Quit Self-Abuse!
Why that voice in your head is not always what you think it is.
You're such a loser.
You always mess up.
You'll never amount to anything.
Imagine for a moment that I'm talking like this to a stranger. You, for example.
What awful things to say to a stranger.
Now imagine that I'm talking like this to close friend.
What kind of friendship survives that?
So why do we talk to ourselves like this?
We don't! That's what most people won't tell you. It's not you talking to yourself like that! It's an automatic, conditioned response and it's not yours.
Realise this: You can't stop the thoughts in your head, but you can choose whether to believe them or not.
That's right. Not every thought you have is true!
The next time you catch yourself having a self-abusive thought, ask yourself immediately: "Is that true?"
If the answer is "no", then pick a better response.
What if the thought makes you feel bad, and is actually true? Well, reframe it. Add context, add hope, add intent, without making excuses, because while the thoughts you have might not be yours, feelings are always yours, which is why you want to choose better thoughts, so that you can feel something more useful than shame.
Here's an example. Say you're scrolling through a social media feed and you see something from, say, Alex Hormozi. He's young. He's jacked. And he's utterly minted. You're 57, overweight and utterly broke.
If the first thought that pops into your head is "I messed up my whole life" and you start to feel bad, stop!
Immediately ask yourself "Is that true?"
If it's not, and it really isn't, then immediately produce evidence for the counter argument. This gets easier with practice. You'll be amazed after a while how many of your thoughts aren't yours.
Most of the thoughts you have in your head are not yours. They're thoughts you have. They come from outside and got stuck in your head as part of your conditioning. Don't worry, there's nothing you can do about it, and there's nothing you should do about it, other than decide which thoughts you'd rather have.
You don't believe every email scam in your inbox, do you?
Now you don't have to believe every thought scam in your mental inbox either.
File that junk where it belongs, in the spam folder.
If you prefer the above in video form, you can watch it here, and it’s just three minutes.