Self Talk

Everybody talks to themselves, some out loud, some just in their heads. Whatever we say to ourselves is OUR CHOICE- nobody else can tell us what to say to ourselves. So, why is it that so many people speak so rudely or cruelly to themselves? Wouldn't it make sense to cheer ourselves on rather than make ourselves feel discouraged? Wouldn't it be more helpful to create hope than hopelessness? There are different ways we can actually be our own worst enemy. I think the most common is criticizing ourselves. We say things like, "You dummy! Why did you do/say/forget that?!" We could be much nicer. It's not necessary to be phony. After all, who are we trying to impress? But we could say something like, "That wasn't a very good idea. I need to fix it/do it differently next time/apologize...."- whatever is appropriate.
Or how about, "You look so disgusting. It doesn't matter what you wear or how you do your hair." Why would you want to say that to yourself? Would you say that to someone else? NO! You wouldn't want to make them feel bad. Why do you want to make YOURSELF feel bad? It might be more helpful to say, "This hairstyle doesn't flatter my face." Or you could remind yourself that you don't scrutinize every detail of other people's skin, hair, form, or voice- why would you think someone else might do that to you? And if they do, isn't that THEIR hang-up?
Maybe you say, "You never do it right! Why do you always have to screw it up?" Now, that's simply not true. Why lie to yourself just to make yourself feel bad? NOBODY always screws up. You need to remember that EVERYBODY makes mistakes once in awhile. I don't think you could avoid ever doing things right even if you purposely tried. Besides, it's quite often the case that we didn't intentionally break, spill, or forget something. Give yourself a break! You could try to be more careful but you don't want to become paranoid to move or speak or get obsessed with making lists for every single thing.
The other way we can be our own worse enemy is when we try to justify things to ourselves falsely. That can happen when you say things like, "It's okay if I eat 6 cookies in a row. I didn't eat any cookies last week. I don't always have to eat healthy." You know very well it's not just the calories, or the sugar content. You'll end up feeling guilty and suffer needlessly because you lied to yourself. If you already ate the 6 cookies so it's too late to talk yourself out of it, you could say, "Oops- that was not a good thing to do. Now the kids/spouse will wonder why the cookies are all gone. You'll need to do an extra exercise session for that blip in willpower."
Or if you tell yourself that you don't need to apologize to the person you budged in front of because you'll never see them again and they don't know you, you KNOW that will remain in your mind at least for a little while. If it doesn't bother you, maybe it should. Maybe you need to say to yourself, "You know you hate that when other people do that to you. You need to apologize/move behind them- or something to try to fix it." Or maybe you just need to remind yourself to notice better next time so you can avoid seeming rude.
There are plenty of reasons to get discouraged and plenty of people to help you feel that way. When you know someone that makes you feel bad a lot, you probably avoid them. You really have a problem if you prefer hanging out with people who never say a kind word to you. But, it's a little difficult to avoid YOURSELF! So maybe we should all try harder to be the kind of friend to ourselves that we try to be to others. It's kind of the "golden rule" backwards.