how you talk to yourself really matters, apparently.
the human mind’s capacity to create unshakeable beliefs is one of the things i am most fascinated by.
i have often used the capacity to put myself down really fucking quickly and really fucking effectively. it is sometimes just a matter of seconds before i am at “you are an idiot”. the couple times i was incapable of regulating my self talk to any degree were the 2 times i wrote goodbye letters. I genuinely believed my existence was meaningless and that the world would be better off without me in it. i hesitate to call this suicidal because i never really thought of hurting myself forever…i just wanted to feel something. i wanted to feel like if i died today, someone would care.
the crazy thing is…there were lots of people that did care for me. and on some “intellectual” level, i understood that. but because i didnt care about me, i couldnt believe others did either.
the goalie is the last line of the defence. imagine if the goalkeeper in one sudden instant turned it’s back on the team and decided to not only let goals in, but deliberately shot goals into the net. it’s like getting double crossed. and that’s what my ego did to me. it became tyrannical in opposition to me. the voice that’s supposed to speak both “good” and “bad”, became only bad. i only saw my flaws, my shortcomings and all the reasons why i wasnt good enough for ___(fill in the blank: friendship, success, love, happiness, etc). the voice of self compassion and understanding was muted and i was at the mercy of the voice in my head telling me i was garbage.
when you hate yourself enough, the people around you will notice too. and they’ll leave (rightfully so). it wasn’t until people started leaving my life that i finally questioned the very unshakeable beliefs i thought i was supposed to hold onto forever. in a sense, i had to pull the goalie and then reimagine what it means to even “be on defence”. when i couldnt see beyond my own beliefs i made it impossible for others to get anything past my goalie too; yet i would turn around and pit myself against myself. when i put my efforts towards reimagining myself playing a different game where playing defence had a different definition, i was able to see that when people launch “shots” at my goalie, i can see those as potential balls of information that will strengthen me (antifragility), not make me question myself (doubt) to the point where i decide to shoot on myself.
reimagining the things i felt i had to “defend” against was how i got myself out. when you don’t know who you are trying to create, you wont know what things to do to become that person, which means you dont know what actions to orient yourself towards. naturally this is going to cause friction and you will quickly begin to resent yourself for not doing the things which are moving you towards your goal. because you dont have a goal of who you can become you cant, literally, do anything about it.
action is the cure to all anxiety.
the way i got my AMAZING human mind to work for me was by taking action. the only unshakeable belief i have is the belief that i can change.
i am forever a prototype. this is what i remind myself whenever my brain wants to initiate negative self talk. i observe it, let it pass and then remind myself of my limitations. after all, i’m only human ;)