You know the saying that we have all heard, “If you don’t have something nice to say then don’t say anything at all”. I heard a different version recently that I liked which was, “You should chew on your words a little before you spit them out”. It is wise and effective advice and is given in the context of how we should treat others. I have learned the wisdom of that saying and the art of taming my tongue overall with others. In my own life I recently realized that I have not learned to apply this same lesson or rule to myself. Not only am I not saying something nice to myself I am often saying something really mean to myself. We all have conversations with ourselves and or inner dialogue, which is normal. This is how we reason and make choices etc. There is a lot of communication going on in each one of our head’s at any given time. What I have and am learning is how to play nice with myself. I am someone who is self driven, analytical, a problem solver, perfectionist etc. It serves me well in most of my life as it helps me to be successful, make good choices and be pretty creative and clever. The problem I came to notice is that same voice or energy can also be self critical, negative, insecure etc. all because I am not biting my tongue and being quiet. I was not living the same standard internally as I was externally. I was not living the golden rule of not saying anything unless it is nice, positive, uplifting, beneficial etc. We can all do this to ourselves where we are actually bullying ourselves on the playground in our mind. I call it the internal bully. I hate bully’s. Once I started to tune in to what was going on in my head I realized I was doing it all the time about everything. When I looked at it in the context of, “Would I say these things to anyone else” my answer came back a resounding, “No way”. How can I be such a person full of wisdom and grace towards others but not towards myself. I was one of the mean girls to myself. I was aware of this esp. if I made a mistake (God forbid). I also notice it often when I am comparing myself to others – that is suicide. I am learning that I am not anyone else other than me, I am doing the best I can, and I am doing great. I now notice it, catch myself, stop and say, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then be quiet please. The quiet is nice.
If you can’t be nice then be quiet – Part 2
Do you ever notice there is an internal battle going on in your head during a hard workout? I do an insane boot camp twice a week. It is a crazy hour of nonstop madness but the results are worth every penny of the pain. Every time I drive to my boot camp the battle begins. The conversation usually starts off like this, I don’t want to go today, and it’s going to be so hard! I push through, park the car and start the “warm up loop”. During this loop I’m wondering, “what insane thing is she going to put us through today”. Not the most positive thoughts but I know what’s coming next. A typical work out usually includes at least 25 burpees, 25 push ups, 25 sit ups, crazy stairs or steep canyons, weights, bear crawls, starbursts, step ups, pull ups, box jumps, squats etc. So by now I’m about half way through the workout and feeling intense pain. There is now screaming going on and it is usually saying this, “I can’t do this, this is way to hard, I want to quit”. The problem is if you challenge me to do something then I am going to do it. I am competitive which also helps. So I have to push those thoughts away and scream back, “You can totally do this, don’t give up Erin you are not a quitter, it’s hard but it’s worth it”. It’s the second voice that gets me through that crazy hour of sadistic insanity. At the end of the workout I always feel so proud of myself. I am amazed at how strong I am and what I can do. It is so good to be challenged. It’s so necessary to win the battle over the internal negative voice. It feels good to beat the bully. It is good to give to yourself what you need and to fight for yourself.
