Ever been stung by a barbed comment, feeling demeaned or hurt? Most of us have been there. But, how often have those hurtful words come from your own mouth, directed inwardly? How frequently have you berated yourself with self-deprecating remarks or cutting criticism?
Phrases like, “I’m my own worst critic,” or “No need to berate me; I've already done it," might feel familiar. And believe me, you're not alone in this.
In today's episode, we'll delve deep into the psyche, exploring why many of us habitually undermine our self-worth. Key reasons might be:
Join me as we embark on a journey of self-awareness and introspection. I'll share valuable insights and actionable steps to help you recognize, challenge, and transform those internal narratives. Let's uplift ourselves and set the benchmark for the love, respect, and positivity we undoubtedly deserve.
Resources:
The Confidence Gap In Men And Women: Why It Matters And How To Overcome It
Read Full Transcript Below:
Hello and welcome
Thanks for the ratings and reviews...lots of podcast flooding the market, the more you subscribe and rate the easier it is to find.
So I want to talk a minute about the title of today's show.
There is an artist that a good friend of mine told me about several years ago. Her name is Molly Hahn, aka Mollycules- and her company and the art that she creates is called Buddha doodles.
I fell in love with Buddha doodles the first time I saw them and now I have her calendars, her card decks and I always look forward to the inspirations that these drawings deliver because they’re not only adorable but They’re accompanied by wonderful quotes.
About a week ago, I saw a Buddha doodle with a quote from the poet Rumi.
It said:
If everything around you seems dark, look again, you may be the light.
That really stuck with me because I work with some amazing women and so many times...too many times...they don’t see their own value. They don’t realize their own worth and that kills me. Ugh...It kills me.
I know I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it many more times over the course of my business. Everything comes back to mindset. Your thoughts about what you want or don’t want in your life will drive your decisions to act... and how you think about yourself, will determine how you allow other people to treat you and even more importantly... how you treat yourself.
This is important because if you’re going to be the light at the end of your tunnel. You have to treat yourself, and talk to yourself like the luminous soul that you are.
And if your mind just reacted to hearing that with a yeah but or anything other than a “You’re absolutely right...then please stop anything else that you’re doing and give your full attention to the rest of this show.
You have to learn to start today...to be forward thinking and believe...really believe that you have the ability to change or to create the things you want in your life.
When I decided that I was going to work specifically with breast cancer survivors I heard all kinds of questions on food and medications and aches and pains. Those are all valid questions and concerns and I can certainly field them...except the medical questions.
But once I dug in and started coaching these ladies, they all needed the same thing...to love themselves more, to treat themselves better, to give themselves time, and to believe in how amazing they are.
I read an interesting article in Forbes called The Confidence Gap In Men And Women: Why It Matters And How To Overcome It. it was talking about how women hold themselves back in the work place but I think it translates to so many other things.
The author said that when it came to applying for a new job, the men surveyed would apply for a position if they met 60% of the criteria in the job description but women only applied if they met 100% of the criteria.
His point was that women had a lower success rate because even though men also experienced self doubt about their qualifications...they didn’t let it stop them from trying...
Ouch
I was talking with a group of women in my REVIVIFY course a few weeks ago and the subject of haircuts and makeup and basically female grooming in a pandemic came up and although we joked about all the memes we see on social media about how women are going to look after the pandemic, we couldn’t help but notice that none of these memes were about men.
Not that this is a male vs female topic, it’s a “look how hard we are on ourselves” topic. Look at how we judge, criticise and tear ourselves down.
Over the past couple of weeks, on various coaching calls I have heard women refer to themselves as disgusting, hideous, gross, repulsive, horrid unworthy, and trust me... I’m guilty of having done the same thing, I mean I was raised in a traditional, catholic guilt, the women are submissive, household.
I’ve had to work through a lot of behaviors that I didn’t even realize weren’t serving me. And that’s my point. There comes a time when you have to become aware of what you say to yourself and how it makes you feel.
This is true throughout your life but it’s especially true when you've had an unexpected change to your body and you’re comparing it against what your body used to look like and then judging, criticizing and beating yourself up for it.
There is definitely something about facing mortality that causes us to rethink how we live our lives and that a good thing...don’t ignore it...don’t suppress it...listen to it...think about it..work on it.
I ask women all the time if they would allow anyone to speak to them the way they speak to themselves. Think about it. What would you say to someone who walked up to you and said “oh wow so you had a mastectomy, you must look hideous.”
Would you tolerate that from anyone? Do you tolerate it from yourself?
Does thinking like that serve you?
Negative self talk can be debilitating. It limits your ability to believe in yourself... and how are you going to be the light at the end of your tunnel if you tell yourself you’re not good enough? You’ll never reach your full potential or enjoy your life fully thinking that way.
Whether you’re telling yourself that you're not attractive enough or that you always screw things up…that can not only can keep you stuck in life by holding you back from trying things, but it also puts barriers up in your relationships.
Think about it. If you’re in a romantic relationship, or even a friendship, or if you have a family member who keeps telling you they’re gross or hideous, or stupid or attrract bad things… if you try to get close to them and they pull away and say you don’t want to be with me, I’m not sexy, I’m not special, I’m worthless. How will you feel about them?
At first you might feel compelled to reassure them...let them know that your feelings transcend their insecurities, but if they continue with the same demeaning self talk...will you get tired of it at some point? Will you begin to believe it? Will it serve or build the relationship between the two of you?
Of course not.
If it is you, using this language about and toward yourself, you’re not going to be solid and confident in your own skin...and confidence is beautiful.
A little side story about confidence...I love to watch the show top chef...if you’ve never seen it it's a competition between some of the country’s best chefs. They compete in all sorts of really tough challenges and on each episode the chef with the worst performance gets voted off.
But that chef has a chance to compete with the other chefs who have been kicked off and ultimately one chef will return to the main competition.
So, in a recent episode there were two female chef’s battling it out to get back in the show and the other players who have been voted out were on the sidelines talking to them and cheering them on.
Now if you don’t watch cooking shows, chef’s always refer to each other as Chef.. yes chef, no chef, hello chef.
Its a hard earned title and they use it to recognize the accomplishment.
Well one of the previous contestants yells out something like...come on girls, do you really want this...and one of the competing chefs stops and looks at him and says, “where I come people call me chef, not girl.”
And I thought...good for you. That woman knows who she is, she knows how hard she worked for it and she knows her worth. She set a boundary and that boundary empowered her and showed other people how she expects to be treated.
She set the standard for how others treat her. That’s what a boundary does. It says this is how much I value myself and this is how I expect to be treated.
Now you may be great at sending boundaries with others or maybe not so great...but my question is how good are you at setting boundaries for yourself?
Let’s start with treating yourself with respect, admiration and encouragement, and then surrounding yourself with people who not only treat you that way too, but support and encourage you to live your best life...whatever that means to you.
So how do you do this? How do you change your self talk and begin treating yourself better and lighting the way to your best life.
Here is a two step process that you can start today.
First of all Before you can change anything, you have to be aware of what you’re doing.
For example...you may be a talker, a total extrovert and when you engage with other people you get so excited and you just can’t share enough...at least that’s how you perceive your own interaction…
Then one day someone tells you that you have a habit of not allowing others to finish a sentence or it feels like instead of listening, you’re just waiting for an opportunity to interject your comments.
And you think...oh wow, i don’t want to come across like that, I just get so excited when I’m talking, I didn’t realize I was even doing that.
So then you start to pay attention and you catch yourself sometimes before you do it, sometimes after you’ve done it , but the point is you’re making an intentional effort to be aware of your behavior, to catch it and to change it.
That’s step one.
Commit to yourself to become more aware of you speak to and about yourself.
Even setting up a system to make you more aware of how often you do this like dropping a penny in a jar every time you catch yourself in negative or demeaning self talk so you have a visual representation of what’s going on.
Pick up two rolls of pennies from your bank at the beginning of the week and see how long it takes you to get through 100 pennies worth of thoughts.
If it’s one day...try to stretch it into two days, then three. However long it takes you try to keep adding a day to that but be very honest with yourself.
You and everyone around you has a lot to gain from this exercise.
Step two-how to get your pennies to last longer
So you become aware of what you’re saying to yourself and you’re burning through your pennies and you want to do better but how do you do it?
You have to train your mind to think differently. But I want you to do more than just replace a negative thought with a positive thought. I want you to prove to your brain that the negative thought is wrong. And replace it with a thought that is true.
Let me give you an example…
Let’s say your thought is…
I’ve gained so much weight going through treatment, I’m just disgusting.
First step, is that a true statement?
Do people look at you and turn away in disgust at the sight of you?
No people my friends, family, lover tells me how beautiful I am.
Some days I feel good about myself, or I think I look nice.
When I wear my favorite dress I always feel like I look good.
Do you see other people who are a similar weight to yours and that they’re gross?
NO, I don’t judge other people the same way I judge myself.
No but I think they carry their weight better than I do.
You get where I’m going with this right? As you explore those questions you’ll realize that there isn’t evidence to support the statements you make toward yourself.
So now that you’ve proven to your brain that the statement is just a story you’re telling yourself and is not evidence based.
You can ask yourself what is true?
In response to the same questions the truth may be.
I’m not very happy with the weight and shape of my body right now but i’m taking steps toward improving that and it has no impact on my value as a human being.
Or I’m not happy with my physical appearance right now but it seems like too much work to make a change at this point and I’m not ready to take it on.
In either case, you’re not disgusting, you just are where you are in life. You’re facing something you’re not satisfied with and you’re acknowledging whether or not you’re ready to deal with it.
If yes, you can start taking action to change, if no you can dig into why it bothers you so much.
I know you're thinking, what if its something I can’t change, like the face that my breast was removed or scarred or changed in some way.
Good question...some things we can’t change so you can be honest with yourself and say I’m not happy with the way that looks. But that’s where your boundary comes in. You have to stop there and not go to the place where you allow that to define you.
It’s no secret that I’ve struggled with coming to terms with the changes in my body since going through breast cancer treatment and as a result of that I do dress differently, I dress in a way that makes me feel good about myself, and doesn’t show off parts of my body who’s appearance I’m not happy with.
Now, I live close to the beach and I often see women who I would say are similar in shape and size to me walking around in bikinis or short shorts and when I see them, if my first thought is I wouldn’t be caught dead in that, I catch myself and I think Hmmmm I need to do a little more work on myself.
Because there’s that woman and is her body perfect….if sports illustrated supermodel is perfect than no.
But she is confident and comfortable in her own skin and soaking up sun in her bikini...yeah...and I think...good for her. She is her own light. She is like “this is me, I have a real woman body and I think I’m hot.” So you know what...she is hot. Because that’s how she perceives herself so that’s how she carries herself and that’s the perception she creates for others.
It all starts with mindset. Everything. And that doesn’t mean think rainbows and unicorns...it means became aware of how you’re thinking and then begin to retrain your brain to think in way that serve you and that allow you to be the light at the end of your tunnel, to be in charge of creating a fulfilling life.
If you need or want more support with that...come and find the breast cancer recovery group on Facebook. And engage it in, ask questions and present your challenges, because if you’re struggling with something, I promise you someone else is too or someone else has had to work through it and they can help.
If you want to go even deeper and be a part of REVIVIFY my 10 week online coaching program, you can get on the wait list by going to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com and you’ll see a place to join the wait list on the home page.
The current program is wrapping up this month and I’ll be opening it for enrollment again sometime in July, I’ll give you specifics soon along with some other exciting things I'm creating for you.
Until next week, start your two step process and come over to our Facebook group and let me know how it goes for you.
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