Effects of Negative Self-Talk and How to Combat It
People know that negative self-talk has negative effects on their brains. Or do they really?
Some negative self-talk can be motivating or can seem harmless too. (I’ll touch upon that later.) so it can be a bit confusing, you know?
We all have negative self-talk from time to time. It could even be helpful in certain cases, like “oh, don’t eat that, it’s not healthy for you!” or “Do you really want to try that? That’s dangerous.”
But negative self-talk - that inner voice that tries to limit and stop you are more often than not, detrimental to you. And those nasty negative self-talks are often caused by negative thoughts you have in your subconscious mind. If you don’t pay attention and be careful about them, it could cause you a considerable amount of stress and frustration, which could cause not only mental stress but also actual physical symptoms. So in this blog, I’d like to share what Negative Self-Talk is, the Effects of Negative Self-Talk, and how to deal with them.
So what is Negative Self-Talk and how do your subconscious beliefs play a role?
Negative Self-Talk is basically a dialogue you have with yourself that could be limiting or stopping what you want to do or trying to do. If you could just imagine a mini-you on the shoulder trying to whisper sweet nothing and stop you or limit you from believing in yourself and your abilities to reach your highest potential. That critical inner voice starts to have a dialogue with you based on what you believe negatively about yourself.
Some Negative Self-Talk may seem harmless. Like me, for example, my dialogue with myself sounds like this: “I should just stop trying skiing or skating, I probably hurt myself trying anyway!” so I don’t even try. That’s because I have this belief I’m just not good at slippery sports like skiing, skating, skateboarding, etc. I might have been able to ski or snowboard if I didn’t have this belief and my self-talk didn’t convince me not to do it.
See how my self-talk is connected to the thoughts/beliefs and negatively affecting my outcome? This may not look so negative in this example here but it is indeed negative self-talk as it’s preventing me from reaching my “potential”.
Let me give you another example, let’s say you’re trying to apply for a dream job, the negative self-talk can sound like: “Oh, who am I kidding? They’re not going to hire me, I’m not qualified enough.” or “I don’t think I can do this, why even bother applying.”. There it goes again, Negative self-talk convinces you not to apply or even when you do apply, you might not show up as powerful as you could be. It really starts with negative thoughts/beliefs you have within yourself. In this case, you may be doubting your own ability - your belief about yourself might be “I’m not good enough.”
To me, I think of Negative Self-Talk as a dialogue with Satan. Satan wants us to go into despair, feel hopeless and angry, and live in frustration other than being filled with hope, peace, happiness, and love.
Here is why I say this.
How Negative Self-Talk Affects You:
As I mentioned earlier, Negative Self-Talk is a dialogue you have within yourself. But when you know the kind of effects it has on you, you may agree with me about the “dialogue with Satan” theory. This inner dialogue can really debilitate you from moving forward.
Continuous Negative Self-Talk can really affect many areas of life. Negative Self-Talk can:
Take you spiraling down the dark hole, which leads to despair and hopelessness.
Demotivate you from doing or taking action on anything. Again, this is hopelessness.
Limit you or stop you from going for your dreams.
Limit you or stop you from achieving goals.
Cause you anxiety and depression, and even suicidal thoughts
Cause you high stress and develop physical symptoms like aches and pains, sometimes even ulcers and cancer.
Cause an inability to keep a healthy relationship and to cope with relationship issues
Blind you from seeing and capturing opportunities.
Steer you from seeing the good in life
Prevent you from moving forward in life
Make you afraid to try new things
Make you think nothing is good enough
As you can see, Negative Self-Talk is really detrimental to our health, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
How do I then, stop this non-sense Negative Self-Talk?
Here are some suggestions.
Be aware. Recognizing that you’re actually having a negative dialogue with yourself. (As I said above, I recognize it as a dialogue with Satan!)
If you’re a believer of God, Ask God to help you. Prayer is powerful.
Write down how the dialogue is happening, word by word, the exact word you’re saying to yourself.
Question yourself “is it always true?” If your Negative Self-Talk says “You never amount to anything.” ask, “is that always true?”, if it says “You are so ugly/fat, nobody loves me.” then ask “Is that always true?” The answer is NO! Resist the voice that might counter and say “yes it is true”. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) Negative Self-Talk is rarely true, so the answer to this question should be NO.
Once you write down the Negative self-talk, write down the opposite of the negative self-talk in a positive sentence and in the present tense to create a powerful positive affirmation.
Read and recite out loud the positive affirmations you just wrote every morning and night and also every time the negative thought enters your mind. If you can record and listen to it, even better.
I just wanted to reiterate that we all have these dialogues and you’re not alone, so don’t be hard on yourself, ok?
By the way, if you….
👉Want to finally break free from the bondage of negative thoughts and victimhood
👉Are frustrated that your past hurts keep coming back and haunting you
👉Get triggered easily which keep you from moving forward
👉Feel like your emotional healing is not complete but feel like you’re going in circles
👉Are having a hard time letting go
👉Are having a hard time with forgiveness
👉Want to finally move forward with your life
then I invite you to register for this 5 days of Break Free Challenge absolutely FREE. You’re going to love what you’re going to achieve by the end of 5 days!
Click here to register for this FREE Challenge:
👉 https://mikisturges.com/negativity-detox