Speak Kindly to Yourself

Do you speak kindly to others, but the thoughts you have about yourself are often not as kind?

We think about 60,000 – 80,000 thoughts a day. For many of us, most of those thoughts are negative, especially the thoughts we have about ourselves.

There are many reasons, such as the brain’s built-in negativity bias as well as cultural and family conditioning.

One of the most empowering things we can do is to start choosing more loving thoughts and then think them on purpose.

Becoming more aware of our default thoughts is a great first step, and one of the most helpful ways to do this is a daily thought download.

For 5-10 minutes every day just write down all your thoughts – get them out of your brain and onto paper where you can see them objectively and decide whether they are helpful or not.

The next step is to choose one thought each day that you’ll practice thinking on purpose.

Choose a thought that you can believe, and that moves you in the direction you want to go.

For example, if the thought, “I love and accept myself completely” is too big of a stretch, modify it so that it is something you can believe, such as “I am working on loving and accepting myself completely.”

When you’ve chosen your thought, practice it throughout the day.

Some of the ways to do this are: write it down and put in a place(s) where you’ll see it often, such as on your computer; set a timer on your phone to remind you every hour to say it five times; record yourself saying it out loud and play that back to yourself – get creative with ways to keep programming your brain with this new thought.

Changing our default thinking takes time and patience but is one of the most life-changing things we can do.

We can learn to treat ourselves as kindly as we treat others.

Please take good care of yourself. Our world needs your gifts of kindness, compassion, and empathy now more than ever.

Hugs,

Liz