plants die when we say nasty things to them but grow faster when we speak kindly and show them love, rice gets rotten faster when exposed to bad words, ice crystals form more symmetrically and beautifully in response to words of love and kindness than words of hate and judgement...
This isn't made up woo-woo stuff.
Science has proven it again and again.
So pause for a moment and think, what is happening in your body and heart as you
doubt yourself
say the nasty things about you
compare yourself negatively to others
tell yourself you aren't good enough
tell yourself you are fat or ugly
If plants and rice and water and animals respond with ill health...
Why are you surprised when your body and mental health do too?
Stop saying and thinking nasty things about yourself.
It's killing your mind, body and spirit.
It's not the world or anyone else doing it to you.
You are not helpless in this story.
You can change it.
Simply start actively telling yourself nice things.
I'm proud of me.
I love me.
I am my best friend.
I am my own hero.
If you loved yourself, how and where would you speak to yourself more kindly now?
