TELL YOURSELF WHAT YOU NEED TO HEAR

I stayed up late last night knowing that I would be tired today.
Just told myself: "I'm a looser"
Stopped and changed that to: "oh Dal, you need to take care of yourself."
I have been doing these instant message changes for a while now so the positive one took.

It made me realize that despite what is going on around us we need to tell ourselves what we need to hear; we have more contact hours with ourselves than anyone else and repetition is powerful.

I would not have called anyone else a looser in the same situation- so why do I call myself that? Especially when I have learnt that bringing my self down is not productive or effective. And its not as though there was no alternative. "You need to take care of yourself" is a much better support than "Your a looser."

Back at University I was involved in a community art project where we made stickers with thoughtful and hopeful sayings and put them on coffee cups. My favorite one was "every time you look in the mirror; say something nice to yourself." Try it. It's weird at first but as with any practice it becomes natural, a good habit.

What do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror? Do you even know or is it just such a standard mantra that it becomes background noise? Because your not saying nothing and if you don't know what your saying it means that you are not shaping it- ensuring that its paving the way that you want to go.

Next time you look in the mirror tell yourself something that you need to hear- but don't allow it to be too harsh, we all need to take care of ourselves.