I am sitting around a restaurant table overlooking the ocean with friends, talking and laughing. We spent the afternoon at the beach, lounging, talking, playing spike ball. It occurs to me that I was having so much fun that I completely forgot to obsess about the spare tire hanging over my bikini bottoms, or the way my body moved so much slower in the sand than it used to, or the fact that since injuring myself running a few months ago, I haven’t been exercising much at all. I forgot to worry about all that and then wham!, I found myself surrounded by love and fun and I simply don’t care for a moment. It occurs to me that life would be much more fulfilling if I could be in this space more often – being more present and worrying less about…anything.
I can’t help but wonder where all this negative self talk comes from. Is it years of messages we get from media and other sources that tells us our value lies in our youth, beauty, and ability to reproduce? Is it the influence of our families that tell us who we should be? Is it the peer pressure of our friends, where conforming is expected in our youth? Is it our own voice that insists on hurling insults at ourselves as if it will make us better? Wherever it comes from, I’m vowing to spend less time in this negative self talk space and more in being in the present and letting go and living more. What happens for you in this arena? How do you deal with negative self talk? I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below.