By: Leigh Garczynski
April 16, 2020
I don’t have to like everyone and everyone doesn’t have to like me. Sounds easy to say but for most of us it is hard to really think this way. It’s human nature to want people to like us. If they don’t most of the time we blame ourselves; what did I do, am I not smart enough, pretty enough, funny enough, did I say something wrong?… this type of self “questioning” is your inner bully controlling your thought pattern.
Over the years of being a personal trainer I have seen and heard so many people talk poorly about themselves. “I’m horrible at this; I can’t do it, I’m so weak; I’m fat.” I try to motivate people by positive talk but I’ve come to realize that I can talk all day long trying to convince someone to be positive but I can’t do it alone. The person has to talk to themselves in a positive way. My question is… would you talk to your best friend like that? The answer is no! You would say words of encouragement. So, why not talk to yourself as your best friend!
There are 4 questions to ask yourself to find out what are you getting out of listening to your inner voices and how you see yourself:
-What do I see?
-What am I not seeing”
-What am I not allowing myself to see?
-What am I getting from listening to my inner voice?
Identify the negative voice. This is where you have the opportunity to change it. Although the voice will never go away, we can infuse the negative voices with our positive voice. This type of process is called Healthy Denial.
You can’t reason within your inner ego, whether positive or negative. The negative is digging yourself into self loathing and insecurity, and ultimately stops you from taking chances and moving towards your life’s purpose.
Remember who you are, and if you are trying to be someone else you’ll never be at ease with yourself. Do an inner inventory to figure out “you”. This is a lifetime learning process where you must be sincere and truthful with yourself. This process includes facing everything you are running away from, processing it one by one in order to resolve it, and finding a solution to move forward.
This is a continual process consistently going back and re-aligning with who you are and not what others tell you, what social media, magazines or news article tell you what you should or shouldn’t be. If our inner bully is strong then those type of social media platforms have control when in reality you control and channel what comes through and what you listen to; remember who you are!
Failure has a huge impact on our inner voice. Failure is just a phase that happens to all of us. If we listen to failure and let it define us as an individual failure becomes the strongest inner bully we will have face. In reality it is how we handle failure that defines each of us. Turning failure from a negative to a positive allows you to inspire to be successful. Failures are obstacles that teach you about yourself.
Each of us has a choice to be present in our own life. Treat yourself with love and kindness, the way you would want and deserve to be treated by others!
If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm.—African Proverb
